Editor’s Introduction
The Catalan priest Félix Sardá y Salvany (1841-1916) is most famous for his book Liberalism is a Sin. One of the first mentions of the word “integralism” [or “integrism”] by the Holy See was in response to El proceso del integrismo, an attack on Don Sardá’s book by Canon Celestino de Pazos.[1] Both books had been sent to the Sacred Congregation for the Index, which responded in 1887 that Pazos’s book should be withdrawn from circulation, and praised Fr. Sardá’s book as its “exposition and defense of the sound doctrine therein set forth with solidity, order, and lucidity.”[2] Liberalism is a Sin, become the vade-mecum of the first political movement to be given the name “integralist,” namely the movement founded by the Carlist writer Ramón Nocedal Romea (1842-1907), when he broke with the mainstream of Carlism, because the Carlist claimant to the throne was making what he considered untenable compromises with liberalism.[3] What exactly was meant by calling this movement integralist? In the Manifesto of Burgos, written by Nocedal and signed by a number of Spanish traditionalist newspapers in 1888, which is seen as the beginning of the Integralist party in Spain, reference is made again and again to the “integrity” of the adherence of the signatories to Catholic doctrine and tradition, to “la integridad y pureza de las doctrinas,”and “la integridad de nuestra doctrina y nuestra intransigencia con los errores modernos,”and so on.[4] This is why they were known as integralists: because of their integral adherence to Catholic doctrine, and their intransigent rejection of modern errors. One of the Catholic teachings to which they were particularly insistent in their adherence (since it was under particular attack at the time) was the teaching on the relation of spiritual and temporal power. The Manifesto of Burgos uses the traditional analogy of body and soul to explain the teaching:
As the body to the soul, so must the state be united and subordinated to the Church, the lesser luminary to the greater, the temporal sword to the spiritual sword, according to the terms and conditions that the Church of God lays down, and are established in our traditional laws.[5]
In 1889 El Siglo Futuro, the newspaper edited by Nocedal, printed a talk by Don Sardá entitled “¿Integristas?”.[6]Sardá explains that the name integralists is one that was being given to their movement by its enemies, but he argues that they ought to embrace the name. We are pleased to offer a translation of Don Sardá’s talk below.
Integralists?
A Conference read at the Catholic Academy (before Catholic Youth), of Sabadell by Don Felix Sardá y Salvany, Priest, Counselor of the same and Director of the Revista Popular.
Translated by HHG
The Parrot answered pertly, As with argument conclusive,— "You are nothing but a Purist, Of taste foolishly exclusive."—? "Thanks for the compliment," quoth Magpie, curtly. (Iriarte, The Two Parrots and the Magpie)
Integralists? Yes, my dear gentlemen, and I accept the name as an honor. It is about this that I have wished to speak to you here at our beloved Academy—after not being able to speak here for a long time—and have thought it fitting to choose as theme for my familiar Conference the present epithet or sobriquet with which it seems our enemies seek to defame us. Under this name I wish to see you present yourself with saintly loftiness and Christian pride. I assure you that, by the grace of God, this is how I am; I am proud of my faith, of my baptism, of my Catholic education and of my Catholic priesthood and of everything it constitutes. Thanks be to Heaven, regarding my mode of being in the supernatural and Christian order.
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