Gratified as UD is to see others finally pay attention to the Insane Integralists, and esp. their Harvard law prof spokesperson, Adrian Vermeule — cuz see UD’s been caterwauling about Vermeule for a number of years — she is less delighted to see looooong essays take serious historical, theological, and philosophical issue with him and his All Catholic All The Time movement.

Vermeule and his buds basically represent a Dungeons and Dragons circle jerk with Xian elements. To quote their rival World Takeover By Jesus sect, they are … SPOOKYTUS…….

Which sort of behavior among adults who hold respectable jobs is astonishing, and funny, and I write about it on this blog on that basis. Taking the lads with any real seriousness just makes them tug the slug more energetically.

But! I’ll go ahead and quote from a couple of recent articles anyway, in case you need reminding what this is all about.

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What the integralists call the social reign of Christ will be achieved by integrating the temporal power (the state) with the spiritual power (the Catholic Church). The military, the economy, the arts, and religious life will be directed toward human flourishing as defined by one severe reading of Catholic tradition. Which doesn’t mean bishops would command armies or set tax rates — civil authorities in an integralist regime would retain broad spheres of competence within which to forward the ends prescribed by the Catholic Church, but the Church would define those ends…

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[I]n the … words of an American integralist, “the state should recognize Catholicism as true and unite with the Church as body to her soul.”

[T]hey are another group in our society that judges governments and regimes and political orders by how good they are for them. This selfishness, which is a common feature of identity, is as tiresome in its religious versions as it is in its secular ones; it is a … form of contempt…

[The bizarre] Vermeule is talking about the American government. Who does he expect to persuade with this sectarian rapture?

… This is, well, nuts. Vermeule has no reason to fear the jackboot of Nancy Pelosi in the middle of the night. But his extreme view of his position in contemporary America enables him to cast himself grandiosely. He is the lonely knight of the faith who has taken up the Cross to do battle with the Jeffersonian infidels.

… When rationalists seem to be acting imperialistically, they can be challenged rationally, on their own grounds, and a rational argument for humility or restraint can be made; but no argument can be made with anybody who dissociates reason from truth, who repudiates “intrinsic grounds,” who demands of authority that it be “external.” 

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And of course it’s valuable to visit and revisit the enemies of liberalism, the revilers of freedom. But taking AV and Co. with great seriousness is like taking the CEO of MyPillow seriously. UD doesn’t deny that people of this sort ought to be monitored occasionally; but leaving them alone to stroke themselves to sleepytime is by far the best move.