Catholic Contributions to Understanding "The Mystery of Human Life"

Continuing the conversation begun with the insightful posts of Rick, Rob, and Steve on the relevance of Catholic Legal Thought, I'll contribute a few thoughts.

Our project (and I assume we are all in agreement on this) is not about viewing liberty as "the right to define one's concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."  Instead, our project is about discovering the meaning of our existence, of the universe, and the origins, purposes, and destination of human life.  As we enter ever more deeply into these mysteries and give ourselves completely to Christ, "the presence at the center of all things" (Morris West), we will receive authentic freedom or liberty. 

It seems to me that our methodology, which is the opposite of the prevailing methodology, makes a tremendous difference, even if we reach the same policy conclusions as our secular colleagues or our even our own previous conclusions based on secular reasoning before we put our reasoning through the Catholic wringer, as Mark would say.

And, sometimes, filtering our own views through the teachings of the Church will cause us to shift our conclusions.  This happened to me with respect to immigration law and policy.  For a long time, I was in agreement with my secular liberal colleagues who find it hard to justify immigration restrictions and therefore favor immigration policies bordering on open borders.  While I agreed with them, I thought I was doing so on different grounds, filtering my views through Catholic teaching.  Recently, and this will be the subject of part of a talk I will give later this month at Fordham, I have come to realize that my Catholic view was filtered (unbeknownst to me) through liberalism's lens that viewed the would be immigrant as an autonomous seeker of a better life, unconnected to the family, culture, and history of her country of origin.  I don't know where this realization leaves me with respect to how open or restrictive our immigration policy ought to be, but I now see more fully the cost and the tragedy of e/immigration.  I'll post my paper on the blog after the conference.

Michael  S.