Symbolic figure

This biography of Maritain sounds interesting. He was a remarkable figure that embodied both the strengths and weaknesses of the Christian experience in Europe in the 20th century. He loved the US as a model of harmony between freedom and Christianity. It would be important to try and understand why, ultimately, he was defeated in his own time.

Comments

[Santiago]

What do you mean, he was "defeated"? His life and work, I always thought, were a great triumph. If nothing else, he left a solid legacy behind as one of the contributors to the UN Declaration of Human Rights. And his last book, The Peasant of Garrone, has been called "prophetic" by Ralph McInerny. Crossroads Blog wouldn't be using the term "human rights", I dare say, if it wasn't for the work of Maritain, trying to reconcile certain Enlightenment ideas with the Church.

[Crossroads]

Well, the Peasant of the Garonne was prophetic precisely because everyone rejected it, and Maritain was viewed as an old timer who did not understand the wonderful developments of the sixties. This is why we wrote "in his own time." More broadly, the great post-1968 crisis of European Christianity (especially in France) makes me think that Maritain's generation largely failed to educate the next generation. Remember that in France, and even more so in Italy, the Marxist wave among the students in 1968 was largely led by former members of the Catholic youth organizations (e.g. the Catholic Action) that had very much been influenced by Maritain's works.This indicates that Maritain's attempt to reconcile modern ideas with the Church was redirected in directions very different fron what he desired.