page_title: Ramón Nocedal Romea
section_title: Integrist: early years
hierarchical_section_title: Ramón Nocedal Romea / Integrist: early years
caption_attribution_description: Image of the Basilica of St. Ignatius in Loyola with extra contrast given for better detail.
context_page_description: Ramón Nocedal Romea was a Spanish Catholic ultraconservative politician, first member of the Neocatólicos, then of the Carlists, and finally of the Integrists. He is known as leader of a political current known as Integrismo and a chief representative of Catholic fundamentalism when applied to politics.
context_section_description: According to the liberals, the schism left Carlism on its last legs and close to total ruin. Nocedalistas claimed that their supporters were to be counted by the thousands. What actually constituted their potential was rather a few names and especially an impressive array of periodicals, as the breakaways were overrepresented across the Carlist editorial boards. Nocedal led the exiled dissidents into a new organization; initially to be named Partido Tradicionalista, in early 1889 it materialized as Partido Integrista Español. The name was supposed to underline integral unity between Christian and political goals. Though in August 1889 the party renamed itself to Partido Católico Nacional, the group was usually referred to as Integristas. Structure of the party stabilised in 1893; each Spanish region was led by a junta, with their work co-ordinated by the party jefe. The post was assumed by Nocedal, which clearly demonstrated his personal grip on Integrism.
  The program, summarized in Manifestación de Burgos, focused on building an orthodox Christian state as the ultimate objective and confronting sinister liberalism as the target for today. In terms of political regime the Integrists voiced against party politics and parliamentarism, instead advancing later the theory of organic democracy, i.e. a system based on formal interaction of established, complimentary and co-operative social bodies. The party dropped “king” from the Carlist ideario. Though Nocedal remained a staunch monarchist and though a theoretical sovereign remained an important point of reference in terms of political mobilization, in fact the party was gradually embracing monarchy without a king, later eventually leaning towards accidentalism. Since the Integrists preached the notion of “Social Reign of Jesus Christ”, according to sarcastic comments they eschewed consideration of such details as a form of government. 
  During last decade of the 19th century dynamics of the nocedalistas was powered mostly by mutual and extremely bitter hostility towards Carlists, who by far outpaced liberals as primary foes; occasionally the enmity has even erupted into violence. In the 1880s adamant not to take part in Restauración political system, in the 1890s Nocedal intended to turn elections into a battlefield where he could humiliate Carlos VII. The rivalry was made particularly pungent by geographically overlapping Integrist and Carlist zones of influence: though their national electoral strength remained an untested quality, it was clear that both groups enjoyed most support in Vascongadas and Navarre.
  During the 1891 campaign the Integrists won 2 Cortes mandates compared to 5 gained by the Carlists; though they had to acknowledge numerical inferiority, Nocedal boasted personal success in the Gipuzkoan district of Azpeitia. His victory was indeed made triumphant, as he thrashed the provincial Carlist jefe Tirso de Olazabal and as Carlos VII seemed more interested in defeating Nocedal personally than in result of electoral competition in all other districts. Great speaker,in 1893 the Integrist leader repeated his Azpeitia triumph over the same opponent; on the national basis the party gained 2 mandates against 7 obtained by the Carlists. In 1896 the Integrists failed to gain a single ticket; also Nocedal was defeated in Azpeitia.
caption: Loyola sanctuary, Azpeitia
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