There has been a resurgence lately in views that the State ought to be confessionally religious. Kevin Vallier’s book does a great service by treating the viability of confessional political theory at length, with intense seriousness, in a way that is accessible to non-specialists. 

Vallier’s book is divided into seven chapters. The first lays out Vallier’s primary target: Catholic integralism. Vallier is fairer than many who write about integralism. Some writers treat integralism as a synonym for ‘fascism’ or ‘theocracy.’ Vallier instead highlights the classical Catholic political thought that undergirds integralist political theory, and therefore proposes three defining claims for integralism, which I will paraphrase and simplify:

1. God directs the state to advance the natural common good of a community.
2. God directs the church to advance the supernatural common good of all baptized persons in this community.
3. To advance that supernatural common good, and only for this reason, the church may mandate state policies, backed by civil penalties, that directly advance that supernatural good, without excessively undermining either the natural or supernatural common good in some other respect. 

The second chapter presents a cast of personalities (such as Thomas Pink, Edmund Waldstein, and Adrian Vermeule) that played roles in the recent resurgence of integralist thought, and then defends integralism by unfolding the historical case for its views representing the best reading of the Catholic tradition. Vallier also argues in the third chapter that integralists are right to see that, if the state has good reason to promote the natural common good, it has good reason to promote (symmetrically) the supernatural common good as well. Integralism is more consistent on this point, he argues, than “new natural law theory.”

Vallier smothers integralism to death with kindness. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters, he attempts to take integralism seriously as a real political agenda and shows that, even if we grant integralists maximal leeway, it’s unworkable on many levels. Focusing on strategies proposed by Adrian Vermeule in particular (“integration from within”), Vallier argues that there is no way for us to transition to integralist states, or for integralist states to remain stable. Vallier’s claims are not mere speculation, but are actually modeled formally with great detail. One might be skeptical of these models in many respects (I doubt we can model the marginal utility of sacramental participation, as Vallier attempts to do at one point), but there is something nevertheless to be gained. This analysis helps to illuminate why, historically, integralist states have inevitably devolved either into modus vivendi regimes or liberal states. Vallier ends by arguing that integralist regimes are unjust for their use of civil coercion against baptized Catholics themselves. Baptism, in his view, is not plausibly a moral transformer that makes civil coercion appropriate. Even if it did, the integralists have not shown that the Church can authorize the state to coerce its members. To sum up: integralism is problematic because “you can’t get there, you can’t stay there, and it’s unfair.”

Focusing primarily on Catholic integralism, the book nevertheless concludes with examinations of Islamic and Confucian versions as well. Vallier is highly sympathetic to confessional politics of all these stripes. He makes the case to liberals that religious people have good reasons to be suspicious of their views, and that they ought to make room for such communities and for religious discourse more broadly, rather than adopting an anti-religious sectarian posture. He proposes to religious persons that the core aims of confessional politics can be better achieved by “integration writ small.” His model community is Mount Athos in Greece, an autonomous monastic peninsula within the ambit of the Greek liberal democratic state. Such communities (like “charter cities”) are proposed to be practical, achievable, and a better fit for Christian theology. 

As much as I agree with Vallier on many fronts, I have disagreements. Vallier takes too seriously integralist readings of history. While Vallier acknowledges that the historical questions are very difficult, he nevertheless concludes that historical evidence overall favors integralism. To me, the case seems far less persuasive. 

Thomas Pink’s case rests on rather esoteric and forced readings of relatively few texts. He might draw sweeping political principles from, for instance, a condemnation of the view that the baptized cannot be punished with anything beyond denial of the sacraments (which does not mention civil coercive authority at all), or the Church hierarchy directing kings to repress heresy. From these Pink infers that the Church has taught definitively it has the divine right to utilize civil coercive authority for its ends. Even if we assume that it does indeed have such a right to civil power, Pink’s argument does not follow, since he does not thereby show us that the Church must or ideally exercises civil coercion to achieve its spiritual mission. The only serious evidence in support of that view comes from nineteenth-century papal encyclicals. It is nevertheless telling that many prominent contemporary historians of Catholic political thought, such as Russell Hittinger and Scott Roniger, reject the integralist narrative stridently and instead give a history on which separation (“Give unto Caesar”) is the primary operative theological principle.

I was mainly frustrated, however, by what was not in the book. Vallier makes it abundantly clear that integralism is not viable. The strategies endorsed by Adrian Vermeule come out looking particularly absurd as a roadmap for real-world change. Still, integralists are romantic idealists. The impossibility of transition or stability is not pressing for American integralists, because there is no real possibility of creating a Catholic integralist state in North America. Other forms of confessional politics (Hindu, Islamic) might be able to achieve at least some measure of political success, and to many of us, these politics are wrong not merely because they are not viable politically, but also for deeper reasons. What is missing, first and foremost, is dealing with an obvious concern that the ideal of integralist politics, de jure, involves or constitutes unfair treatment of citizens belonging to other religions. Then, Vallier gives too little attention to other serious thinkers who manage to capture some of the truths of integralist political theory without committing themselves to the integralist sort of political arrangement. 

