Integrism (French: Intégrisme) is a term coined in early 20th century polemics within the Catholic Church, especially in France, as an epithet to describe those who opposed the "modernists", who sought to create a synthesis between Christian theology and the liberal philosophy of secular modernity. The term was originally used by dissidents during the time of Pope St. Pius X, whose papacy was between 1903 to 1914, in attacks on Catholics who upheld his encyclicals such as Pascendi Dominici Gregis and the most significantly a document entitled the Syllabus of Errors, which specifically condemned the modernist position.
Those who were called "integrists", or regarded themselves as defenders of Sacred Tradition, contrary to the modernists sought the continuation of traditional Catholic truths, which they claim, have always been taught. Some critics have framed this within a sociopolitical context of a general opposition to the secular modernity of the Western world. As represented chiefly by the Revolution in France of 1789 and the ascent in society of a secular bourgeoise leadership caste, who were often cosmopolitan, republican and anti-clerical in worldview. By the late 20th century, these elements were strong critics of the "spirit of Vatican II", emerging from the Second Vatican Council, including the suppression of the Tridentine Rite and some of the Council itself.
The term "integrism" is largely restricted to French sociopolital parlance, while the term traditional Catholics has become more prominent in recent times and is generally the most common term used in the Anglosphere to describe anti-modernist elements. The term has also been borrowed in some cultures to describe elements within non-Catholic religious movements who are also opposed to the radical end of Western liberalism, such as Protestant fundamentalism or Islamism.
Spain entered the twentieth century a predominantly agrarian nation marked by uneven social and cultural development between town and country, between regions, within classes.[1] In the south, less than 2 per cent of all landowners had over two-thirds of the land, while 750,000 labourers eked out a living on near-starvation wages. Moreover, whilst all Spain was Catholic by formal definition, in practice Catholic identity varied, affected by factors that ranged from region, to social strata, to the ownership of property, to age and sex. General patterns were ones of higher levels of Catholic practice throughout much of the north and low levels in the south,[2] and higher levels of Catholic practice amongst peasant smallholders than landless peasant labourers. The Church and its affairs were simply alien to urban working-class culture.[3] As the Rev. Canon Arboleya y Martínez put it in his famous analysis in 1933, the dimensions of the problem were those of "mass apostasy, especially among the urban working classes."[4]
Devout Catholics participated in an enormous number of religious rites separate from the minimal obligations of orthodoxy; processions and devotions connected with statues and shrines, for example. In some public religious rituals, the question of whether the ritual was primarily religious or political became an issue. The Jesuit campaign to spread the cult of the Sacred Heart was "inextricably linked in the early 20th century with the integrist values of the extreme Right of the Catholic political spectrum."[5] Its publication, Messenger of the Sacred Heart, was anti-liberal, anti-Semitic,and campaigned for the enthronement of the Sacred Heart in offices, schools, banks, town halls, and city streets. Statues were erected in hundreds of towns and villages. Seen as symbols of Catholic conservative intolerance the statues were 'executed' by some anarchists and socialists in the early months of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
The municipal elections of 1931 that triggered the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic and the Spanish Constitution of 1931 "brought to power an anticlerical government" and began 'the most dramatic phase in the contemporary history of both Spain and the Catholic Church.'[6][7][8] The dispute over the role of the church and Catholics' rights were one of the major issues which worked against the securing of a broad democratic majority and "left the body politic divided almost from the start."[9] Prime Minister Manuel Azaña asserted that the Catholic Church was responsible in part for what many perceived as Spain's backwardness and advocated the elimination of special privileges for the Church.[10] The writer Frances Lannon asserts that "Catholic identity has usually been virtually synonymous with conservative politics in some form or other, ranged from extreme authoritarianism through gentler oligarchic tendencies to democratic reformism."[11] The Republic's electoral policy had stated: "[We] will not persecute any religion" which was accepted by many Catholics and formally by the Catholic Church hierarchy hoping for continued special rights and privileges from the Concordat of 1851.[12]
The Republic instituted a reformist program, including agrarian reform,[13] right to divorce,[14] voting rights for women,[15] reform of the Army,[16] and autonomy for Catalonia and the Basque country.[17][18][19] It also established free, obligatory, secular education for all and "separation of the church and state".[20] Article 26 of the 1931 Republican constitution, and subsequent legislation, halted state funding for the Catholic Church, banned clerics from all teaching in schools, banished the crucifix from schools, appropriated the properties of the Catholic Church and banned public manifestations of religions, such as processions and religious statues.[19][21] These strictures helped to alienate a large mass of the Catholic population.[22] The Carlist militias, long confined to their Navarrese heartlands, were training in the mountains as early as 1931."[23] The Right’s defeat in 1931 left some prepared to give the new regime a chance, "but many more ... accepted the rules of the democratic game only as a means to destroy the former republic."[24] Official or organized opposition did not exist at the beginning.[12]
Two weeks after the government of the Republic had announced its intention of freedom of religion and separation of church and state, archconservative Cardinal (and Primate of Spain) Pedro Segura y Sáenz of the Archdiocese of Toledo published a pastoral letter against the "religion-destroying administration" and defending the former King.[12][26][26][27][28] The "most integrist of all prelates,"[29] he was opposed to religious toleration, especially towards Protestants,[30] and condemned the belief "that all religions are equally acceptable in the presence of God".[31] He likewise opposed giving the vote to the 5,000,000 women in Spain over the age of 21.[32] The Catholic press followed his lead with "the monarchist daily, ABC, aligning with the most traditionalist positions."[28] This in turn sparked political uprisings, attacks against both sides, general strikes, and further fracturing and morphing of political movements across the spectrum in Spain, including a revived anarchist movement and new reactionary and fascist groups, including the Falange and a revived Carlist movement.[28]
Segura was forced into exile by the Republic in response to this document, and soon resigned his office. After his return to Spain in 1937, Segura was appointed Archbishop of Seville. While in that office, he described the Spanish Inquisition (1480 - 1820) as "meritorious", and prohibited Sevillian Catholics from attending movies and dances.[33]
The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) began after a military coup, led by a group of conservative generals under the authority of Francisco Franco, and supported by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy,[34] the conservative Confederation of the Autonomous Right, monarchists known as Carlist groups and the Fascist Falange[35] went against the elected Republic. The initial coup was only partially successful, so General Franco began a protracted and ultimately victorious war of attrition, replacing the Republic with a conservative dictatorship led by him and fusing all right-wing parties into his structure.[35][36][37] Some features of the war later played a significant part in World War II (1942) including tank warfare tactics and the terror-bombing of cities from the air.[38] The war was dubbed "the first media war," with several writers and journalists wanting their work "to support the cause"; foreign correspondents and writers covering it, as well as most international observers, supported the Republic, with some, such as George Orwell, participating directly in the fighting.[39][40][41]