For Papal States Cosplayers Only.

Rod Dreher has a reasonably sound take on the efforts of some American Catholics to imagine (word chosen deliberately) a Catholic version of our post-liberal political order. 

Now if he could stop uttering "the Benedict Option" every five minutes...

First, let's take it as a given: the classical liberal order is dead, largely by its own hand. Or, if you prefer less gore, a victim of its own atomizing success in elevating the abstract concept of the individual above all other societal goods. 

Not persons, mind you--but individuals. And the substitution of abstractions for persons goes the way of all political flesh in the end, complete with the obligatory body count.

So what is the alternative to the illiberal, technocratic oligarchy which is establishing itself as its heir? 

Some Catholics--influential ones--clearly want to embrace that which is emerging, dutifully washing its feet and perhaps massaging its arse. A different kind of church and state relationship--caesaropapist--but recognizable from the worst eras of the Church.

On the other hand--and with more than a few pounds of irony--there are the Integralists. Americans, led by Harvard Professor Adrian Vermeule and Sohrab Ahmari, they imagine a world where church and state work together as harmonious institutions.  

First, I will state the good: I like Ahmari and can recommend his Unbroken Thread without hesitation. Vermeule has a fine mind and, when his verbal pugilism connects, it is a wonder to behold. I certainly respect their overall intellectual framework better than the "Being Assaulted? Call a Lawyer!" approach of David French.

As to Ahmari and Vermeule's colleague Gladden Pappin, I haven't read anything by him that didn't set my teeth on edge. And that most definitely includes things I was inclined to agree with.

But here's the thing: the entire integralist enterprise can be summed up in two words: Clericalist Cosplay. Or, if you'd prefer a rather more vulgar analogy: clericalist underpants gnomes. 

Step One: Assert Integralism.

Step Two: ?

Step Three: The post-liberal Catholic nation-state.

The Achilles' heel of the plan is exposed in step one, which demands a hyper-ultramontanist devotion to the papal office. I daresay even Leo XIII would have found it off-putting and the current occupant of the Chair will find it uproariously funny when it is eventually brought to his attention. 

Can't wait for that gossipy soundbite! 

At a minimum, it should be painfully clear that the pontiff is not going to sign on to the program, what with his view that God wills a diversity of religions and related policy and staffing whatnots over which the Integralists permit no questioning whatsoever. 

As to their plans, sure: there's talk of a Gramscian march through the institutions, but it's difficult to manage that when the man to whom you pledge unquestioning obedience is razing the few bastions which used to support at least some of your ideas.

Another cold reality is they couldn't find a bishop who would sign on to the plan who is in unimpaired communion with Rome.

That's not a long march--that's wandering through the most sterile of deserts, generation after generation, without a Moses or Aaron.

Say what you will about the vain faith of the Jacobites, at least they had a king.

So, yes, the Integralist enterprise boils down to a combination of nostalgia, cosplay, and, yes, shitposting (see, alas, Ahmari's tweet at the end). There are some good ideas to salvage from them, including a well-warranted skepticism of apologetics for end-stage liberalism and the genuine ability to display the gold of a truly Catholic worldview.  

But it kneecaps itself from the start.  And even with my leanings toward catastrophism, I can't see an integralist triumph. Nor, in its stronger forms, would I care to. My clericalism is in permanent remission.