The Maritainians in the Church

They are the best Catholics, a model for all others

A Forerunner of the Second Vatican Council

In the current situation of the Church, where a pluralism that is good in itself often takes on the characteristics of a disunited, confusing, libertarian, anarchic, conflicting, and disorderly multiplicity, without norms and laws, without shared values, a multitude of sectarian and extremist parties opposed to each other with accusations and mutual insults, if we want to be good Catholics, in full communion with the Church and the Pope, we cannot help but ask ourselves in this chaos or caravanserai to which ecclesial movement to refer or from which current to draw inspiration, whom to look to, where are the peaceful, calm, and impartial spirits, builders of peace and reconciliation, where to find a model of life and thought that is fully, genuinely, and exemplarily Catholic, in order to care for and improve our Catholic being, today more than ever falsified or adulterated by many proposals that eliminate each other, are said, seem, or are considered Catholic, but in reality are not or are only partially so, or are mixed with things that are actually anti-Catholic.

Well, these exemplary Catholics, lights of the Church, builders of peace, unity, and reconciliation in truth, masters of wisdom, examples of holiness, in healthy pluralism and respect for diversity, true models of the implementation of the conciliar reform according to the interpretation given by the post-conciliar Popes, neither rigid nor lax, neither backward nor modernist, but wisely balanced, capable of uniting conservation and renewal, firmness and flexibility, tradition, and progress, are, despite the inevitable human miseries of every child of Adam, the Maritainians, that is, all those who take Maritain[1] as a master and model of authentic, holy, and integral Catholic life, suitable for our time, that is, suitable for spreading the Gospel to today's man, according to the pastoral guidelines of the Council, explained, developed, and practiced by the post-conciliar Popes up to the current Pope.

Maritain, in fact, in his last years, after sixty years of philosophical and theological production marked by practicing a Thomistic discipleship fruitful for our time, and after producing a vast and wise work of critically assimilating modern thought in the light of Thomism, revealed his prophetic light more than ever with Le paysan de la Garonne already in 1966, when in the immediate post-council period, the brazen colossal Rahnerian modernist operation had started in grand style, which in the space of a few decades, falsely presenting itself as the herald of the Council, due to insufficient vigilance and resistance (bold mine, Ed.) from the Papacy and the Bishops (despite the episcopal collegiality), would reach the current stifling position of power in the Church, constituting a hindrance to the true implementation of the conciliar reform and causing instead divisions, fractures, discord, imbalances, calamities, disorders, apostasies, schisms, degeneration, involution, corruption, decay, and dissolution in the Church.

Maritain, already holding multiple university degrees, encountered St. Thomas Aquinas in the early last century through the suggestion of his wife Raissa, who in turn had been invited to know St. Thomas by the great Dominican theologian Humbert Clérissac. Enthusiastic about Aquinas' thought, Maritain devoted himself to studying it with utmost commitment but did not obtain any ecclesiastical academic title. With the help of good Dominican teachers, such as Father Dehau, this did not prevent him from acquiring a first-class Thomistic formation even superior to that of Dominicans who were not faithful to St. Thomas.

Thus, Maritain proved capable of understanding what new Thomism needed to be realized better than certain very learned academic Dominicans, such as Ramirez or Garrigou-Lagrange, who remained fixed on a Thomism closed to modernity and too academic, surpassed by the directives of the Council.

For this reason, we can say that understanding the true value of the Council is equivalent to understanding the true value of Maritain's work and example. Maritain was the theologian who most prepared the work of the Council, even though unlike other theologians of the past he did not explicitly promote it.

He should therefore be considered, following the interpretation of the Council given by the post-conciliar Popes, the best and most qualified interpreter of the Council's work. Those who today want to be sure of carrying forward the conciliar reform according to the mind of the post-conciliar Popes must draw inspiration from Maritain and the Maritainians.

Maritain largely realized, even before the Council, the work that the Council commands us to accomplish, a deed not yet fully completed, which today, after sixty years, is being laboriously implemented amidst non-compliance, setbacks, open or hidden oppositions, regressions, resistances, conflicts, obstacles, slowness, misunderstandings, and falsifications due to the opposing but equally harmful machinations and maneuvers of the Rahnerians and the Lefebvrians.

The merit of Maritain, which elevates him among all the great theologians of the last century, was that of having received from God two great gifts, which very rarely accompany a single person: the gift of extraordinary wisdom animated by charity and aimed at charity and the gift of being able to work with clarity until the venerable age of 91 years (bolf mine, Ed.) for the good of souls, the Church, and Catholic culture.

