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Entry: The Neocons and Charles Maurras Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/leo_strauss_the_neocons_and_charles_maurras#6560 Post contents: Jacques Maritain did not break with Charles Maurras until the very late 1920s. Maritain wrote three very fine books prior to that rupture: ANTIMODERNE, THEONAS and his more well-known TROIS REFORMATEURS (1929). I believe they have been translated into English. Maritain actually attacked the Sillonistes both in ANTIMODERNE (implicitly) and in other writings prior to the break. What is more, Maritain began to question much of his Christian Democratic philosophy late in his life. Indeed, his testamentary LE PAYSANNE DE LA GARONNE reads almost as a recantation, in part, of his romance with la democratie chretien. There are several excellent contemporary critiques of Maritain and Christian Democracy that I would recommend as a corrective: First, Leopoldo Palacios. EL MITO DE LA NUEVA CRISTIANDAD (Ediciones RIALP, Madrid); Jules Meinvielle. DE LAMENNAIS A MARITAIN (Ed. Theoria, Buenos Aires, 1967); Robert Havard de la Montagne. HISTORIA DE LA DEMOCRACIA CRISTIANA (Editorial Tradicionalista, Madrid, 1950; translated from the French edition); and several works by Prof. Charles De Koninck (who, if I am not mistaken, once taught at Laval or Quebec?). All of these are written from a traditionalist and Catholic point of view. Finally, I would recommend the works of Jean Ousset and the old La Cite Catholique, who published in French a number of studies on the topic. Finally, it is true, St. Pius X was presented with a document in the 1910s that would have done essentially what the Congregation of the Holy Office did in 1926, putting L'Action Francaise on the Index. However. he refused to sign it, although admitting the problematic and even neo-pagan nature of some of the elements in Action Francaise. Rather, he issued his very broad and strong condemnation of Christian Democracy, NOTRE CHARGE APOSTOLIQUE, instead, in which Marc Sangnier and his <<Le Sillon>> movement were condemned. It was the <depuration> of certain texts of Maurras and the willingness of Action Francaise to submit to Rome, and Rome's re-evaluation of Action Francaise, that prompted the Vatican to lift all condemnations and bans in July of 1939. M. Lucien Thomas, in his magisterial L'ACTION FRANCAISE DEVANT L'EGLISE, reproduces all of the correspondence exchanges, all the documents and agreements in full. As a result, the Church rescinded the prohibitions of 1926. There was also, I would venture, the intervention of Grace, as one can read in the correspondence reproduced by M. Thomas, for the Soeurs of the Carmel of Lisieux played an important role not only in the full rapprochement, but also in the eventual and fervent personal conversion of Maurras to the Church. Sent at: 2008 05 16