While not as well known in Catholic Traditionalist circles as, say, Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, or G.K. Chesterton, few twentieth-century thinkers attacked the foundations of modern civilization with the intellectual ferocity of Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913–1994). The Colombian Catholic, aristocrat, and self-described “authentic reactionary” did not stop at rejecting the excesses of modernity but relentlessly attacked its fundamental political and theological roots. Understanding what the Social Reign of Christ both implied and demanded, Gómez Dávila saw democracy, egalitarianism, secularism, and the religion of progress for what they were: manifestations of a deep-seated rebellion in which man seeks to dethrone God and establish himself as the ultimate source of authority.

Originally published in Integrity Magazine. Read original article

Original Tags: Beacons of Tradition, Catholic Social Teaching, Christ the King, Democracy, Integralism, Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Political Philosophy