Jacques Maritain, who was born in Paris in 1882 and died in 1973, converted to Catholicism in his 24th year. In 1914 he was appointed to the Chair of Modern Philosophy in the Institute Catholique de Paris; in 1945 he became the French ambassador to the Vatican; in 1947 he addressed UNESCO on the topics of pluralism and democracy; and in 1948 he took up a post at Princeton where he remained until he retired.