Fundamentalist

The fundamentalism means a body of opinion within the Catholic Church , particularly French .

Fundamentalism is distinguished from fundamentalism. This includes the current reactionary - especially Protestants - who refer to the literalness of scripture, even if he shares with fundamentalism similar processes . By analogy, the term "fundamentalism" can refer more generally, any doctrinal conservatism uncompromising attitude but it is not easily translatable and is matched in other languages than French decal.

The field of semantics and word has spread in improper applications, now common, always pejorative, like those of "Islamic fundamentalism" - to designate Muslim fundamentalism - or of "secular fundamentalism" .

History

Etymology

The term is attested for the first time in Spain in a political sense to designate a faction Carlist radical minority emerged in Catalonia and the Basque Country in the 1880s and claimed to fight liberal ideas through a policy inspired by the Syllabus of 1864 . It means so extreme intransigence to impose its rules to the entire society and govern the lives of everyone under them . Sentenced for extremism by Pius X , this movement will not result .

The word will appear in its meaning of religion in France in the 1910s, in the context of the Modernist crisis which sees bitterly oppose the trends favor and opposed to modernity within the Catholic Church. In a historical context particularly disturbed that caused particular the disappearance of the Papal States in 1870 , the Vatican authorities, reduced to only spiritual power, fighting political and cultural transformation of a world undergoing secularization - or even of secularisation - obtained from the Reformation , the Enlightenment and the French Revolution and in response to oppose the design of a model anti-revolutionary Catholicism called "integral" soon to be termed "fundamentalism" by its opponents.

It should be noted that from his appearance the term bear multiple meanings and sometimes used to describe concepts or contradictory realities, for example by its use by Catholics to describe a progressive Christianity "fully lived", to use the expression of Eugene Duthoit , or acknowledge the will of "authenticity and universality of Christ", writes Teilhard de Chardin in 1919. But these are one-time use and without issue .

Roots

Pius IX in 1865.

In the late ^nineteenth century , the "full Catholicism" intends to be an alternative to liberalism and socialism by providing their own answers to the needs of contemporary society, without compromising the doctrine and the "errors .

Catholicism is full " intransigent. " It inclinations of organizing society that will result - after many vicissitudes - the " social Catholicism ", the result of the attempted application of the integral to society and its confrontation with the social realities of the people, on behalf of the defense of Christians against modern errors condemned the Syllabus , which offers the Church as the only way to salvation. So that will emerge from a series of movements of the clergy or youth organizations devoting themselves to social action in the field who, aware of the evils of the time, help to give substance to the Christian Democrats.

The two streams - Full and social - so paradoxically derive their origin from the same source, the purpose of combating the social disorder caused by the emergence of the bourgeoisie by revolutionary means, which causes the "subversive socialist" . It is through this dichotomy - that the balance of power between the profits poles alternately to one or another trend - fundamentalism emerges.

Ideology

Gradually, fundamentalism will designate the course which refers to a moment in the history of the Catholic Church whose shape is considered perfect, timeless and unchanging and results in a rigid conception of orthodoxy and denial of history in motion, confusing "devotion to the past with loyalty to the eternal" in the words of Stephen Borne . Opposed to any form of intellectual and religious liberalism, and the political liberalism to socialism and then communism which are fruits, fundamentalism is an ideology that arises in a system that wants to organize community life by responding to questions a return to Catholic tradition, pure and whole, according to this orthodoxy meant to provide an answer to every problem in Catholicism limits fixed once and for all. Rene Remond further notes that the designation of "enemy" hit - a abstract form of threat embodied in the word sounds it creates, such as "modernism" or " Americanism "to make it happen - is a defining characteristic of fundamentalism that can strengthen its own ideological system .

However Emile Poulat stresses that the term refers more to the story than the ideology we want him to focus and cites as evidence the difficulty of translating it into other languages apart from Italian . In his view, fundamentalism has risen progressively from a resistance to society undergoing modernization and research of the restoration of a Christian society with resistance to internal changes to the Church and the "defense of religious values threatened decomposition " .

Historical Discontinuity

Anti-modernism

Pius X in 1910.

This is the anti-modernism based fundamentalism, looking at its origins a "pure Catholicity (...) we seek to tackle the social reality" and then gradually differing from the intransigeantisme Catholic by taking a distance vis--vis the notion of compromise that it carries . However, there is no continuity between the various historical layers that constitute the disparate elements that make up the term fundamentalism, between which elements can be noted, however, an undeniable intellectual relationship as well as some social persistence especially in its ability to crystallize various movements of opposition to progressive movements.

In the late ^nineteenth century , under Pope Leo XIII who, without being liberal is more inclined to diplomacy, invited Catholics to join the Third Republic - to the dismay of monarchists - the term fundamentalist refers to those opposed to young religious sciences and progressivism in the field of biblical exegesis embodied by Alfred Loisy or philosophy that is Lucien Laberthonniere. Besides the "modernists, fundamentalists denounced the Democrats Abbots and fought at the turn of the century diversions under its control and multiply like the " Americanism " or " murrisme "modernism office of the Father Romolo Murri.

The American will be sentenced in 1899 and will be excommunicated Loisy with others in 1908 when the current full triumph under the leadership of Pius X and its very conservative Secretary of State Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val , while the term "modernism "will be enshrined in the encyclical Pascendi which condemns him. It may be noted here that the term "fundamentalism" will it ever mentioned in any papal document neither then nor later . In the last years of the pontificate of Pius X, the word "fundamentalist" shall mean those fighting the political and social openness of Catholicism and then, more generally, any opponent at the opening.

