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Marianist Law Schools: Demonstrating The Courage To Be Catholic, David A. Grenardo

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

Only two Marianist law schools exist in the United States. Both University of Dayton School of Law (UDSL) and St. Mary’s University School of Law (St. Mary’s Law School) proudly embrace their Catholic and Marianist traditions in promoting their schools. For instance, St. Mary’s Law School, the only Catholic law school in Texas, openly advertises its commitment to welcome and serve “students of all faiths and uphold the Marianist tradition of hospitality, openness and the family spirit.” Similarly, UDSL’s online published materials state unequivocally: “In the Catholic, Marianist spirit, many of our students participate in pro bono activities and …

A Light Unseen: The History Of Catholic Legal Education In The United States: A Response To Our Colleagues And Critics, John M. Breen, Lee J. Strang

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

We are enormously grateful to the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies for hosting the conference on February 14, 2020, dedicated to a review of our book manuscript, A Light Unseen: The History of Catholic Legal Education in the United States, and for publishing the papers of the conference participants. We are also grateful for the opportunity to offer some reply in the pages of the Journal. A Light Unseen sets forth a comprehensive history of the book’s subject matter. The book describes the purposes for which Catholic law schools were founded, the schools maturation and success in …

How Distinctive Should Catholic Law Schools Be?, Robert K. Vischer

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

I was a teenager in the 1980s, and I was raised in evangelical Christian circles through which I was encouraged to listen to “Christian” rock music, not secular, which sometimes gave rise to some casuistic line drawing:

• Does U2 count as Christian? Yes, because of that line in Sunday Bloody Sunday about the victory Jesus won!

• How about Bob Dylan? Yes, but only during his three-album “born again” period!

• Amy Grant? Definitely, but even after she crossed over into the secular Top 40?

• Does the song need to mention Jesus? What if it mentions Jesus …

The Distinctive Questions Of Catholics In History, Amelia J. Uelmen

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

Let me start by saying how much I enjoyed working through the manuscript that Professors Breen and Strang shared with us, and how much I look forward to the development of this project on the history of Catholic legal education. My comments focus on the architecture of Chapter Three and the conceptual driver for Chapter Five. The frame for my suggestions is the challenge that emerges clearly in the 1960s when, as James Burtchaell noted, students were “drop[ping] their faith like baby teeth.” As Professors Breen and Strang summarize: “University administrators were well aware that even Catholic students were …

Reflections On A More "Catholic" Catholic Legal Education, William Michael Treanor

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

I am grateful to Professors Breen and Strang for their thoughtful book about Catholic legal education in the United States. It is an important topic, and their work promises to be a significant contribution to the conversation about the mission of Catholic law schools. My reflections here will focus on Chapter Five.

All of us participating in this symposium are engaged in the collective enterprise of thinking through and implementing what it means to be a Catholic law school. As a historian, personally I am well aware of the value of studying where we have been as part of …

Reflections On A Light Unseen, Vincent Rougeau

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

I am very pleased to have an opportunity to offer some reflections on the manuscript for A Light Unseen by Professors John Breen and Lee Strang. It is an extraordinarily comprehensive look at the history of Catholic law schools in the United States. That aspect of the work alone makes it an important contribution to the scholarship on Catholic higher education in this country, and I am sure it will become an essential resource for scholars and educators across a wide range of fields. Nevertheless, A Light Unseen is much more than a history. It also raises a critical …

Teaching Jurisprudence In A Catholic Law School, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

Jurisprudence plays an important role in John Breen and Lee Strang’s history of Catholic legal education and in their prescription for its future. Legal philosophy in general, and the natural law tradition in particular, provide a central justification for the existence of distinctive Catholic law schools. They are right to argue so. As part of the broader Catholic intellectual tradition, which emphasizes the unity of knowledge and the eternal significance of mundane practice, natural law philosophy rejects mere vocationalism. It can provide the animating form and direction of a legal education that is more than one damn thing after …

Persons And The Point Of The Law, Richard W. Garnett

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

I interviewed for a law-teaching position at Notre Dame Law School in the Fall of 1997. So far as I know, that visit to Our Lady’s university and to lovely, cosmopolitan South Bend, Indiana, was my first. I had never attended a Catholic school at any level and was not much of a Fighting Irish fan. The circumstances and conversations that resulted in my being on campus for that interview were both unpredicted and unpredictable, although I know now they were providential.

