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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
The 1930's posed difficult moral problems for European Catholics. First came Mussolini's questionable adventure in belated colonialism in Ethiopia. Then the war in Spain suddenly, and with piercing sharpness, posed the moral problems of civil war. For the most influential Catholic thinker of his time, Jacques Maritain, the war in Spain was a challenging difficulty. Though Maritain openly refused his allegiance to Franco, and thereby became a scandal to Catholics horrified by the Spanish republic's attacks on the official Church, his reflections on Spain gave impetus to a current of thought in Catholic circles that culminated in the declaration of the Second Vatican Council on the relations between church and state. Hence, as so often happens, a time of confusion and fraternal strife was also a time of clarification, and a time of despair broadened into a time of hope.
1 Some of the prominent Catholic intellectuals in this group were Paul Claudel, Henri Bordeaux, Henri Massis, Gaeton Bernoville, Jean Guiraud, General de Castelnau, Robert Brasillach, Pierre Gaxotte, Jacques Bainville, Vice Admiral Joubert, Thierry Maulnier, J.-P. Maxence.
2 Ramon Sugranyes de Franch speaks of this leadership “so courageous and perhaps lonely, yet so perfectly coherent with the ensemble of his teaching” (“Jacques Maritain et la guerre civile d'Espagne,” Notes et Documents [October-December 1979]).
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5 Heppenstall, Rayner, The Double Image (London, 1947), p. 15.Google Scholar
6 Jackson, Gabriel, The Spanish Republic and the Civil War (Princeton, 1965), p. 385Google Scholar: Thomas, Hugh, The Spanish Civil War (New York, 1977), p. 449Google Scholar: Pattee, Richard, This Is Spain (Milwaukee, 1951), pp. 193–195.Google Scholar
7 Iswolsky, Helen, Light before Dusk (New York, 1942), p. 195.Google Scholar
8 Maritain, J., Carnet de Notes (Paris, 1965), p. 233.Google Scholar
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12 Confederacion Espagnola de Derechas Autonomas: a federation of small strongly Catholic and Rightist parties grouped under the leadership of Gil Robles.
13 Joseph Desclausaia published in La Revue universelle (15 June and 1 July 1936) and then in book form (Plon) his Primauté de I'être: Religion et politique. Louis Salleron reviewed Humanisme intégral in La Revue hebdomadaire (August 22) with the subtitle “M. Jacques Maritain, marxiste-chrétien.” Etienne Borne came to Maritain's defense against these attacks in La Vie intellectuelle (September 25) with an article “De quelques precédés nouveaux de polémique philosophique.”
14 Lassaigne, J., “L ‘Espagne sera-t-elle fasciste!” Sept, 21 04 1934.Google Scholar
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16 Scrutator, Sept, 19 October 1934.
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18 Bernanos, G., Nous autre Français (Paris, 1939), p. 137.Google Scholar
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29 Mauriac, F., Paroles catholiques (Paris, 1954), p. 32.Google Scholar
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31 Le Figaro, 26 May 1966.
32 In 1929 Maritain, Mauriac and Du Bos collaborated to found the periodical Vigile. (Du Bos, C., Journal, 5, [26 11 1929])Google Scholar. In 1939 Mauriac, along with Du Bos and Gabriel Marcel, became an enthusiastic supporter of the committee organized by the Maritains to promote the music of Arthur Lourié. Mauriac in fact became president of the committee. (Journal de Raïssa, p. 220, 20 April 1934.) They all took the same position on the Ethiopian war.
33 25 July 1936.
34 Le Figaro, 20 June 1938.
35 Sept, 21 January 1927.
36 Le Figaro, 18 August 1936.
37 Iswolsky, Light before Dusk, p. 194.
38 Among those who signed were: François Mauriac, Charles Du Bos, Stanislas Fumet, Helen Iswolsky, Olivier Lacombe, Jacques Madaule, Gabriel Marcel, Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Mounier, Boris de Scholezer, Pierre van der Meer de Walcheren, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Claude Bourdet, Paul Vignaux, Pierre-Henri Simon, Etienne Borne, Elie Beaussart, Luigi Sturzo.
39 La Croix, 8 May 1937; Sept, 14 May 1937; Esprit, 1 June 1937.
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42 Sept, 28 May 1937.
