The Limits of Integralism
Or Why Should Not the Orthodox Church Demand an Orthodox State Compel Catholics to Become Orthodox
Here’s my response to a recent review by Gideon Lazar (“Beyond the Liberal Kingdom”) of Kevin Vallier’s All The Kingdoms of the World: Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism.
Thank you for your very thoughtful and balanced review.
If I may, let me raise a question about baptism. I'll admit upfront that I've framed my question polemically. I do so not to give offense but to see how far the integralist argument can be pushed.
You write that "Vallier’s justice argument gets to the real core of the issue, unlike most liberal attempts to understand integralism, the argument ultimately still begs the question." In other words, it would not be unjust if a "baptized infant ... to be forced to remain Catholic as an adult."
As an Orthodox Christian and priest, I accept the sacramental validity of baptism in the Catholic Church. To say this means, I recognize that a schismatic [Catholic] priest has celebrated the [Orthodox] Church's sacrament. This means that when a Catholic approaches me about becoming Orthodox he is NOT leaving the Catholic Church but being reconciled to the Orthodox Church in which (even if unknowingly) he has been baptized.
For both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, no one is baptized "Protestant" even if they are raised in the Protestant tradition. They are baptized into the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. More to the point, both Catholic and Orthodox Christians see their community as precisely that Church described in the Creed. Why then would an integralist NOT demand that a baptized Christian—of whatever tradition—not conform to the religious identity of the State?
Let's imagine, you as a Catholic live in an Orthodox integralist State (or I as an Orthodox Christian live in a Catholic state), on what grounds would your (or my) religious freedom trump the objective validity of our baptism?
If the infant baptized as a Catholic can justly be required to remain as an adult in the Catholic Church what prevents the State from making a similar demand of validity baptized Orthodox Christians (or Protestants, but let's stick with schism for now)? Or, for that matter, why couldn’t an Orthodox state demand a Catholic adult remain faithful to the [Orthodox] baptism that he received as an infant at the hands of a validly ordained but schismatic priest?
Though I focused here on baptism, the argument is not wholly dissimilar to the objections of some Orthodox Christians to Eastern Catholics. This has especially been a concern raised by the Orthodox Church in Russia for whom the existence of Eastern Catholic communities is not only an affront to the Orthodox Church but a real injustice. In an Orthodox state, would it be just to require them to return to the Orthodox Church?
Again, this is a polemical way of phrasing the issue but, well, it's a comment box and space is limited. At the same time, it is an argument that I think at least some Orthodox Christians would find convincing.
Thank you for your time!
In Christ,
Fr Gregory