The philosopher Jean-Luc Marion has been elected to the Académie Française, filling the chair vacated in August 2007 by the death of Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger. Renowned for his scholarship on Descartes, Marion is one of the great Catholic intellectuals of our time. In its article announcing his election, Le Monde noted “It is not only a great teacher who will sit among the Immortals . . . it is also a Catholic thinker who has never concealed his religious commitment nor discussed his loyalty to the Church and the Pope,” which I take to mean that he does not make a show of his faith (courtesy of the University of Chicago ). For more information on Marion, see Thomas Hibbs’ FT review of Counter-Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion by Kevin Hart.
