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Johnson, John T., 1820-1875 (Sc 3699), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3699. Case file for T. T. Melburn v. John T. Johnson, U.S. District Court for the District of Kentucky, filed 26 May 1870. Petitioner Melburn, a carpenter and stair builder of Bowling Green, Kentucky, sought an accounting for transactions during his 1869-1870 partnership with Johnson, also a carpenter, of Woodburn, Kentucky, claiming that Johnson had misappropriated assets of the firm and had committed an act of insolvency by transferring land to a relative. The inquiry, conducted by Warner Underwood as Register in Bankruptcy, included depositions from …

Could The Pope's Call To End The Death Penalty Keep Catholics Off Juries?, Aliza Plener Cover

Articles

No abstract provided.

A Non-Profit Entity May Not Be Substantively Consolidated With An Affiliated Debtor, Rachel Armely

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

To date, over 19,000 sexual abuse claims, totaling claims in an aggregate amount of more than $4 billion, have been filed against individual dioceses within the Catholic Church. This influx of claims comes as the result of certain state legislatures allowing individuals with previously time-barred claims to bring civil lawsuits against the dioceses. Consequently, at least eighteen Catholic dioceses have filed voluntary petitions for relief under title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”).

In many cases, the majority of the Catholic dioceses’ assets are held by inter-related, non-profit Catholic entities that often collectively hold billions of …

The Pope And The Capital Juror, Aliza Plener Cover

Articles

In a significant change to Catholic Church doctrine, Pope Francis recently declared that capital punishment is impermissible under all circumstances. Counterintuitively, the Pope’s pronouncement might make capital punishment less popular but more prevalent in the United States. This Essay anticipates this possible dynamic and, in so doing, explores how “death qualification” of capital juries can insulate the administration of the death penalty when community morality evolves away from capital punishment.

If The Pope Is Infallible, Why Does He Need Lawyers?, Bill Piatt

Faculty Articles

One of the most widely misunderstood teachings of the Catholic Church involves the doctrine of papal infallibility. As a theological matter, papal infallibility is quite narrow. However, the widespread misconception that all Catholics must believe their Pope cannot make mistakes helped create resentment against Catholics for centuries, which has taken the form of physical attacks, political exclusion, and virulent anti-Catholic propaganda.

While the Catholic Church is no longer under direct physical attack, contemporaneous efforts seek to hold the Pope and the Church civilly and criminally liable in various contexts. In some instances, the Pope, acting as the head of the …

Faith, Works, And Praxis: Emergent Post-Colonialism And The Catholic Church In North America, Alexander Odicino

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The personal papers of American Jesuit priest, Wilfrid Parsons, evince an international information war concerned with the praxis of "facts" pertaining to Mexico’s Church and state conflicts of 1925 to 1939. While editor-in-chief of the Jesuit weekly magazine, "America", (1925-1936) Parsons transformed the publication into the pre-eminent Catholic source of information about the "Mexican situation", consequently enabling him to coordinate the publication of "facts" with several other New York based Catholic publications. However, rather than speaking to strictly Catholic interests in the Mexican conflict, research has shown that, when analyzed as a focal point of information processing, the sources in …

The Vatican Still Protects Pedophile Priests, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

Against Agnosticism: Why The Liberal State Isn't Just One (Authority) Among The Many, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This article takes up the gauntlet thrown down by Professor Abner Greene’s recent book, Against Obligation: The Multiple Sources of Authority in a Liberal Democracy, to those scholars, politicians, and activists who believe that realizing the ideal of e pluribus unum (out of many, one) as well as constitutional principles of liberty and equality require a robust role for government. Government, Greene argues, is just one source of authority among many others, and citizens – or even public officials – have no general moral duty to obey the law. The political and constitutional order of the United States, he contends, …

Child Abuse Reporting: Rethinking Child Protection, Susan C. Kim, Lawrence O. Gostin, Thomas B. Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The general public has been bewildered by the magnitude of sex abuse cases and the widespread failure by pillars of the community to notify appropriate authorities. The crime of sexually abusing children is punishable in all jurisdictions and this article examines the duty to report suspected cases by individuals in positions of trust over young people, such as in the church or university sports. The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) defines child maltreatment as an act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caregiver that results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, …

Bridging The Great Divide—A Response To Linda Greenhouse And Reva B. Siegel's "Before (And After) Roe V. Wade: New Questions About Backlash", Lolita Buckner Inniss

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This essay discusses the history of Roe v. Wade as recently addressed by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel. Going beyond their assertions, I suggest that an additional, more encompassing inquiry focuses on what factors are implicated in the politics of abortion and how these factors relate to larger social, political, and cultural conflicts both before and after Roe. By naming party politics and the Catholic Church, Greenhouse and Siegel posit two crucial elements that shaped the abortion debate. I assert, however, that what is not discussed in their Article is the way numerous other factors have figured into the …

Fennell Collection, 1869-1957 (Mss 348), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 348. Account books of Cynthiana Horse Boot Company; materials related to Kentucky Hemp Brake Company of Cynthiana, Kentucky; correspondence of Cynthiana attorneys Chester M. Jewett, J. J. Osborne, William J. Osborne, McCauley C. Swinford, and William Wilson Van Deren.