43 See especially Le Figaro, 17 June 1937.
44 Esprit, 5 (1 July 1937), 648.
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46 Maritain specifically stated in footnote to one of the only three articles he wrote directly on the war in Spain that the article in question, “Exister avec le peuple,” as well as another, “D'un nouvel humanisme ou d'un humanisme integral” (Bulletin de l'Union pour la vérité, 44, June 1937, pp. 359–418), made perfectly clear his personal position regarding the civil war in Spain, though these two articles were meant to treat in a more general fashion and according to eventualities that might take place in other countries of Europe, the problems that the current crisis of civilization posed for the individual conscience. Both of these articles were published in the Spanish periodical Sur Cf. Maritain, J. “De la guerre sainte,” La Nouvelle revue fran¸aise, 49 (1 07 1937), 34, footnote #2.Google Scholar
47 Esprit, 5 (1 03 1937), p. 953f.Google Scholar
48 Claudel's poem was originally published as a preface to an anonymous account of the persecution of the Church in Spain: La Persécution religieuse en Espagne, Po
e-préface de Claudel, P. (Paris: Plon, 1937).Google Scholar
49 Coutrot, A., Un Courant de la pensée catholique (Paris, 1961), p. 210.Google Scholar
50 Quoted by Remond, R., Les Catholiques, le communisme et les crises (Paris, 1960), p. 202.Google Scholar
51 This article also appeared as the preface to a book by Maritain's close friend Alfred Mendizabal, Aux origines d'une tragédie: la politique espagnole de 1923 a 1936.
52 Cf. the contributions of Bernanos to Sept which later made up the first part of Les grands cimetières, the “billets” of Mauriac to Sept and his articles in Le Figaro, the editorials of Sept (e.g., 8 January 1937), or the articles “la question d'espagne inconnue” by J. M. de Semprun Gurrea and “Double refus” by A. M. V. (Mendizabal) published in Esprit (1 November 1936).
53 Maritain, J., “De la guerre sainte,” La Nouvelle revue française, 49 (1 07 1937), p. 23.Google Scholar
54 Ibid., pp. 22, 30, 32.
55 Ibid., p. 25.
56 Ibid., p. 25–26.
57 Ibid., p. 26–27.
58 Ibid., p. 29.
59 Mounier, E., Esprit, 5 (1 07 1937), p. 645.Google Scholar
60 The letter did not express the unanimous opinion of the Spanish hierarchy. “The absence of two episcopal signatures was noticed immediately: the Cardinal-Archbishop of Tarragona, in Catalonia, Francesc Vidal y Barraquer, and the Bishop of Vitoria, in the Basque country, Msgr. Mateo Mugica, both of them in exile because of the persecution by the Reds, and hence free to make their own decisions, had refused to sign” (cf. Ramon Sugranyes de Franch, ‘Jacques Maritain et la Guerre Civile d'Espagne,” p. 5).
61 Claudel, P., Contacts et circonstances (Paris, 1947), p. 102.Google Scholar
62 Ibid., p. 105.
63 Ibid., p. 106.
64 Ibid., p. 107.
65 Joubert, H., La Guerre d'Espagne et le catholicisme (Paris, 1937), pp. 7 and 45.Google Scholar
66 The complete statement which served as the constitution of the committee was published in Esprit, 5 (1 July 1937), p. 651. The board of directors of the French committee consisted of: Msgr. Beaupin, George Duhamel, Dr. de Fresquet, Daniel Halévy, Louis Le Fur, Jacques Madaule, Gabriel Marcel, Jacques Maritain, Louis Massignon, François Mauriac, Emmanuel Mounier, Paul Vignaux and Claude Bourdet, secretary.
67 “An Interview with Jacques Maritain,” Commonweal, 29 (3 02 1939), p. 400.Google Scholar
68 Ibid., p. 399.
69 Sept, 28 May 1937.
70 Bernanos, Nous autres Français, p. 247.
71 Coutrot, Un Courant de la pensée catholique, pp. 287–95.
72 Roux, Charles-F., Huit ans au Vatican (Paris, 1947), p. 41.Google Scholar
73 Ibid., p. 181.
74 Ibid., p. 91.
75 Coutrot, Un Courant de la pensée catholique, pp. 292–95.
76 It may be apropos to recall here that Catholics were forbidden by the Vatican under penalty of being refused the sacraments to read or to contribute to Action Française.
77 T. Molnar, Bernanos, His Political Thought and Prophesy, p. 110.
78 Ibid., pp. 106 and 113.
79 R. J. North, Le Catholicisme, p. 65.
80 Massis, H., Maurras et notre temps (Paris, 1951), II: 109.Google Scholar
81 R. Pattee, This Is Spain, p. 195; and Sugranyes de Franch, “Jacques Maritain et la guerre civile d'espagne,” p. 5.
82 Dingle, “French Catholics and Politics,” p. 141.
83 Maritain, Carnet de notes, p. 232.
84 Ibid., p. 231.
85 December 31, 1937. Ramon Sugranyes de Franch makes the following remark about this article: “… these three questions are the core of a whole system of political morality and … the response that one gives to them, positive or negative, depends essentially on one's acceptance or rejection of the new ‘order’ that the Nazis, the Fascists and the Communists proposed at that time to an anaemic Europe” (Jacques Maritain et la guerre civile d'espagne,” p. 6).
86 Dingle, “French Catholic and Politics,” p. 140.
87 Mauriac, F., “Mis au point,” Figaro, 30 06 1938.Google Scholar