A great merit of Maritain is having understood that the fundamental question today is not that of justice or peace or freedom or sex, but that of truth. Is truth what it is or what it appears to be? Who gives us the truth? Realism or idealism?

Is the object of thought the real or the thought itself? Should thought conform to being, or should being conform to thought? Does being transcend thought, or is the thought in-transcendable? Pope Francis, with a lapidary expression, following biblical realism, reminded us of the primacy of reality over the idea and not vice versa, as the idealists believe. Therefore, St. Thomas is right and not Hegel. Aristotle is right and not Descartes.

Thus, Maritain realized the fundamental importance of Descartes for the birth of modern philosophy and therefore for the clarification of the concept of "modern philosophy." Maritain indeed does not doubt that all of us and therefore also the philosopher must be modern. We must progress without ever stopping. Modern does not mean modernist.

But is Descartes truly the founder of modern philosophy, or is it rather St. Thomas? Maritain, with his studies on Descartes [2], demonstrated that Descartes as the founder of modern philosophy is a prejudice resulting from a skillful propaganda move—unfortunately imprudently accepted by the same historians of philosophy—orchestrated by the Cartesians to accredit their idol among the masses of the naive or interested. Maritain indeed shows that Descartes did not advance philosophy at all but, on the contrary, as Heidegger himself noted, brought it back to Protagorean subjectivism.

Here we find another great merit of Maritain: he warns us that the most dangerous and fascinating insidiousness today is not so much Western atheist materialist realism but rather the false mysticism of Eastern thematic pantheistic idealism, to which Descartes opens the door, admired by Spengler, Guénon, Heidegger, and Severino and theorized by the Russian nihilism of the 19th century based on Buddhist apophatism and that of Dionysius the Areopagite and Gregory Palamas.

Maritain, born in 1882, also had the good fortune to live and work in a historical period of great intellectual ferment, a turbulent and tormented period but suitable for the elaboration of a new philosophical and theological system, as required given the problematic concerning the progress of Catholic thought in great difficulty due to the ferocious attacks received from its enemies or being ignored and isolated by them in the general context of the culture of that time.

Indeed, at the end of the 19th century, Pope Leo XIII had vigorously promoted a revival of Thomism, encouraging Catholic theologians to be lights of the world and salt of the earth; but the Pope, following the practice of previous Popes, did not highlight and did not suggest points of contact with contemporary non-Catholic or anti-Catholic thought that could serve as a basis for dialogue with that thought, a common basis from which the Thomist could operate a selection in the light of Aquinas's doctrine, in the enormous mass of contemporary philosophies and theologies, of what could be assumed in the Thomistic synthesis and what should be discarded as wrong and harmful.

Moreover, Maritain found himself living in a Catholic intellectual climate agitated by the just demand of the modernists to cease a global condemnation attitude towards modern thought, understanding that in it, however anti-Catholic, irrational, or even inhuman, important values or demands were hidden that needed to be integrated into traditional theology to enrich it with new contents suitable to lead the Church to a better understanding of salvific truth.

From a young age, Maritain's soul was kindled by two enduring flames: an insatiable thirst for truth, which demanded intellectual honesty, and a profound longing to serve others in the noble quest for truth. This essentially embodies the Dominican ideal of contemplata aliis tradere as outlined by St. Thomas. Maritain was a Dominican in spirit, if not in habit [4].

He was not a Dominican tertiary, not out of disdain for the Dominican laity—indeed, Maritain is a shining example of a Dominican layperson—but to maintain the freedom and breadth of movement required by his exceptionally gifted personality.

At 89 years old, when he felt a religious calling and desired a simple, humble, hidden life, he did not cool his Thomistic spirituality. Instead, he applied it fruitfully among the Little Brothers of Charles de Foucauld, who welcomed him.

However, Maritain became fully aware of his Thomistic vocation after a severe intellectual and moral crisis, shared with Raissa, who would become his devoted wife. They were so closely bound that they exemplified "one flesh," as the Gospel says.

