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Jacques Maritain University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/66478 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. Jacques Maritain, ‘l’esprit dur et le cœur doux’: an assessment of his far- reaching and fragmented legacy, including his contribution to Catholic- Jewish relations, as shown through Le Paysan de la Garonne by Leigh Anne Casey A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in French Studies University of Warwick, Department of French Studies December 2014 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 1 Thesis abstract .................................................................................................................... 2 Maritain’s works: List of abbreviations ............................................................................... 3 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 4 Chapter One : The context for Le Paysan de la Garonne .................................................. 10 Chapter Two : Le Paysan de la Garonne as Maritain’s testament .................................... 50 Chapter Three: The position of Le Paysan de la Garonne in Maritain’s works on Catholic- Jewish relations ................................................................................................................. 88 Chapter Four: Maritain’s place in the debate on ‘la question juive’ .............................. 126 Chapter Five: Maritain as a ‘French-Atlantic’ thinker ..................................................... 171 Chapter Six: What significance does Maritain hold today for French Catholic-Jewish relations and for the Catholic Church? ........................................................................... 218 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 254 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 257 1 Acknowledgements It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to thank those people who have helped me with this thesis. I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Professor Seán Hand, who has taken a great deal of time and trouble to help me understand and unpick the various strands of investigation. His patience has been exemplary. I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Professor Jeremy Ahearne for his very insightful comments, which have made me pause and reflect. I am very grateful to my colleague Dr Sapna Patel, who, very generously, has given me her help with the layout and production of the thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my family, friends and colleagues, who have all provided support when I needed it most. Leigh Anne Casey 2 Thesis abstract Jacques Maritain, although now largely ignored in France except for opportunistic re- appropriations of his work, was and still is highly esteemed in North (and South) America. This thesis examines the extent to which Maritain himself is responsible for the unevenness of his reputation, besides the part played by relevant geopolitical events. It also questions how much his readers have contributed by selecting from the complex mosaic of his work those things which suit their purposes. The thesis examines the core tenet of Maritain’s work: the tension between the ‘esprit dur’ of his inflexible Thomist theology and philosophy and the ‘coeur doux’ of his liberal humanitarianism. This tension is examined from the standpoint of the Second Vatican Council and Maritain’s response to those pivotal years in the Catholic Church, his self- declared testament, Le Paysan de la Garonne. Maritain’s contribution to the Council and its aftermath, especially as applied to consideration of the Church’s position on ‘la question juive’, helped to seal the fate of his jagged reputation. The research analyses Maritain’s key outputs contextually during a period of massive upheaval and shows their expansive influence. The dialogic approach to the works encompasses not only French but North American sources. The thesis also analyses correspondence between Maritain and his close friend Cardinal Journet, which has not before been the subject of significant analysis, enabling a deeper reading of Le Paysan de la Garonne and what lay behind the book, fifty years after its publication. This multi-disciplinary thesis, relevant to French studies, philosophy, intellectual history, politics and religious studies, makes a compelling case for a reappraisal of Maritain’s legacy - an individual so often ‘homme-carrefour’, caught up in key twentieth-century events and yet also having a vital influence on them. 3 Maritain’s works: List of abbreviations Christianisme et démocratie Christianisme et démocratie (CD) Court traité de l’existence et de l’existant Court traité (CT) De Bergson à Thomas D’Aquin De Bergson (DB) De l’Eglise du Christ De l’Eglise du Christ (DE) Humanisme intégral Humanisme intégral (HI) Le Mystère d’Israël et autres essais Le Mystère d’Israël (LM) Le Paysan de la Garonne Le Paysan de la Garonne (PG) Man and the State Man and the State (MS) Primauté du Spirituel Primauté du Spirituel (PS) Reflections on America Reflections on America (RA) Sept leçons sur l’être et les premiers principes de la raison spéculative Sept leçons (SL) Une Opinion sur Charles Maurras et le devoir des Catholiques Une Opinion (UO) Correspondance with Charles Journet: Correspondance Volume V 1958-1964 Correspondance V (COV) Correspondance Volume VI 1965-1973 Correspondance VI (COVI) 4 Introduction Jacques Maritain (1882-1973) was a prominent French Catholic philosopher, whose broad and prolific output, besides over fifty books on a wide range of topics, numerous articles and volumes of letters to well-known contemporaries, included apparently, according to a number of commentators, a significant contribution to the drafting of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Although now considered a somewhat ‘dusty’ name in France 1 except for certain opportunistic borrowings from his canon of work, Maritain, who spent two decades in the United States, was and is still widely-read and admired in both North and South America. Furthermore, a rumour persists that he and his wife, Raïssa, are in the early stages of canonisation by the Catholic Church.2 Thus, outside his homeland he is regarded still in many quarters as a man of influence. This was once the case in France too; he was a key figure in intellectual circles in 1920s Paris, de Gaulle sought him out and pressured him to write emotionally-charged propaganda during the Second World War as well as sending him to Rome as the French Papal envoy when the war was over, and in his later years he ignited a brief but frenzied storm in the wake of the Second Vatican Council with the publication of his self-declared ‘testament’, Le Payson de la Garonne.3 The reasons for Maritain’s reputational decline in France are perhaps merely prosaic; nothing more than a reflection of changing preferences. As this thesis will show, for most of his life Maritain was an intransigent Thomistic Catholic wedded to dogma 1 Thomas Molnar, ‘Le Paysan de la Garonne’, The Catholic World, Vol. 204 (Mar. 1967), 368-371 (p.371). 2 The clearest indication is to be found on the news website ‘Rome Reports’ (8th February 2011) in the item ‘Beatification process for Jacques and Raïssa Maritain could begin’. 3 Jacques Maritain, Le Paysan de la Garonne : Un vieux laïc s’interroge à propos du temps présent (Paris : Desclée De Brouwer, 1966). Henceforth Le Paysan de la Garonne (PG). 5 and to the search for ‘truth’ and he had little time himself for changing fads and fashions in theology. His tone could be harsh and his philosophy both uncompromising and opaque. These qualities might struggle to engage the support of a modern audience. Yet within Maritain there is a tension which explains why some readers admire him today. Sitting alongside his theological constancy (or rigidity, depending on one’s outlook) is a social and political openness which shows Maritain ready to engage with all men, regardless of religious persuasion. It is this spirit that is captured in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and which endears him to so many, and it is the reflection of this generosity of heart as an exemplary Catholic ‘lay person’ that, if rumour is to be believed, may help him reach the threshold of potential sainthood. Yet even these qualities (and the achievements that have arisen from them) do not appear to have found favour in present-day France. After the controversy caused by Le Paysan de la Garonne in 1966, the conclusion to which appeared to be, in France at least, that Maritain was hopelessly out of touch with modern life, he almost disappeared from French public consciousness. The thesis will examine the many possible causes of Maritain’s fractured reputation. It will show that the first likely contributory factor is the different geopolitical climates that exist and have existed
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