In any event, what struck me most forcefully over that weekend—besides the freezing rain that persisted throughout …

Saints, Sinners, And Scoundrels: Catholic Law Faculty And A Light Unseen: A History Of Catholic Legal Education In The United States, Teresa Stanton Collett

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

As a faculty member at a Catholic law school for the past seventeen years, I have often been frustrated with the inability of many professors and administrators at Catholic law schools to describe what makes a law school “Catholic.” As Professors Breen and Strang report in A Light Unseen: A History of Catholic Legal Education in the United States, too often the description is limited to something like “a commitment to social justice,” or “inculcating a strong sense of professional ethics.” Yet as the authors observe, “Catholic law schools do not have a monopoly on or even a …

Reflections On Breen & Strang's A Light Unseen: A History Of Catholic Legal Education In The United States, Angela C. Carmella

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

In A Light Unseen: A History of Catholic Legal Education in the United States, Professor John Breen and Professor Lee Strang have undertaken a monumental task and have produced an impressive book, particularly with respect to the fascinating history of the development of Catholic legal education. They provide a thoughtful consideration of how Catholic law schools can be more distinctively Catholic and make a strong case for the critical need for more explicit curricular and scholarly integration of the Catholic intellectual tradition. In this Essay, I make suggestions in three areas: (1) on the record regarding failed efforts …

A Light Unseen?, Kathleen M. Boozang

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

A Light Unseen is an incredibly important work of scholarship that has given me an opportunity to be introspective, to give order to what perhaps has been too intuitive, and to be inspired to think about how to better define, pursue, and measure progress in achieving the mission of being a Catholic law school.

A Light Unseen: A History Of Catholic Legal Education In The United States, Anthony Nania, Matt Dean

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

What does it mean to be a Catholic law school? Where did the idea of Catholic legal education begin, where does it currently stand, and where is it heading? Professors John M. Breen and Lee J. Strang have worked to answer these questions, among many others, in their forthcoming book A Light Unseen: A History of Catholic Legal Education in the United States. In their book, the professors argue persuasively that Catholicism is “a set of ideas” that has informed, sculpted, and birthed numerous social structures, institutions, and teachings. If this is so—if Catholicism is a wide-ranging, far-reaching …

Brennan And Brewbaker's Christian Legal Thought: Providing The Foundations For Establishment Clause Understanding, Angela C. Carmella

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

Under this approach—which clearly prioritizes the protection of religious exercise as well as the religious messages of cultural and political institutions—it appears that the Establishment Clause plays little or no role independent of the Free Exercise Clause. My question, then, is whether Christian legal thought compels us, or at least supports, such a reading of the Establishment Clause. In other words, does this lack of concern for non-establishment norms inhere in Christian legal and political thought? I look to Patrick Brennan and William Brewbaker’s casebook—Christian Legal Thought: Materials and Cases (“CLT”) —in search of a framework for exploration. …

Christian Legal Thought Comes Of Age, David A. Skeel, Jr.

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

CLT is a deeply satisfying book. It raises more questions than it answers, just as a casebook should. Perhaps most surprising, CLT looks and feels like a true casebook, a book one could actually use for a class that students might wish to take. As I worked my way through its pages, three features stuck out. I will briefly consider each, then conclude by putting the casebook in larger perspective.

The Forest And The Trees: What Educational Purposes Can A Course On Christian Legal Thought Serve?, Randy Beck

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

In this short essay, I want to consider the educational purposes a course in Christian legal thought might serve. How could having such a course in the curriculum help accomplish the goals of legal education? One can understand why a law school with a Christian identity would want to offer this sort of course. Such law schools embrace a theology that helps adherents make sense of the world, including the world of human law. The less obvious question I want to consider is why a law school that does not subscribe to a particular theological understanding of the world …

Christian Legal Thought, Liam Ray, Nicholas A. Dimarco

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

On January 26, 2018, the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies proudly hosted a conference on Christian Legal Thought: Materials and Cases a first-of-its-kind casebook authored by Patrick M. Brennan and William S. Brewbaker. Held in Manhattan at the New York Athletic Club, the conference brought together scholars from law schools across the country to discuss the casebook’s impact, as well as the role Christian legal thought might play in the contemporary law school curriculum.