Having met at the Sorbonne in Bergson's courses, Jacques and Raissa, confusedly yearning for the absolute but trapped in the atmosphere of rampant subjectivism and barren intellectual shortsightedness of that time, were completely disgusted yet unable to escape. They had even contemplated suicide if God had not granted them a first glimmer of truth in Bergson's philosophy, which opened their spirits to the hope of truth, albeit still with a subjective imprint. They were truly liberated when they encountered Father Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, who was also present at Bergson's courses. They thus discovered St. Thomas and their vocation was definitively clarified.

From that moment, Maritain, having clearly understood the path to follow and the mission entrusted to him by God, devoted himself and Raissa entirely to the impulse of the Holy Spirit for the fulfillment of his extraordinary mission as a Thomist philosopher and theologian for the good and reform of the Church and the growth of holiness along the path of evangelical truth. Thus, the Maritains spent their entire lives in faithful and fruitful execution of that extraordinary vocation assigned to them by God.

A significant fruit of this holy partnership was the Thomistic circles of Meudon [6], which, for twenty years between the two wars, periodically saw the gathering, under Father Garrigou-Lagrange's guidance, of representatives from the cream of various branches of contemporary French culture. All were interested in discussing how to apply Thomistic principles to current problems in a highly fruitful dialogue between Catholics and non-Catholics, resulting in numerous conversions to Catholicism.

This was nothing short of a prophetic anticipation of what the Second Vatican Council would propose to Catholic intellectuals, philosophers, and theologians many decades later: the formation of a new Christianity capable of converting the world to God and critically embracing, in the evangelical light of St. Thomas, the values of modernity and increasing the number of children of God, heirs to eternal life.

In this way, Maritain thwarted the modernist maneuver to judge the Gospel by modern subjectivism, instead discerning the valid aspects of modern thought in the light of the Gospel (bold mine, Ed.). The task was not to subordinate the values of the Gospel to the horizon of modernity but to modernize Catholic and ecclesial life by critically embracing the values of modernity and discarding what is contrary to the Gospel.

Maritain's anti-modernism was not a blanket, fundamentalist, indiscriminate rejection of modernity to remain stagnant or revert to the Middle Ages or the Counter-Reformation. Instead, it was a wise and prudent work of sifting through the abundant modern production to retain the good and discard the bad.

A great merit of Maritain's Thomism, perfectly aligned with the Council's directives and the contemporary approach to pastoral and inculturated evangelization, is his ability to make Thomism accessible. He successfully communicated the metaphysical, moral, anthropological, or theological notions of St. Thomas to Catholics and non-Catholics with little education and those unfamiliar with scholastic language without compromising their authenticity. This contrasts with certain self-styled Thomists who contaminate these notions with the ideas of Heidegger, Kant, Hegel, Gentile, Severino, or Bontadini.

A Pioneer of Post-Conciliar Thomism

Maritain certainly welcomed the severe condemnation of modernism by St. Pius X, so much so that he wrote a book titled Antimoderno [7]. The title alone shows how much respect and fidelity Maritain had for the validity and necessity of the plain condemnation.

However, even in this text, the Maritainian way of conceiving and practicing Thomistic discipleship and testimony is evident: a way and method that, fifty years later, would be adopted by the Second Vatican Council. This Thomism not only identifies and condemns the errors of modern thought but also embraces its values by integrating them into Thomism.

In contrast, the attitude of St. Pius X was the same as that of Leo XIII, and even Pius XI, with his 1923 encyclical Studiorum Ducem, maintained this stance. In 1930, Maritain published an important book, Le Docteur Angélique [8], where he elaborates on how and why St. Thomas not only perfectly preserves his relevance as the "Common Doctor of the Church" but also appears as the "Apostle of Modern Times."

Pope Pius XII's promotion of Thomism was no different. During this pontificate, however, Maritain was accused of modernist tendencies. This misunderstood his grand work of progressive Thomism. However, the great Pope, who reiterated the condemnation of modernism in Humani Generis and advocated for the anti-modernist Thomism of previous Popes, defended Maritain against the slanders. He welcomed him as the Ambassador of France to the Holy See and personally addressed him with words of praise and comfort:

"We appreciate and salute in Your Excellency a man who, openly professing his Catholic faith and his devotion to the philosophy of the Common Doctor, puts his eminent qualities at the service of the great doctrinal and moral principles that, especially in this time of universal disorder, the Church continues to teach the world." [9]

Endorsed by Recent Saintly Pontiffs

The extraordinary admiration that St. Paul VI had for Maritain is well known. He considered Maritain his "master" and entrusted him with the "Message to Intellectuals" after the Council. The fact that Maritain was not appointed as an expert of the Council means nothing. As Philippe Chenaux reports [10] in an interesting account of the relationship between Maritain and the saintly Pope, Paul VI consulted Maritain amidst a challenging period in the Council's work in November 1964 and received decisive guidance. Paul VI entrusted Maritain with drafting the wonderful Credo of the People of God, a paraphrased formulation of the Symbol of Faith.

