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Full-Text Articles in Law
Equality, Conscience, And The Liberty Of The Church: Justifying The Controversiale Per Controversialius, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Equality, Conscience, And The Liberty Of The Church: Justifying The Controversiale Per Controversialius, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
This paper considers the central normative claim of Martha Nussbaum’s Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality, viz., that the U.S. Constitution’s religion clauses should be construed to provide equal (and extensive) protection to the vulnerable human faculty called conscience. The paper argues that Nussbaum’s argument from Rawlsian political liberalism that leads to her normative constitutional claim amounts, perversely, to an attempt to justify the controversial by the more controversial. The paper goes on to argue that while equality and conscience are concepts that are reasonably contested, Nussbaum illegitimately gives them priority over the also reasonably …
How The Separation Of Powers Doctrine Shaped The Executive, Louis J. Sirico Jr.
How The Separation Of Powers Doctrine Shaped The Executive, Louis J. Sirico Jr.
Working Paper Series
This Article examines the debates of the Founders over the separation of powers doctrine as it relates to the executive branch. After surveying the experience in the colonies and under the post-Revolutionary state constitutions, it analyzes the relevant issues at the Constitutional Convention. Rather than focusing on abstract discussions of political theory, the article examines specific decisions and controversies in which separation of powers was a concern. The Article offers a detailed recounting of those debates. At the Convention, separation of powers arose most prominently in the arguments over nine issues: choosing the Executive, permitting the Executive to stand for …
Differentiating Church And State (Without Losing The Church), Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Differentiating Church And State (Without Losing The Church), Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
There is an ongoing debate about whether the U.S. Constitution includes -- or should be interpreted to include -- a principle of "church autonomy." Catholic doctrine and political theology, by contrast, clearly articulated a principle of "libertas ecclesiae," liberty of the church, when during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Church differentiated herself from the state. This article explores the meaning and origin of the doctrine of the libertas ecclesiae and the proper relationship among churches, civil society, and government. In doing so, it highlights the points at which church and state should cooperate and the points at which …