ORESTES BROWNSON WEPT:

[E]vangelicals and others should be concerned about growing challenges to the founding premises of American democracy, not just from secularists but also from conservative Christians preferring some form of theocracy or confessional state. Likely you have never heard of integralism, but you need to know about it.

Integralism is a growing movement popular among Catholic intellectuals who think America's liberal democracy, with its free speech and religious liberty, was doomed from the start because its design is at odds with God's purposes for the community and state. Liberal democracy, the integralists believe, allows for the proliferation of immorality by its denial of any sort of religious basis undergirding society. They advocate a peaceful social and political revolution against our democracy, replacing it with a new arrangement in which, as Wikipedia describes, "Catholic faith should be the basis of public law and public policy within civil society." Some non-Catholics, despairing of our democracy, share parts of this perspective.

This cause may sound extreme and unlikely. And it's true that very few Americans, including Catholics, are integralists. But this perspective commands zeal from a band of smart thinkers and highly educated young people whose influence exceeds their small numbers. And it reflects a shrinking confidence in our democracy, fueling increasing brands of illiberalism--forms of rejecting the idea of classical liberty. Integralism is just one example.

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