“Hence the particular problem now before us, which can be formulated as follows: should a new Christendom, in the conditions of the historical age on which we are entering, while incarnating the same (analogical) principles, be conceived as belonging to an essentially (specifically) distinct type from that of the mediaeval world? “

The question is posed on page 133 of the recently published English edition of Maritain's Humanisme intégrale. In its context the “now before us” refers only to one stage— albeit a crucial stage—in the argument of that great book. But I would suggest that it has a far wider significance. For I think that this is the vital question which now confronts Christian social thought and action, a question which calls imperiously for a clear answer. For so long as we fail to answer it, or so long as we answer it contradictorily, our social efforts must lack unity of aim and direction. So long shall we be disastrously divided into muckers-in and muckers-out and muckers-along. So long will there be hostile and irreconcilable “schools of integration” and “schools of separation.” So long will the latter charge the former with compromise with the world and the flesh and with ignoring the devil, and the former regard the latter as escapist saboteurs. So long will there be “Right” Catholics who quite honestly doubt the sincerity of the Catholicity of their brethren on the “Left,” and so long will there be “Left” Catholics who only with difficulty can regard their brethren on the “Right” as deserving the name of Christian.