Feminized Suffering in Modern French Catholicism: Raïssa Maritain (1883–1960) and Léon Bloy (1846–1917)

This essay examines the relationship between femininity, suffering, and holiness in the writings of two French Catholic Revival intellectuals, Léon Bloy and Raïssa Maritain. Much of the recent English-language scholarship analyzes the prominent place suffering holds in modern French Catholicism in terms of the doctrine of vicarious suffering. Here I seek to understand Maritain’s and Bloy’s texts in relation to other theological and literary currents, such as the decadent movement and the French School of Spirituality. Ultimately, I show how Raïssa Maritain, one of the few female writers of the French Catholic Revival, exerted creative intervention onto the discourse linking suffering, women, and holiness with her discovery of Thomas Aquinas and her prioritization of the faculty of the intellect.