The Church Abuse Scandal: Were Crimes Against Humanity Committed?, Dermot Groome

Journal Articles

Increasingly shocking revelations about sexual abuse by members of Catholic religious congregations and diocesan priests have recently raised the question of whether such widespread abuses constitute crimes against humanity. This paper considers that question in the context of a report issued by the Ryan Commission, an independent quasi-judicial commission that spent 10 years conducting detailed investigations into childcare institutions operated by Catholic religious congregations in Ireland. The Ryan Commission’s findings with respect to both widespread physical and sexual abuse provide a factual basis upon which to consider whether crimes against humanity were in fact committed. Contrasting the intentionality of behind …

Mulieris Dignitatem And The Exclusivity Of Marriage Under Law, Howard Bromberg

Articles

Jesus Christ established monogamy, the marriage of one man to one woman, as the canonical norm of his church and the juridical norm for all nations. This was a unique event in the history of the cultures and religions of the world. The Catholic Church has always defended its canonical norm of monogamy, often with great opposition. Through its influence, monogamy has been established as law in the Western world and in almost all cultures influenced by Western law and norms. The emerging jurisprudence of the United States, however, rejects any religious derivation as the basis of our laws. With …

Pope John Paul Ii, Vatican Ii, And Capital Punishment, Howard Bromberg

Articles

Part I of this Article describe s Pope John Paul II’s teaching on capital punishment as based on the Scriptures and expressed in Evangelium Vitae and the Catechism. Part II examines the authority with which this doctrine was issued. Part III suggests that this teaching represents the “traditional teaching of the Church,” although a “more perfect expression” of that teaching than has heretofore been recognized. Parts IV and V indicate why the papacy of John Paul II-—“this time, in which God in His hidden design has entrusted to me... very close to the year 2000”-—was ripe for this explicit articulation …

Opposing The Lottery In The U.S.: The Forces Behind Individual Attitudes Towards Legalization In 1975, Andrew J. Economopoulos

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

In the 1970s, opposition to the lottery started to fracture in the US. This study examines causes of the fracture and historical factors that contributed to changes in individual attitudes towards legalization. The opponents at the time held to traditional arguments against legalized lotteries—negative economic effects, costs to others and increased crime. Unlike in the past, however, there was weak religious institutional opposition to lotteries. Individuals with a strong commitment to their religious affiliation were more resistant to pro-lottery arguments, but in most cases could be convinced to support the lottery. The pre-World War II generation remained steadfast against the …

The Trial Of Sir Thomas More: An Account, Douglas O. Linder

Faculty Works

There is much to learn from the story of how the head of one of the most revered men in England, Sir Thomas More, ended up on the chopping block on London's Tower Hill in 1535. Few people in history have faced their trials and deaths as squarely, calmly, and with as much integrity as did More. More's road from his post as Lord Chancellor of England to the Tower of London owes its course to a Bible passage, a marriage of a long-dead prince, and the consuming desire of lustful and vain-glorious King Henry VIII to marry Anne Boleyn. …

The Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis And The Spirit Of Canon Law, John J. Coughlin

Journal Articles

Recent revelations of cases in which Catholic priests have sexually abused minors over the course of the last five decades have drawn intense media scrutiny and public outrage. But discipline of the clergy for sexual offenses is not novel in the history of the Catholic Church, and canonical structures have long been in place to address the problem. This Article argues that the recent crisis has resulted in part from a failure to respect and enforce the relevant provisions of canon law. If bishops had fulfilled their duty to abide by the rule of law, especially in the cases involving …

The Trial Of Galileo, Douglas O. Linder

Faculty Works

Galileo Galilei was born in 1564 - the same year that Shakespeare was born and Michelangelo died. From an early age, Galileo showed his scientific skills. At age nineteen, he discovered the isochronism of the pendulum. By age twenty-two, he had invented the hydrostatic balance. By age twenty-five, Galileo assumed his first lectureship, at the University of Pisa. Within a few more years, Galileo earned a reputation throughout Europe as a scientist and superb lecturer. Eventually, he would be recognized as the father of experimental physics. Galileo's motto might have been follow knowledge wherever it leads us. In the 1633 …

Illiberal Liberalism: Liberal Theology, Anti-Catholicism, & Church Property, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

Liberalism has long been depicted as neutral and tolerant. Already in the eighteenth-century, when Englishmen and Americans began to develop modem conceptions of what they called "liberality," they characterized it as elevated above narrow interest and prejudice. Of course, liberality or what now is called "liberalism" can be difficult to define with precision, and there have been divergent, evolving versions of it. Nonetheless, liberalism has consistently been understood to transcend narrow self-interest or bigotry. Accordingly, many Americans have confidently believed in it as a neutral, tolerant, and even universalistic means of claiming freedom from the constraints of traditional and parochial …

A Comparison Of The Administrative Law Of The Catholic Church And The United States, John J. Coughlin

Journal Articles

Some years ago, an international symposium of jurists described administrative law as encompassing "the entire range of action by government with respect to the citizen or by the citizen with respect to the government, except for those matters dealt with by the criminal law, and those left to private civil litigation where the government's only participation is in furnishing an impartial tribunal with the power of enforcement."

The broad parameters of the concept of administrative law attest to its importance in any legal system. Indeed, for at least the past fifty years, comparative legal scholars have focused on diverse national …