St. John Paul II also showed repeatedly his high regard for Maritain. He sent a personal commendation letter of six pages to Giuseppe Lazzati, Rector of the Catholic University of Milan, on the occasion of a conference on Maritain held there in November 1982 [11]. Additionally, Maritain is mentioned as a model theologian along with others in the encyclical Fides et Ratio.

This letter stands as a unicum (unique document) in the tradition of the Pontifical Magisterium, which is accustomed to commemorating and recommending great Saints, Fathers, and Doctors of the Church but not theologians in general, let alone contemporary ones.

The exception is the recommendation of St. Thomas's doctrine, which has been in use for eight centuries, involving more than 80 Popes, up to the recent endorsement by the current Pope on the occasion of the eighth centenary of St. Thomas's death. St. John Paul II did not dedicate special documents in favor of Aquinas, but by recommending Maritain, he referenced St. Thomas's doctrine.

Pope Benedict XVI never explicitly recommended Maritain; however, how can one not recognize his spirit and style in the zealous purity of doctrine he maintained as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and as Pope, in his supreme care for wisdom, liturgy, meekness, charity, evangelization, and ecumenical dialogue?

The current Pope has also never explicitly spoken of Maritain; yet, how can one not trace Maritainian spirituality in his sense of human fraternity, his innovative and reforming drive, his repudiation of worldliness, clericalism, and power, his love for the poor, his welcoming embrace of all that is healthily human, his proclamation of the Gospel, his listening to the Spirit, and his thirst for union with Christ?

Opposed by Modernists and Traditionalists

The positions towards Maritain within the Catholic world mirror those towards the Second Vatican Council. Maritain was opposed, underestimated, misunderstood, or ignored by those who, unlike him, were unable to prepare for the Council’s advent, misunderstood its meaning, or opposed it altogether. Among these were some Thomists, like Father Messineo from La Civiltà Cattolica of the 1950s, Meinvielle [12], Del Noce, Cardinal Siri [13], Cardinal Pizzardo, and the Lefebvrists.

Two groups of Thomists opposed Maritain: the traditionalists, who clung to the pre-conciliar way of being Thomists, and the modernists, who mixed Thomas Aquinas with Hegel, Kant, Severino, Heidegger, or Bontadini. All Thomists who follow St. Thomas according to the prescriptions of Vatican II are Maritainians, as they authored those prescriptions and prefigured the very Thomism that the Council would later mandate.

It is also regrettable that in the surveys Catholic historians offer of the great post-conciliar theologians, such as those by Mondin [14], Gibellini [15], or Vander Gucht-Vorgrimler [16], Maritain either does not appear or does not hold the place he deserves as an exemplary precursor and implementer of the theological progress sought by the Council.

This shows how modernists have constructed their historiography ad usum delphini (to praise themselves). However, true history is the one that, over time, inevitably brings the truth to light and dispels lies.

These partisan historians exhibit a naïve or self-serving reverence towards German Protestant theologians (bold mine, Ed.) and their modernist imitators, suggesting that these Catholic historians have sold out to power and been misled by a modernist interpretation of the theological progress promoted by the Council.

Maritain's renown certainly does not rival that of the grandiose figures who dominate the scene through astute propaganda and their appeal to the mediocre, conformists, dilettantes, and lukewarm.

Nevertheless, Maritain has a great following among those who take Christianity seriously and truly thirst for God. Thus, there are Maritainian associations worldwide [17], numerous study conferences[18], publications about him, Maritainian study and formation centers, and an imitation of Maritain's holiness [19].

The range of interests of today’s most famous theologians does not compare to the grandeur of Maritain's work, which spans all philosophical and theological disciplines with original and innovative contributions: from metaphysics to logic, epistemology to degrees of knowledge, moral philosophy to anthropology, social ethics to ecumenism, aesthetics to the philosophy of art, education, history, Christology, angelology, eschatology, ecclesiology, Mariology, liturgy, and mysticism.

