@Matt_W’s favorite man-about-the-parish, Ross Douthat, has penned a very efficient (though still long) description of the contours of Catholic intellectualism now that the Boomer Post-Vatican II liberal/conservative divisions are dying away.
An overview of the factions:
The Populists
Political conservatives who reject the Republican strain of libertarianism. Promote the use of federal power for an industrial policy and family subsidy regimen meant to restore the lost industrial middle class that used to define most of the American Catholic populace (white at the time, but now to include Latin Catholics, too). Here stand R.R. Reno, editor of First Things, and Senator Marco Rubio (when he’s not being a political opportunist).
The Integralists
Promoters of a more formally Catholic character in government. These guys fantasize about the current muscle Catholics exercise in higher level jurisprudence (e.g., the Supreme Court) cascading down into a post-liberal (or maybe more accurately, pre-liberal) social order built around Catholic principles, top to bottom. They banter with Hapsburgs on Twitter and admire what’s going on in Poland and Hungary. Here are Adrian Vermeule and Sohrab Amari.
The Benedictines
Localists who want to form tight Christian communities that can ride the waves of the secular ocean without dissolving into it. Inspired by Rod Dreher (who is Orthodox), they have pals outside the Catholic circle, and idealize non-Catholic agrarians and pacifists like Wendell Berry and the Bruderhof movement. Here is your Patrick Deneen and Leah Libresco Sargent.
The Tradinistas
Orthodox Catholic socialists and residents of the Weird Catholic Twitterverse. Their religious commitments go hand in hand with robust government welfare and class struggle. These are the anti-abortion folks who won’t fail to advocate just as strongly for social support for the poor pregnant mom-to-be. Think Dorothy Day. And this other guy named Pope Francis. Here you’ll find Elizabeth Bruenig and her husband Matt.
Important point from Douthat about generational alignments:
[T]here are integralist or tradinista or benedictine priests on Twitter, but those labels would leave most bishops baffled. The leaders of American Catholicism still belong clearly to the older liberal and conservative factions established in the 1970s and 1980s, and most Catholic institutions, likewise.
So when the media get us worked up about the communion “battle” at the bishop’s conference, it’s important to note that (in as much as it even is a battle) those are old soldiers fighting the previous war under two outdated flags. Not irrelevant, but getting less relevant quickly.