What is integrism? Characteristics of this way of thinking

In this vast world we live in, there are plenty of ways to view reality. Each one, based on their experiences and their way of relating to the world, has been developing a political opinion.

However, it is not uncommon to find people who are excessively dogmatic and not very tolerant of diversity. ideological, seeing in others people who are tremendously wrong or who pose a threat to their way of seeing the world.

Fundamentalism refers to any ideology that, in itself, does not tolerate any kind of departure from its principles. Although it has its origins in the most staunch Catholicism, the concept has evolved to refer to any thought that borders on fanaticism. Let's see it next.

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What is integrism?

In its origin and linked to the European context, fundamentalism, specifically Catholic, is understood as the political current that advocates that the Catholic faith be the basis of legal legislation and order of the society. Catholic fundamentalists

they considered it unacceptable that a European state could disassociate itself from the principles of God and that any new, liberal, and modernist idea endangered the social order and the integrity of the country as the Catholic nation that it was.

Today the term has evolved to designate any sociopolitical movement that borders on fanaticism, whether religious, ethnic, nationalist, or cultural. In essence, an integralist, whatever his ideal, wants society to be socially and politically ordered on the basis of inflexible and immovable principles, such as It may be that the laws are made according to what a sacred book stipulates, that the entire state speaks only the language that gives its name to the country or that there is only one group ethnic.

History of Catholic fundamentalism

Although the original fundamentalist ideas extend their roots to the Middle Ages, with Popes Gregory VII and Boniface VIII, fundamentalism It would not be fully articulated as a sophisticated movement until times after the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.. The 19th century was shaking all Catholic principles and the power of the Church given the shocking ideas that were derived from the bourgeois revolutions, such as popular sovereignty, science and methods based on reason and empiricism.

Catholic fundamentalism emerged in Europe between the 19th and early 20th centuries, around the polemics of the Catholic Church with various post-French Revolution principles and liberalism. This term was originally coined to designate those who opposed the so-called "modernists", who advocated creating a synthetic movement between Christian theology and liberal philosophy, defender of human freedom and supporter of greater tolerance religious.

The supporters of Catholic fundamentalism considered that it was unthinkable to abandon the State without God's guidance. Much less acceptable to the fundamentalists was to separate the Church from the social order, leaving it in the background or as a subordinate institution to what the state laws indicated.

With the passage of time, Catholic fundamentalism would take shape, becoming a strong anti-pluralist movement of Catholicism, having many supporters. in France, given how important liberal ideas were in the country, but also gaining strength in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Romania at the end of the 19th century. In these countries, the idea that the Catholic faith should come first, and that any way to reduce or eliminate ideological competitors were legitimate, especially against liberalism and humanism.

Pope Pius IX condemned liberal ideas by exposing them in his Syllabus errorum complectens praecipuos nostrae aetatis errors. It would be this Syllabus that would end up laying the foundations of Catholic fundamentalism, especially in the case of Spanish. This Catholic fundamentalism would reach its most classical vision in the papal reaction to modernism, carried out by Pius X in 1907. Those who were most supportive of the papal vision were called "integral Catholics."

Catholic fundamentalism would end up declining after the Second Vatican Council, given the lack of support within the Catholic hierarchy. At this time the idea that State and Church should be strongly united was seen as very outdated, even among the most fervent Catholics. In that same Council the idea of ​​personal freedom and thought was defended, tolerating visions less orthodox and accepting, although with the limitations that any religion has, the freedom of creed.

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Catholic fundamentalism in Spain

In Spain, Catholic fundamentalism would be one of the three most important branches of Hispanic political Catholicism, along with Carlism and liberal Catholicism, being the option most staunchly defender of integrity catholic. In fact, Within the current, being Catholic was taken as the main identity trait of the individual, above any political or social militancy..

This fundamentalism materialized in the form of the National Catholic Party, founded in 1888 by Ramón Nocedal, whose The militants came mainly from Carlist ranks and had the newspaper “El Siglo Futuro” as a means of dissemination. (1875-1936). The party, like the rest of European Catholic fundamentalism, was a staunch enemy of the enlightened ideas of liberalism, seen as a threat directly to the Spanish way of life, in addition to rejecting rationalism, seen as the path that led to heresy as he doubted the word of God.

After the decades and the arrival of the Second Spanish Republic, this Spanish Catholic fundamentalism would lose strength as a separate current and would end up merging with Carlism. After the death of Nocedal, the most prominent figure as a leader of fundamentalist thought, recycled and transformed into traditionalism would be that of Fal Conde, who would appear as the main leader of the movement since 1934.

Postulates of the fundamentalist attitude

Whether Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Serbian supremacist or Catalan identity, all fundamentalist ideology essentially meets the following postulates.

1. Exclusion

Fundamentalism rejects anyone who does not share its principles, often in a hostile way. Visions foreign to their way of thinking are perceived as direct threats to their identity and they respond aggressively.

2. antipluralist and dogmatic

Plurality is rejected. There is only one way or way of seeing things that is correct and you must fight for it to be imposed. One is complete to the extent that one communicates with his way of being: his.

Any interdisciplinary attempt is considered dangerous, as a way of contagion or surrender by those who have the "truth". You cannot discuss the “truth”, either you believe yourself or you are a traitor. It aspires that there is only one way of seeing the world, one faith, one law or one norm. Any alternative is unacceptable.

3. evil is in others

The fundamentalist movements consider that any vision alien to their way of thinking is a danger to the social order.

In the case of the Catholic, the only way to protect society from itself was the regeneration of the Church as the regulatory body for collective behavior. Secularization, that is, the passage from the religious sphere to the civil sphere, was the decadence of society.

4. static attitude

A mood contrary to any change or opening of thought is assumed. That is, the acceptance of external ideas endangers one's own and, for this reason, the system must be closed and static over time.

Many fundamentalist movements look to the past as an ideal vision of what a perfect world according to their ideals is, while the future is perceived as dangerous. In Catholicism it is Europe before the French Revolution, in Islam it would be before the intrusion of Western liberties, or, in the case of the more identitary Catalan independence movement, the Age Half.

5. rejection of reason

There is no type of reconciliation between what is understood as its truth and the error. Either one runs between rationalism or one runs with identity, be it Catholic, Muslim, Protestant or of any other type.

Reason is, according to the fundamentalist perspective, a secondary dimension of the human being. It is considered that reason by itself is not capable of giving full meaning to the existence of man. The "truth" is possessed beyond all rationality.

6. Use of apocalyptic language

It is very common for fundamentalist movements to resort to expressions with an apocalyptic air.regardless of how religious fundamentalism in particular is. In the case of the Catholic, it is very common to treat liberalism as heresy, as synonymous with the putrefaction of Western culture and the cause of God's wrath.

In the most ethnic fundamentalisms, such as Serbian nationalism during the Yugoslav wars or that manifested by some Spanish and pan-Catalan currents xenophobic, the idea of ​​any cultural miscegenation or tolerance of the speaking of other languages ​​is seen as the end of one's own culture, the end of "we" because of "they".

Bibliographic references:

• Arboleda-Martínez, M. (1929) Fundamentalism. A Freemasonry, Madrid.
• Aretin, K. (1970). The Papacy and the modern world, Madrid.
• Colldeforns, F. (1912) Data for the history of the fundamentalist party, Barcelona.
• Urigüen, B (1985) Origin and evolution of the Spanish right: neo-Catholicism, CSIC, Madrid.
• Velasco, f. (1995). Approach to current Catholic political fundamentalism, IgVi 178-179.