French Catholic Intellectuals Research Articles

Bruckberger: L’enfant terrible by Bernard and Bernadette Chovelon (review)

Bruckberger: L'enfant terrible. By Bernard and Bernadette Chovelon. (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf. 2011. Pp. 286. euro20,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-204-09240-1.)The French Dominican Raymond-Leopold Bruckberger (1907-98) described himself as an unworthy priest. But he also established a transatlantic reputation as cultural critic, renowned author, cinematic artiste, member of the French Resistance, bon vivant, and-as his successor in the Academie francaise put it-enfant terrible of the Church. Bernard and Bernadette Chovelon have written their biography Bruckberger: L'enfant terrible to convey to readers in the twenty-first century a sense of this turbulent priest's unconditional love for Jesus Christ that traversed the numerous and violent tempests of his life without ever weakening (p. 11).Bruckberger's life began in the southern French town of Murat, the fourth of five children bom to an Austrian industrialist father and the daughter of a local cafe owner. The family was left destitute when Franck Bruckberger was arrested in 1914 as an enemy alien. Poverty and shame clouded the remainder of Raymond's childhood. His mother's sorrow and bittemess were exacerbated by the fact that her husband never rejoined the family after the war, years passing before it was revealed that he had resettled in his native land. The authors emphasize young Bruckberger's conflicted relationship with his absent father and see in this early trauma the catalyst for his combative spirit, intense creativity, fervent patriotism, and restless search for love. His Catholic faith became a sure refuge within an otherwise rootless life.Entering the Dominican order in 1929, Bruckberger was ordained a priest in 1934. His work editing the Revue thomiste in Paris brought him into collaborative contact with French Catholic intellectuals such as the philosopher Jacques Maritain, who introduced him to the novelist Georges Bernanos, with whom he forged a deep and lasting friendship. Increasingly, Bruck craved the spotlight and would be drawn to the world of French letters and cinema. After serving with valor in the 1940 campaign, Bruckberger was taken prisoner by the Germans, escaped captivity, fled to Marseilles, and eventually joined the Resistance. He was captured and only saved from a firing squad by the personal intervention of his former commanding officer and erstwhile friend Joseph Darnand, later the commander of Vichy's paramilitary Milice. …

The Reception of French Catholic Intellectuals in Britain after the Second World War

French intellectuals had a major impact on British cultural life during the post-war years from 1945 to 1960. Among them, Catholic intellectuals were a significant group. This article seeks to reveal some patterns taken in the process of ‘diaspora of ideas’. It identifies three groups of Catholic intellectuals: philosophers such as Mounier and Marcel, writers such as Mauriac and Bernanos, and priests such as Lubac and Teilhard de Chardin. It shows that their ideas travelled through personal contacts, through the work of literary and academic commentators, and especially through published translations. They were received by a largely Catholic audience, divided between elite and working-class groups with different priorities. British publishers and their advisors scanned the French intellectual scene, selecting for translation those items that seemed most relevant to British concerns. They largely ignored or neglected historical, political or institutional issues specific to the French context, and used French ideas to assist them in addressing key issues in Britain.

French Catholic Intellectuals and the Nation in Post-War France

What did the nation represent for Catholic intellectuals in postwar France? This simple question masks series of issues which are difficult to resolve. The first issue is matter of chronology: we need to determine to what extent the post-war period was relevant moment in the development of original representations of the nation for Catholic intellectuals. In that respect, we will need to ascertain whether the political chronology-the conventional conception of the Second World War as break in French history-was parallelled by similar break in the religious field. The second issue is related to the centrality of the nation in Catholic thought; the universal claim of Catholicism, the defense of Christian West or the construction of Christian-democrat Europe could constitute powerful, alternative, ideal communities to the nation for Catholics. As such, we should try to understand how Catholics articulated their national ideals with wider allegiances. Finally, the notion of Catholic intellectuals also needs to be clarified, because it appears as contradiction in terms.' Usually, in the French context, the term intellectuel, a man of culture, acting in the political sphere, producer and consumer of ideologies,2' is strongly associated with the secular tradition and implies direct and critical engagement in politics. Conversely, Catholics tend to value deference towards authority, be it political or religious, and could be tempted to reject politics in the name of higher spiritual motivations. Although it is relatively easy to single out individual Catholic intellectuals (Frangois Mauriac or PierreHenri Simon for instance) it is difficult to grasp what they as group consisted of and to understand whether it is their faith or other factors that explains their political orientation and the form they give to it.

