Revisiting Maritain in the Present Context—A Response to Gilbrian Stoy, Travis Knoll, and Brian Boyd

Abstract

In this article, William Cavanaugh responds to Brian Boyd’s critique of Cavanaugh’s use of Jacques Maritain’s work in Cavanaugh’s book Torture and Eucharist. The article reassesses Maritain’s views on the state, the church, and the laity in light of Boyd’s analysis, which accepts Cavanaugh’s critique of Maritain on the state but rebuts aspects of Cavanaugh’s critique of Maritain’s views on the church and the laity. Cavanaugh accepts some of Boyd’s rebuttals, such as his defense of Maritain’s views on the formation of laity and the temporal authority of bishops, but Cavanaugh pushes back on others, such as Maritain’s views on the relationship of ends to means and eternity to time. After discussing the differences among Maritain’s context, the context of Pinochet’s Chile, and the present context of the church in Latin America and Europe, Cavanaugh argues for a different form of Christian politics that rises from the grassroots rather than tries to sway elites.