Recently, conservative circles have seen a sharp uptick in support for “Integralism.” Integralism is the belief that “the state should officially endorse the Catholic faith and act as the secular arm of the Church by punishing heresy among the baptized and by restricting false religious practices if they threaten Catholicism,” according to Robert T. Miller, professor of law at the University of Iowa. Integralism’s proponents include thinkers such as Harvard legal scholar Adrian Vermule, King’s College philosophy professor Thomas Pink, and Ave Maria University philosophy professor Joseph Trabbic. Integralists see theocracy as a necessary solution to the modern problem of the corrupting influence of the increasingly aggressive secular state. Integralism flows from the same post-liberal sensitivity to modernity’s problems that Patrick Deneen and Alasdair MacIntrye have articulated.

This attraction may be an understandable response to a “liberal” government and political culture which are increasingly inimical not only to Christian belief, but to the vision of the human person which is the core of Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman values. However, Integralism errs in its evaluation of the human person, which in turn leads to a flawed view of the state.

Although Integralists are not a monolithic group, the case...