Law Commons^™

The Catholic Law School And Constitutional Self-Government, The Honorable Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain

Brendan F. Brown Lecture Series

Judge O’Scannlain’s address posited that America’s approximately two dozen Catholic-affiliated law schools fulfill a critically important role in legal education, helping to form the character and intellect of future generations of lawyers while addressing questions of law, jurisprudence and constitutional self-government though the distinct lens of the Catholic intellectual tradition. The application of jurisprudence that is untethered to natural law—defined by the judge as a set of principles that derive from a comprehensive view of man’s purpose and destiny—risks subjecting human life, in his view, to “irresponsible, value-neutral notions of freedom” that poorly serve society as a whole. For that …