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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence
The Liberty Of The Church: Source, Scope And Scandal, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
The Liberty Of The Church: Source, Scope And Scandal, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
This article was presented at a conference, and is part of a symposium, on "The Freedom of the Church in the Modern Era." The article argues that the liberty of the Church, libertas Ecclesiae, is not a mere metaphor, pace the views of some other contributions to the conference and symposium and of the mentality mostly prevailing over the last five hundred years. The argument is that the Church and her directly God-given rights are ontologically irreducible in a way that the rights of, say, the state of California or even of the United States are not. Based on a …
Resisting The Grand Coalition In Favor Of The Status Quo By Giving Full Scope To The Libertas Ecclesiae, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Resisting The Grand Coalition In Favor Of The Status Quo By Giving Full Scope To The Libertas Ecclesiae, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
This paper argues that questions about "religious freedom" must be subordinated to the fundamental principle of the liberty of the Church, libertas Ecclesiae. The First Amendment's agnosticism with respect to the liberty of the Church is not ultimately normative. Catholics and others who merely seek religious "accommodation," as with the HHS mandate, for example, are agents of a status quo that illegitimately has comfortable self-preservation as its highest value. It is Catholic doctrine that "creation was for the sake of the Church," not for the sake of, say, religious freedom. The paper argues that the contingent constitution of …
“Religious Freedom,” The Individual Mandate, And Gifts: On Why The Church Is Not A Bomb Shelter, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
“Religious Freedom,” The Individual Mandate, And Gifts: On Why The Church Is Not A Bomb Shelter, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
The Health and Human Services' regulatory requirement that all but a narrow set of "religious" employers provide contraceptives to employees is an example of what Robert Post and Nancy Rosenblum refer to as a growing "congruence" between civil society's values and the state's legally enacted policy. Catholics and many others have resisted the HHS requirement on the ground that it violates "religious freedom." They ask (in the words of Cardinal Dolan) to be "left alone" by the state. But the argument to be "left alone" overlooks or suppresses the fact that the Catholic Church understands that it is its role …
The Mighty Work Of Making Nations Happy: A Response To James Davison Hunter, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
The Mighty Work Of Making Nations Happy: A Response To James Davison Hunter, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
This article is an invited response to James Davison Hunter’s much-discussed book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010). Hunter, a sociologist at UVA and a believing Protestant, claims that law’s capacity to contribute to social change is “mostly illusory” and that Christians, therefore, should practice “faithful presence” in the public square rather than seek to influence law directly. My response is that it is, in fact, law’s stunning ability to alter and limit available choices that makes it an object of deservedly fierce contest. The wild …