It has been impressive to watch the Witherspoon Institute’s publication, Public Discourse, become one of the leading anti-integralist publications. Under Ryan T. Anderson and Serena Sigillito’s leadership, Public Discourse has been a reliable home for liberal critiques of the Church’s traditional teaching on the correct order of Church and state. Indeed, if you are looking for a liberal critique of the Church’s traditional teaching on a whole host of issues, Public Discourse looks like it is becoming your one-stop shop. (Remember Nathaniel Peters’s exposition of about half of an article in the Secunda Secundae during the Mortara controversy?) Earlier this month, in keeping with this editorial direction, Public Discourse ran an article by law professor Robert T. Miller arguing, basically, that integralism is heresy. Miller’s piece is baffling from the jump, since he’s responding to an essay by Joseph Trabbic, which argued that a Catholic confessional state is normative but impossible. But as we shall soon see, Miller’s essay is not only baffling, it’s wrong.

But before we get to how wrong Miller is—and he’s so wrong the opposite of what he says isn’t even right—it is worth considering the fanatic anti-integralism of Public Discourse lately. First of all, there is some irony in Public Discourse‘s new editorial line. Traditionalists have accused the liberals of heresy (or worse) in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s Open Letter to Confused Catholics, with its ringing condemnations of the spirit of the French revolution of 1789, demonstrates clearly the incompatibility of liberalism with the traditional teaching of the Church. Now we see the liberals, formerly ascendant, adopting the rhetoric of the formerly embattled minority. Just as the traditionalists pointed to the teaching of Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius X, so too do the liberals point to Dignitatis humanae. Time will tell whether this amusing trend continues. However, there is more than irony in Miller’s piece and Public Discourse‘s new editorial line.

As we had occasion elsewhere to remark, it seems like every Public Discourse essay these days is the band playing “Nearer My God to Thee” on the doomed ship, Liberalism. After sixty years, the postwar liberal project appears to be imperiled on every front. Let us not delude ourselves, however. Not every assault on liberalism is equivalent, and it is far from clear to us that the challenges to the liberal order will be successful in the long run. Nevertheless, it is clear that many Catholic liberals see integralism—not rising populist tides or the prospect of authoritarian democracy—as the real challenge to the liberal world view. This is quite natural, we think, since integralism is based upon the teachings of the great popes who really did challenge liberalism at a time when liberalism was not so entrenched as it is, today. Assaults on integralism like Miller’s have the air of preaching to the choir to remind everyone why they are good liberals, opposed to the wicked integralists.

Miller relies, fundamentally, on the argument that whatever the doctrine was before the Second Vatican Council, the Council changed it. This relies primarily on a tendentious reading of Dignitatis humanae, which is par for the course among the anti-integralist liberals. But Miller, not content to make the simple assertion that Dignitatis humanae changed the Church’s teaching, takes it a step farther. He argues that the anti-liberal encyclicals of Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius X set forth teachings that are not de fide. Indeed, he suggests that there is no de fide teaching in support of a Catholic confessional state, much less the integralist state. Thus, the Second Vatican Council’s teaching is a perfectly legitimate change in doctrine and the integralists hold views contrary to that doctrine. Tough talk! Happily, at the Dialogos Institute’s blog, Dr. John P. Joy, head of the St. Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies, which hosts the summer programs that always look so fascinating, has responded to Miller’s essay.

And what a response! Miller argued that while parts of Pius IX’s Quanta cura were infallible, other parts weren’t. Joy demonstrates clearly and unequivocally that all of the propositions condemned in Quanta cura are infallible. And he does so by returning to the core documents regarding infallibility: Pastor aeternus and Bishop Vinzenz Gasser’s relatio at the First Vatican Council regarding the schema that became Pastor aeternus. (Gasser’s relatio begins on col. 1204 of vol. 52 of your Mansi.) By comparison, Miller just looks at the language of Pius IX’s bull Ineffabilis Deus and Pius XII’s constitution Munificentissimus Deus. It goes without saying that Joy’s approach is by far more coherent and consistent with Catholic teaching than Miller’s prooftexting. After all, nowhere in Pastor aeternus do you find the requirement that a pope use magic words to speak ex cathedra and, therefore, infallibly. Relying on Pastor aeternus and Gasser, Joy makes a powerful claim that the propositions condemned in Quanta cura were condemned infallibly. We will not spoil Joy’s essay for you—it is a treat to read—but we will say that we do not see how Miller can answer Joy coherently.