Therefore, it is up to the Maritainians, in collaboration with the Pope, to pacify many exacerbated spirits today, support the wavering, bring the distant closer together, enlighten the disoriented, comfort the afflicted, reassure the scandalized, moderate the arrogant, refute the errant, promote dialogue between traditionalists and modernists, identify the values in both conflicting parties and unite them, as is their natural vocation, foster mutual understanding, fraternal correction, reconciliation, and healthy pluralism in legitimate freedom, and support the Pope in the good fight, with constructive criticism, acceptable proposals, and a spirit of cooperation.

Fr. Giovanni Cavalcoli OP

Fontanellato, June 24, 2024

source:

https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/i-maritainiani-nella-chiesa-sono-i.html

NOTES

1. Some studies on Maritain: Gianfranco Morra, Jacques Maritain, Editrice Forum, Forlì 1967; Henri Bars, La politique selon Maritain, Les Éditions Ouvriéres, Paris 1961; Piero Viotto, Maritain, Editrice La Scuola, Brescia 1968; Vittorio Possenti, Una filosofia per la transizione. Metafisica, persona e politica in J. Maritain, Editrice Massimo 1984; Giancarlo Galeazzi, Società persona educazione in Jacques Maritain, Editrice Massimo, Milano 1979; L’ultimo Maritain, edited by Antonio Pavan, in Humanitas, Aug.-Sep. 1972; Mauro Grosso, Alla ricerca della verità. La filosofia cristiana in É. Gilson e J. Maritain, Città Nuova Editrice, Roma 2006; Attualità di Jacques Maritain, in Divus Thomas, 7, Jan-Apr. 1994; Maritain filosofo della democrazia in Civitas, Mar.-Apr. 1991; Francesco Oliva, I diritti umani in Jacques Maritain, Editoriale Progetto 2000, Cosenza 2003; Città di vita, Nov.-Dec. 2014; Sep.-Oct. 2017; Nov.-Dec. 2017; Jul.-Aug. 2023.

2. Tre riformatori. Lutero Cartesio Rousseau, Morcelliana, Brescia 1964; Le songe de Descartes, Buchet-Chastel, Paris 1932.

3. Even ancient pagan Rome recognized the danger and indecency of mystery religions and orgiastic cults from the East. However, its materialistic polytheism prevented it from acknowledging the validity of Jewish-Christian monotheism.

4. For this reason, I present his thought as an eminent example of Dominican theology in my book Teologi in bianco e nero. Il contributo della scuola domenicana alla storia della teologia, Edizioni Piemme 2000.

5. See Jean-Luc Barré, Jacques et Raissa Maritain. Da intellettuali anarchici a testimoni di Dio, Edizioni Paoline, Milano 2000.

6. Raissa discusses this in I grandi amici, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1975, and Jacques in Ricordi e appunti, Morcelliana, Brescia, 1973.

7. With the significant subtitle: Rinascita del tomismo e libertà intellettuale, Edizioni Logos, Roma 1979.

8. Desclée de Brouwer, Paris.

9. From the *Discourses of Pius XII*, VII, 1945-1946, p.50, Edizioni Paoline, Roma 1960.

10. Paul VI e Maritain. Les rapports du “montinianisme” et du “maritainisme”, Edizioni Studium, Roma 1994.

11. Published in Jacques Maritain oggi edited by Vittorio Possenti, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1983.

12. See Julio Meinvielle, Il cedimento dei cattolici al liberalismo, Sacra Fraternitas Aurigarum in Urbe, Roma 2010.

13. See Getsemani. Riflessioni sul movimento teologico contemporaneo, Edizioni della Fraternità della Santissima Vergine Maria, Roma 1980. Here we find an excellent critique of Rahner, but unfortunately, a serious misunderstanding of Maritain's thought.

14. See Le cristologie moderne, Edizioni Paoline, Roma 1979.

15. See La teologia del XX secolo, Queriniana, Brescia 1993.

16. See Bilancio della teologia del XX secolo, Città Nuova Editrice, Roma 1972.

17. See for example the Institut international “J. Maritain” in Ancona.

18. Jacques Maritain e la società contemporanea edited by Roberto Papini, Editrice Massimo, Milano 1978; Storia e cristianesimo in Jacques Maritain, edited by Vittorio Possenti, Editrice Massimo, Milano 1979.

19. See Nora Possenti Ghiglia, I tre Maritain. La presenza di Vera nel mondo di Jacques e Raissa, Ancora Editrice, Milano 2000.