Maritain

The Weekly Standard this week includes a nice review by Edward Short of Jean-Luc Barre's book on Jacques and Raissa Maritain, "Beggars for Heaven."  Unfortunately, the full review requires a subscription.  Here's a bit:

Not long ago I met a young woman who is studying philosophy at Stanford, and when I told her I was reading a new biography of Jacques Maritain, she said she had never heard of him.

That the greatest Catholic philosopher of the 20th century should now be unknown on the very campuses where, just a generation ago, he was universally read and admired, is profoundly disheartening. The fact that he has been jettisoned from the curriculum to make room for the nominalism of Michel Foucault speaks volumes about the intellectual defeatism that holds sway over our academic elites. This biography, by the French journalist-historian Jean-Luc Barré, should help revive interest in the work of a man who still rewards study. . . .

After the war, Maritain served as de Gaulle's ambassador to the Vatican. Ronald Knox, the English Catholic convert, once advised that "He who travels in the barque of St. Peter had better not look too closely into the engine room." Maritain saw altogether too much of the engine room and concluded that "Catholics are not Catholicism. The mistakes, the clumsiness, the inefficiencies, the lack of concern of Catholics do not involve Catholicism itself. It is not the responsibility of Catholicism to furnish an alibi for the shortcomings of Catholics."

When Maritain returned to Paris after the Second World War and found that he was practically forgotten, he received a letter from his fellow Thomist, Etienne Gilson, who took the liberty of advising his old friend on what Samuel Johnson once referred to as "the justice of posterity."

"Whether you realize it or not, you are great," Gilson told him, "and this is something for which you will never be forgiven." Gilson continued: "Go on with your work, which is irreplaceable, and don't worry about anything; the rest is of no account." Judging from what Maritain once said about his own mission, it is probable that Gilson's advice did not go unheeded. "I feel like a man walking on a slippery slope," he said, "carrying a very heavy weight in his arms. He must beware of the slightest misstep. What can one do? When it is a question of God's grace, one can only close one's eyes and let it work."