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Full-Text Articles in Law
Are Catholics Unreliable From A Democratic Point Of View? Thoughts On The Occasion Of The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Paul Blanshard's American Freedom And Catholic Power, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Are Catholics Unreliable From A Democratic Point Of View? Thoughts On The Occasion Of The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Paul Blanshard's American Freedom And Catholic Power, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
From 1949 to 1950, Paul Blanshard’s American Freedom and Catholic Power dominated the New York Times best-seller list for eleven months, having captured the attention of American intelligentsia with its claim that “the Catholic problem is still with us” and its call for the formation of a “resistance movement.” Sixty years later, Blanshard’s bigotry is no longer defended in educated circles. Questions remain, though, concerning why Blanshard’s ideas made progress in some of the smartest American minds and throughout much of the culture. Was Blanshard onto something subversive about Catholics? Are Catholics’ commitments not compatible with the demands of American …
Are Legislation And Rules A Problem In Law? Thoughts On The Work Of Joseph Vining, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Are Legislation And Rules A Problem In Law? Thoughts On The Work Of Joseph Vining, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
Written for a conference at Villanova Law School held to celebrate and explore the work of Joseph Vining over forty years, this paper considers the adequacy of Vining’s phenomenology of law. Specifically, it inquires into the accuracy of Vining’s startling claims that “legislation is a problem in law, not central to law” and “rules are nowhere to be found” in law. The argument of the paper is that when -- but only when -- law is understood to be an ordinance of reason in the mind of him or them who have care of the community, for the common good, …
Self-Love And Forgiveness: A Holy Alliance?, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Self-Love And Forgiveness: A Holy Alliance?, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
Forgiving is not pardoning, excusing, condoning, forgetting, or reconciling, nor is forgiving just about a change in emotions on the part of a victim. This paper pursues a virtue-theoretic account of the human person in the context of the theology of Thomas Aquinas, arguing that human forgiveness is the form love takes by an offended toward her offender. The paper argues, first, for the priority of the offended person's self-love and, second, for such self-love's extension into love of the offender as another self. The paper explores in depth the challenges of seeing one's enemy as "another self." Forgiving, the …
Delivering The Goods: Herein Of Mead, Delegations, And Authority, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Delivering The Goods: Herein Of Mead, Delegations, And Authority, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
This paper argues, first, that the natural law position, according to which it is the function of human law and political authorities to instantiate certain individual goods and the common good of the political community, does not entail judges' having the power or authority to speak the natural law directly. It goes on to argue, second, that lawmaking power/authority must be delegated by the people or their representatives. It then argues, third, that success in making law depends not just on the exercise of delegated power/authority, but also on the exercise of care and deliberation or, in the article's terms, …
Public Law, Private Law, And Legal Science, Chaim Saiman
Public Law, Private Law, And Legal Science, Chaim Saiman
Working Paper Series
This essay explores the historical and conceptual connections between private law and nineteenth century classical legal science from the perspective of German, American, and Jewish law. In each context, legal science flourished when scholars examined the confined doctrines traditional to private law, but fell apart when applied to public, administrative and regulatory law. Moving to the contemporary context, while traditional private law scholarship retains a prominent position in German law and academia, American law has increasingly shifted its focus from the language of substantive private law to a legal regime centered on public and procedural law. The essay concludes by …
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 …
“What’S The Matter With You Catholics?” Soundings In Catholic Social Thought: Traditions In Turmoil. By Mary Ann Glendon, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
“What’S The Matter With You Catholics?” Soundings In Catholic Social Thought: Traditions In Turmoil. By Mary Ann Glendon, Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
This review essay of Mary Ann Glendon's Traditions in Turmoil (2006) explores such topics as tradition, moral discourse, human rights, subsidiarity, natural law, the common good, civil society, and constitutional and statutory interpretation. In doing so, it provides an introduction both to Catholic social thought and to the thought of Bernard Lonergan.
Locating Authority In Law, And Avoiding The Authoritarianism Of 'Textualism', Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Locating Authority In Law, And Avoiding The Authoritarianism Of 'Textualism', Patrick Mckinley Brennan
Working Paper Series
Much modern jurisprudence attempts to move the locus of authority away from people with authority in order to locate it instead, for example, in rules or texts. This article argues that authority, wherever it exists, is a quality of the actions of persons. The article mounts this argument by showing how Justice Scalia's textualism is the legal analogue of a largely discredited form of "Christian positivism," one that leads to a form of authoritarianism. The article goes on to argue that authorianism can be avoided only by individuals' and their communities' becoming authoritative, including in the making and enforcement of …
Jesus’ Legal Theory—A Rabbinic Interpretation, Chaim Saiman
Jesus’ Legal Theory—A Rabbinic Interpretation, Chaim Saiman
Working Paper Series
This article locates the ancient debates between Jesus and the Talmudic rabbis within the discourse of contemporary legal theory. By engaging in a comparative reading of both Gospel and rabbinic texts, I show how Jesus and his rabbinic interlocutors sparred over questions we now conceptualize as the central concerns of jurisprudence. Whereas the rabbis approach theological, ethical and moral issues through an analytical, lawyerly interpretation of a dense network of legal rules, Jesus openly questions whether law is the appropriate medium to structure social relationships and resolve interpersonal conflicts. Through an examination of Talmudic sources, this paper argues the controversies …
Legal Theology: The Turn To Conceptualism In Nineteenth-Century Jewish Law, Chaim Saiman
Legal Theology: The Turn To Conceptualism In Nineteenth-Century Jewish Law, Chaim Saiman
Working Paper Series
This Article is a first-ever attempt to introduce the Briskers—an influential school of late nineteenth century Talmudic interpreters—to the legal academy. The paper describes how at the very moment that secularization and assimilation undermined the traditional legitimizing narratives of Jewish law, the Briskers fused law, theology and science to offer an alternate “scientific” vision of halakha (Jewish law). By recasting the multitude of detailed rules comprising halakha into a system of autonomous legal constructs, the Briskers revolutionized Jewish self-understanding of the halakhic system, and developed a jurisprudence that was able to counteract the social, institutional and intellectual upheavals represented by …
Religious Group Autonomy: Further Reflections About What Is At Stake, Kathleen A. Brady
Religious Group Autonomy: Further Reflections About What Is At Stake, Kathleen A. Brady
Working Paper Series
This article addresses the protections afforded by the First Amendment when government regulation interferes with the internal activities or affairs of religious groups. In previous pieces, I have argued that the First Amendment should be construed to provide religious groups a broad right of autonomy over all aspects of internal group operations, those that are clearly religious in nature as well as activities that seem essentially secular. In my view, such autonomy is necessary to preserve the ability of religious groups to generate, live out and communicate their own visions for social life, including ideas that can push the norms …
Competing Visions Of The Corporation In Catholic Social Thought, Mark A. Sargent
Competing Visions Of The Corporation In Catholic Social Thought, Mark A. Sargent
Working Paper Series
Catholic Social Thought (CST) is coherent body of principles concerning the organization of social and economic life drawing on the inspiration of natural law, Thomism, the Gospel and the tradition of Christian personalism. While valuing the creative energy of capitalism and its contributions to the production of wealth, it is often highly critical of the inequalities generated by capitalism, its tendency to promote materialistic consumerism and capital's devaluation of the dignity of work. While not easily characterizable as "right" or "left", CST thinking about corporate social responsibility and corporate governance has become split between interpretations emphasizing the importance of economic …