To begin with the elephant in the room, there is an unaddressed worry about the place of non-Catholics within integralist states. Whereas Vallier has arguments against Islamic versions of these measures, he largely leaves these considerations aside in his case against Catholic integralists. This is a mistake. For non-Christians, the injustice of the integralist system is that it de jure involves limiting their participation in politics on equal footing with Catholics. No matter how nice integralists are, the ideal would limit non-Catholics’ political participation to ensure that the Church exercises effective influence over the affairs of state. Non-Catholics are thus always and necessarily second-class citizens in Integristan. Even if baptism rightly subjects a citizen to the Church’s coercive authority, merely living under a given civil government surely does not. 

Vallier’s own attack on the integralist ideal hinges on a similar principle. He contends that baptism alone does not make it appropriate to punish someone civilly for failing to abide by the religious obligations incurred by baptism. Catholic doctrine holds that baptism can be conferred validly without consent, in the case of infants or in certain marginal cases (such as the case of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish child baptized against the wishes of his parents). Valid baptism gives rise to religious obligations, but since baptism can be involuntary, Vallier concludes that it is inappropriate to punish someone for failing to abide by obligations incurred. 

Whatever one may think about whether that argument succeeds, but as an attack on integralism, it misfires, precisely because it fails to address the problem of non-Catholics. Integralism does not depend essentially on any principle that baptism alone makes one rightly subject to the coercive authority of the confessional state. Rather, integralists believe that the state can rightly use its power to promote the supernatural good. This extends beyond merely coercing the baptized into being faithful to their religious duties. Duties to protect society from deleterious spiritual and moral influences (“indirect” coercion against non-believers) are theoretically and practically more central to the integralist ideal. Pink, for instance, believes that baptism generates duties for Christians to use political power to protect the Church. Adopting a confessionally Christian constitution in which the Church can exercise constitutional authority over state officials is, Pink believes, the only way to prevent deleterious spiritual and moral influences from leading to civilly sponsored repression of the Church and harming its mission. Similarly, contemporary American integralists like Vermeule endorse integralism not so much to punish the baptized as to deny that those they consider unfit to promote the common good could possibly have any rights to political participation on equal footing with themselves. 

Both claims are highly suspect from within Catholic theology itself. 

There is clearly a tension here. Integralists must hold that nobody is rightly subject to the Church’s coercive authority unless baptized, and that nobody can be coerced into baptism. Nevertheless, unbelievers are rightly subject to the Church’s coercive authority when it is backed by the authority of the state. It was this tension that led non-integralist Catholic political theorists (e.g., Newman, Maritain, Murray, de Koninck, Simon, Ratzinger) to seek a different path. These thinkers uphold the view that Christianizing society is a moral obligation for Catholics. However, they believe that there are ways to accomplish this goal that do not require the kind of civil coercive power that integralists would claim for the Church. 

These other thinkers, following Dignitatis Humanae, point out that a state might be confessionally Christian without any constitutional provisions to limit non-Catholic political participation, or, put civilly coercive power at the service of the Church’s hierarchy. Some envisioned a Christian civil society transforming the state and leading to the use of civil power in line with Catholic teaching; others seem to have endorsed liberal democratic confessional states. These thinkers accept that Christians have a duty to transform civil society and that there is a proper subordination of civil power to the spiritual. However, they reject integralism’s claim that its political arrangements are constitutive of, or necessary for bringing about, Christian society.

Vallier’s recommendation of “integration writ small” (echoing the spirit of MacIntyre’s local communities of virtue) raises some concerns of its own. If Christians have duties to Christianize their society, then surely they should not retreat into the wilderness. Symmetry considerations work against Vallier: There is no good reason to restrict an ideal of perfectionist politics to local government. If Vallier is right that the federalist model for promoting the common good (natural and supernatural) at local levels is desirable, then it is hard to furnish a principled reason to refrain from structuring the system itself at the federal level to promote the integral good. 

Conversely, if we agree that integralist states treat non-Catholics unjustly, then Vallier’s own ideal can fall prey to the same problems. Vallier seems to consider that as long as there is freedom of exit, an integralist community would be fair, since even though it excludes non-Catholics from participation. Anyone could just leave a community if they didn’t like it. I think this is naïve when we consider questions about how nations are organized. “If you don’t like our country, there’s the door” can still be unfairly discriminatory. This truth is just as clear to religious people under strident secularist or atheist regimes as it is to the citizens of exclusionary religious ones. Vallier’s book needs to address the question: What does a modern Christian nation look like? 

Putting aside these critiques, Vallier’s book should be read by anyone interested in the role of religion in public life. He has done a great service in showing that confessional politics have purely political problems in transition and stability, problems we can model and display in great detail. Vallier ends the book as charitably as it was begun, with a citation of Psalm 133, which illustrates his sincere intention of doing political theology as positively Christian and liberal. The book is a shining example of how empirically minded and philosophically astute political theology can be.