Maritain was an orthodox Catholic philosopher and a traditional Thomist (following the Angelic Doctor’s great Dominican commentators such as Cajetan, John of St. Thomas, and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange). In no way can he be called a heretic by what he taught as a Catholic philosopher. By all accounts, as well, he and his wife Raissa were examples of personal devoutness and holiness. (When Raissa died, Jacques spent his remaining years in a Dominican monastery.) Reading his books, you can rest assured that you are getting the real deal.
Maritain was considered by many to be something of a “liberal” in his heyday, but only because in his day favoring democracy over monarchism (which he did) and the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (he had his hand in them) were considered to be “liberal” stances. (In today’s climate, he would probably be considered an arch-conservative.)
When Maritain published his final book, 1968’s The Peasant of the Garonne: An Old Layman Questions Himself about the Present Time, at the age of 85, he apparently shocked and appauled many genuine liberals in the Catholic Church – those who went much “further” in their beliefs and practices (and were trying to get the Church to go even further) than what the Second Vatican Council intended. They had always assumed that Maritain was one of them, but here Maritain was tearing them all a new one with an unsparing criticism of the post-conciliar Church, a Church pathetically “on its knees before the secular world.” They thought the old man had gone mad.
Fact is, Maritain was who he was throughout his life. He never changed; it was the radical liberal priests, nuns, and laity following Vatican II who had changed.