We note—though Joy does not press his point too hard, since he’s got Miller on the canvas, so to speak—that this brings Leo XIII’s anti-liberal encyclicals and Pius X’s anti-liberal encyclicals into a different light. The teachings of those great popes are obviously connected—both historically and logically—to Pius IX’s infallible condemnation of certain liberal doctrines. We know from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s doctrinal commentary to Ad tuendam Fidem that such teachings are definitive and that they may be at some point in the future dogmatically proclaimed. We would be interested to see Joy return to this question, simply to see his lucid argument on a topic of great interest. The point, however, is clear: if the condemnations of Quanta cura are infallible—and Joy pretty well establishes that they are infallible—then we must consider Leo XIII and Pius X’s encyclicals developing the teaching of Quanta cura as definitive.

We are not so courtly as Joy, and will press this last point a little bit farther. A great brain of our acquaintance mentioned, offhandedly (as usual), that Joy’s view was adopted by no less an authority than the great canonist and Jesuit general, Francis Xavier Wernz, in his monumental manual, Ius Decretalium. In volume I, page 385, Wernz states clearly the opinion that Quanta cura is infallible and the errors condemned by that encyclical (and the Syllabus Errorum) are infallibly condemned. We recommend heartily Wernz’s treatment of Quanta cura and Syllabus in the pages following page 385, especially the examples of the treatment of Quanta cura as infallible during Leo XIII’s pontificate. Wernz goes on, we observe, to discuss the relationship between Pius’s condemnations and Leo’s encyclicals. In Wernz’s view, the relationship is even more essential than the obvious historical and logical connections; Wernz holds that the relationship between Pius’s condemnations and Leo’s explanations is like the relationship between the canons and the doctrinal chapters of the great decrees of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council (Ius Decretalium, vol. 1, p. 387).

If this is the case, and we surely think it is, then the magisterial weight of Leo’s anti-liberal encyclicals must be increased greatly. Of course, this is not a particularly groundbreaking conclusion to an integralist. Whether it was an act of the extraordinary magisterium or simply the universal ordinary magisterium, the Church taught certain anti-liberal doctrines infallibly. Leo XIII and Pius X’s anti-liberal encyclicals must, therefore, be read as definitive statements of the Church’s political thought. Dignitatis humanae has to be read in this light, too, and we think there are readings of Dignatatis humanae that are consistent with this view. Any integralist can tell you this.

This will no doubt be unwelcome news to Miller and his editors at Public Discourse, and we do not expect them to accept Joy’s argument, however obvious it may be. At this point, the commitments to liberalism—commitments usually driven by secular political objectives—are too strong to be shaken, even by an argument as powerful as Joy’s. Obviously, we would read Miller’s response with close attention. But we know what he’s going to say: Dignitatis humanae changed the teachings in some meaningful way and, therefore, either Pius IX was not infallible or a general council taught heresy. A better reading of Dignitatis humanae avoids such dilemmas, but such readings inevitably end with an affirmation of the Church’s anti-liberal teachings. That won’t do, we suspect, for Public Discourse.

We have previously argued that there is a real need for integralist institutions. Existing institutions like Public Discourse or First Things or any of a whole host of other organizations and publications are simply too committed to liberalism of one form or another to provide a welcome environment for integralists. The Miller-Joy exchange drives that home. There should be a publication that presents Joy’s argument on the same level as Miller’s. And there should be a publication that permits frank discussion on politics and culture motivated by the same rigorous, Catholic thought that motivates Joy’s presentation of Quanta cura.