More on John Paul II's Legacy

Thanks to both Rob Vischer and Michael Perry for their postings (here and here) on our conference the past two days on the Jurisprudential Legacy of Pope John Paul II.  I don't have time this morning to do a full run down of yesterdays three panels (and hope that one or more the MOJ participants will add some thoughts about those).  But I want to at least briefly mention some of the points raised in John Allen's keynote address (which will be included in the issue of the St. John's Journal of Catholic Legal Studies which publishes the papers from the confernce).

In his talk, Allen identified five areas of law and politics where he felt John Paul II's impact was felt most keenly, many of which we have debated here on Mirror of Justice: (1) the fallacy of legal positivism; (2) the intersection between faith and public policy; (3) human rights; (4) death penalty; and (5) international law and the use of force.  He also identified three open questions that the Catholic Church still has to come to terms with under the papacy of Benedict XVI: (1) Catholics and public life (referencing the controversy in the last election over refusing Eucharist to certain politicians); (2) just was vs. humanitarian intervention; and (3) Catholic institutions under civil law (referencing the recent question regarding Catholic Charities ability to deny placing children for adoption with same-sex couples).  My brief listing does not do justice to his talk, which was engaging, inspiring, and, at times, quite amusing (as he described his trips to some of the places John Paul II visited).   But is hopefully gives you a little taste of what we experienced and we will doubtless be engaging on many of these issues in more detail both in the blogosphere and in other conferences.