The Pine Forest

Rafael Merry del Val in 1897.

Emile Poulat is paradigmatic structure for advocacy in the Catholic fundamentalists, acting mainly between 1909 and 1914 as the intelligence agency of the Vatican: the Sodality St. Pius V or Sodalitium Pianum best known as the "Pine Forest" without which we would, according to the investigator, never spoke of "fundamentalism" . This is the date of its establishment that can trace the beginning of the separation of social Catholicism and integral, the latter finding a committed advocate in the person of the founder of the Pine Forest, the Roman prelate Umberto Benigni , a real model fundamentalism . According Poulat, Benigni wants a loyal tool pontificate "hammer of all modern" - that of Pius X - but the real strength against the current of a more fundamental that crosses the church has no real means of his will .

In the struggle between the two currents which do not, however, overestimate the respective power - often fantasized by the opposing camp - Benigni, clever in its relations with the press, is a real act of betrayal and espionage cleric devoted to struggle against the advocates of modernism, or insufficiently zealous clerics. The director of the Pine Forest deny the appellation of "fundamentalism," he associates with a form and partisan politics which he accuses his opponents of an insidious use .

A bitter struggle ensued between the controversial Benigni, whose very Merry del Val, and that will not deviate from the official recognition of his organization in 1921 dissolved into indifference, and the Society of Jesus who, faced with the reluctance s 'accumulating against radical policies of Pius X, is preparing with others the shifts coming from the Catholic Church, visible from the papacy of Benedict XV and that will lead gradually turning to Vatican II . According Poulat, this form of "antijsuitisme" is a characteristic of fundamentalism who was born to assert and defend an immutable teaching of the Church, can not bring himself to see that teaching evolution.

Evolution politico-religious

With the pontificates of Benedict XV and then Pius XI , a break will take place sensitive which will push the church toward greater openness to civil society . Gradually minorized, fundamentalism will gradually feed intake of various political ultra-right which can each be a source of inspiration, in connections that are sometimes against nature.

The opposition between progressives and conservatives will expand at the political level between the monarchists of the French Action of Charles Maurras - who join the Catholics remained monarchists in 1890 refusing to go along with the Third Republic - the Democrats and Republicans. If the fundamentalists condemn the agnosticism of the French action, a certain identity and nationalist ideology is closer to the action of the French media since the publication of the encyclical Pascendi of 1907.

Late 1926 , the French Action - which advocates the "Church of the Order" and enjoys great popularity with the French Catholic right - will be condemned by the Vatican, accused of positivism and accused of subordinating religion politics. Following this conviction, and his nationalism maurrassisme see full number of Catholics to distance themselves and disintegrates gradually bursting into different streams during the Second World War and the Occupation.

The postwar period saw an advance of Christian progressivism but the trend reversed in recent years of the pontificate of Pius XII that the surge brakes. In those circumstances that fundamentalism resurfaced. The vein remains well Maurrassian this in a sustainable and deep in the integrated current that becomes the crucible of political and religious opposition to the path of modernity now engaged, joined the crucible What Petainists then supporters of Algeria French. By the mid-1950s, appearing a series of publications and organizations that call themselves fundamentalist traditionalism and combat positions defended by the Press and Catholic movements while being put in place the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s. In this fundamentalist movement, there is the Catholic City of John Ousset , routes of Jean Madiran or the New Latin edition among a series of titles that provide an abundant literature in the service of the struggle against the movement of post-conciliar reforms .

Lefebvrist

This historical process of combination of various opposition will find a focal point of fundamentalism that will take shape in opposition to Vatican II and the refusal of its application embodied by Bishop Marcel Lefebvre , itself marked by very the maurrassisme .

This produces a true "merger opponents" by posing as a defender of tradition and regrouping around him anti-republican, anti-revolutionary, anti-modernist critics to form with the Council - which some consider be the result of a "Judeo-Masonic conspiracy" - a stream of rejection of modernity, still marked by the anti-Jewish Christian , which will result in 1970 with the founding of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pie-X.

The center of gravity of the debate has shifted from the social doctrine to the challenge of new theological orientations, the international ecumenical communion , the new catechism of the Roman Rite and inter-religious dialogue. Denying changes of Vatican II, the movement Lefebvrist which claims of "authentic tradition" in continuity with the Church "always" - that is supposed to embody - is quickly at odds with Rome. Marcel Lefebvre was struck suspense has divinis in 1976 while his organization was declared dissolved. It will then excommunicated in 1988 to be pursuing a schismatic.

Marcel Lefebvre and his followers identify with the Catholic orthodoxy and reject the label "fundamentalist" they embody for many, are calling themselves "traditionalists". However, in this regard, Cardinal Jean Danielou sets in 1974, fundamentalism as a "bad traditionalism" : criticism is precisely because the fundamentalists to operate a very selective sorting in the Tradition of the Church and to provide a personal interpretation of the texts of the Magisterium in an argument relativistic which also removes the fundamentalism . In addition, Emile Poulat pointed out that some liturgists mean by "traditional" observance of liturgical norms of Rome mean a rejection of modernity rather than a fanciful back .

Fundamentalism and fundamentalism

We generally talk about "fundamentalism" to describe a more specific in the Protestant world , which focused primarily on Scripture and the inner experience by seeking to regain original purity, where fundamentalist Catholic doctrine and the emphasis tradition sanctifies a particular moment in the historical experience of the Church regarded as perfect. However, after Vatican II , there is an emerging phenomenon of Catholic fundamentalism more properly, according to Peter Lathuilire , may be due to post-conciliar crisis and accelerating the secularisation .

References

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