Raïssa Maritain: Pilgrim, Poet, Exile

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Jacques wrote, discussing their vow of perpetual continence:

It was after taking long counsel with Father Clérissac[, O.P., who told Raïssa to read the Summa Theologica when she was 26 ☺], and with his approval and advice, that by mutual agreement, we decided to renounce a thing which in marriage fulfills not only a deep need of the human being both of body and of spirit but is lawful and good in itself, and at the same time we renounced the hope of being survived by sons and daughters. I do not say that such a decision was easy to take. It implied no scorn for nature, but in our course toward the Absolute and our desire to follow at any price at least one of the counsels of the perfect life while at the same time remaining in the world we wanted to clear the way completely for our search for contemplation and union with God; and for this precious pearl to sell other goods of great value in themselves. The hope of such a goal gave us wings. We also sensed, and this has been one of the great graces of our life, that the strength and depths of our mutual love would be infinitely increased by this.1

1. 1. Quoted in Julie Kernan, Our Friend Jacques Maritain (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975, pp. 46-47. The explanation appears on p. 27 of the privately printed edition of the Journal de Raïssa (1962), but was deleted from the definitive edition (1963). I have chosen to quote the Kernan translation rather than provide my own because Jacques felt strongly about the accuracy of each word used to discuss this issue of profound personal importance to him, and he approved Kernan's version. Further references to Our Friend Jacques Maritain are designated by the name Kernan.

Cf. also his Carnet de Notes [Notebooks] ch. "Love and Friendship," which Kernan p. 47fn2 says

explain[s] the matter [of their vow of perpetual continence] more fully, not as a philosopher or a theologian but "as an old man who had seen many things." In this chapter he distinguished the different forms of love, and makes clear that in no way did he consider intercourse in marriage as an obstacle to the mystical life or to contemplation. [Coitus/marriage are "impedimenta actus caritatis ," "tamen caritati non contrariantur " (II-II q. 184 a. 3 co.)]. Yet he and Raïssa had come to consider that there was an absolute form of love—he calls it amour fou ("mad," or boundless love)—which one cannot hold at the same time for God and for a human being "even when, remaining within the bonds of marriage, they do not renounce that unique and sacred love of man and woman…"

They were married about a decade before taking the vow. Considering Maritain's close friendships with sodomites (Martel ch. 7), his "integral," worship-of-man humanism, and St. Peter Damian's disapproval of such vows (Elliott p. 96n11*), despite his promotion of St. Alexius, who renounced his unconsummated marriage, as well as St. Peter Martyr, O.P.'s opinion on 1 Cor. 7:5, I'm leery to praise the Maritains for their public vow. It appears the Hildebrands, who were childless, may have lived in such a marriage, but Dietrich clearly supported contraception, and Maritain appeared to have been a silent dissenter on contraception.

*cf. p. 103 for a quite entertaining quote by St. Damian on clerics' illicitly-married wives; he's right in calling them those names ∵ they certainly practiced abortion and contraception; Elliott correctly calls him an antifeminist.

However, St. Paulinus of Nola and his wife Therasia did make such a public (it seems because of property rights) vow, after the death of their only child, with the encouragement of Sts. Augustine and Jerome (Letter 53, 11.), but he ended up living at a monastery he founded in Nola, near Naples, thus not perpetually cohabiting with Therasia.

I'm not opposed to virginal marriage, unconsummated political marriages, or vowed virginity among the celibate living in the world (cf. Lessius 1621, which I discovered in John Lane's e-book library), but publicly vowed perpetual continence among cohabiting marrieds seems to align with Vatican II's redefinition of the primary end of marriage to be "love" and not procreation—and akin to the "co-ed" subintroductæ scandals of the early Church, which were eventually solemnly condemned, or to the Abelite heresy, which St. Augustine condemned (De Haeresibus §87).

Sts. Joseph and Mary did not publicly vow virginity, which attests to their humility. (Cf. Validity of Virginal Marriage, a fascinating study on what exactly is the essence of marriage, and "Are Catholics allowed to leave marriage in order to become a monk or nun?")

[ Of course I do not endorse Maritain when it comes to politics and the "dignity of the human person" (cf. Julio Meinvielle's discussion of Maritain's "dignidad de la persona humana " in Critica de la concepción de Maritain sobre la persona humana; cf. also his Correspondance avec le R.P. Garrigou-Lagrange a propos de Lamennais et Maritain).

Sel de la terre n°107 has an article on the CDF's response to ++Lefebvre's 39 dubia on Dignitatis Humanæ , and it's ridiculous how the anonymous Modernist "theologian" responding invoked "dignity of the human person" to justify all DH 's novelties. It, more so than Assisi, convinced ++Lefebvre to consecrate in '88.

Just because someone has what Steven A. Long calls a "substantive dignity" (vs. an "acquired dignity" of which he claims II-II q. 64 ad 3 speaks) does not mean that simply being a human being can justify the supposed civil right to spread error. "Errors have no rights." ]

Also, check out this, this, and this Christianity.SE answers; I'm glad people are asking more spiritual theology questions.

felix festum Ss. Philippi et Jacobi Apostolorum

Maritain wrote a vary glaring contradiction, equivalent to saying "Contraception won't be contraception" in the future! From the fulltext of the article:

In the future we may very well have contraceptive techniques which will make it possible to avoid procreation, all the while leaving to the sexual act its full normality and its finality in the exercise of that act.

The very definition of contraception is to impede the finality of the act, not to engage in "actus per se aptos ad prolis generationem " (can. 1081 §2)!

Also, Casti Connubii 's condemnation of contraception is infallible.