Aquinas and Virtuous Pagans

Every day, all of us engage with family, friends, and neighbors whose beliefs about God and the good life differ substantially from our own. We do so at home, at work, at church, in school, and most everyplace else. Your neighbor across the street is a devout Muslim, and your yoga instructor two doors down is a devout Krista Tippet listener who professes a deep and capacious (if somewhat vague) spirituality, yet both of them dedicated themselves wholeheartedly with you to cleaning up the park down the road. How shall we think about these differences in belief? Shall we conclude that religious differences with neighbors do not really matter, since they are evidently good people who happen to believe different things? Or, if we are convinced of the difference that Christian faith and practice makes for the moral life, must we conclude that what look like virtues in non-Christian neighbors are not really virtues after all? Must we choose between the importance of what we care about and believe in and the goodness of those who hold otherwise? Is there a third way?