« Intellectuels catholiques » ? Réflexions sur une naissance différée

"Intellectual Catholics"? History of a Postponed Birth, Etienne Fouilloux. How can it be explained that French catholic intellectuals did not have an official body before the 1945 creation of the Centre catholique des intellectuels français (CCIF) (Catholic Center of French Intellectuals) ? The first obstacle was French. At the time of the Dreyfus affair, the Catholics took objection to the word "intellectual, because it was associated with a Dreyfusard fight that the majority of them didn't share. This incompatibility continued in the period between the two wars, in spite of a renewal marked by the flowering of Catholic-inspired intellectual journals, in spite also of the waves of conversions from 1880 to 1930. On the Catholic side, the inheritance of the modernist crisis discredited any autonomy of Catholic thinkers with regard to the religious Catholic authorities. Theologians were relegated to the role of the training of Catholic elites and of the explanation of pontifical texts that kept them outside of intellectual debate. While the condemnation of the Action française in 1926 released the stranglehold and gave the floor to "civil theologians", it was after 1945 that the church became aware of the wrongs that this marginalization was subjecting it to. The involvement of Catholic intellectuals in public debate showed the interest of hearing a Christian voice without in-volving Rome directly. The intellectuals fully in the 1950 fights, but the reciprocal suspicion between them and the religious authorities inherited from previous decades never disappeared.

French Catholic intellectuals during the Occupation

Among the images of chagrin and pitie, the tales of bravery and treachery, little is to be heard of the French Catholic intellectuals. Even in the post-war polemics which intermittently summoned one or other of them to declare 'dans quel camp etes-vous?' there is no resounding myth of their war-time record, and no convenient summary account of their actions during the period. The starting point of this study is therefore to ask: what did French Catholic intellectuals do during the Occupation? The question appears simple enough, but on examination the simple answers appear ...

French Catholic intellectuals during the Occupation

French Catholic intellectuals during the Occupation

Review. Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals. Doering, Bernard

Review. Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals. Doering, Bernard

REVIEWS

REVIEWS Get access Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals. By BERNARD DOERING. Notre Dame-London: University of Notre Dame Press. 1983. 268 pp. RICHARD GRIFFITHS RICHARD GRIFFITHS CARDIFF Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar French Studies, Volume XLI, Issue 4, October 1987, Pages 476–477, https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/XLI.4.476 Published: 01 October 1987

Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals. By Bernard Doering

Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals. By Bernard Doering

<sc>laurence k. shook</sc>. <italic>Etienne Gilson</italic>. (Etienne Gilson Series, number 6.) Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. 1984. Pp. x, 412. $25.00 and <sc>bernard e. doering</sc>. <italic>Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals</italic>. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 1983. Pp. x, 268. $22.95

Journal Article laurence k. shook. Etienne Gilson. (Etienne Gilson Series, number 6.) Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. 1984. Pp. x, 412. $25.00 and bernard e. doering. Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 1983. Pp. x, 268. $22.95 Get access Shook Laurence K.. Etienne Gilson. (Etienne Gilson Series, number 6.) Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. 1984. Pp. x, 412. $25.00Doering Bernard E.. Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 1983. Pp. x, 268. $22.95. Hellman John Hellman John McGill University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 90, Issue 5, December 1985, Page 1213, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/90.5.1213 Published: 01 December 1985

Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals

Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals

Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals, by Bernard Doering

<i>Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals</i>, by Bernard Doering

Book Review: Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals

Book Review: Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals

Maritain and Mounier: A Secret Quarrel Over the Future of the Church

The hesitancy of French Catholic intellectuals to engage in public quarrels, and speak ill of their dead, has led to the forgetting of arguments and divergences of great importance to the background of Vatican II. It has been widely assumed that France's two most influential Christian intellectuals of the mid-century, Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mounier, worked hand in glove to promote what one historian has called a common “French Catholic Understanding of the Modern World.”* In fact, however, letters and diaries only known after the two principals were dead, have revealed deep differences between the two men at a decisive point in the evolution of modern French intellectual life. Maritain's reservations about the left-wing Catholicism and ecumenism of his younger friends remain quite relevant in our own day. In fact Maritain had, and kept, serious reservations about the new kind of Catholicism which Mounier and his new review Esprit articulated in the early nineteen-thirties but kept them private largely because of the secret danger of a known ecclesiastical condemnation for Esprit.