Perhaps I should not be posting at 1:20 in the morning, but I had to react to Rob's account of the discussion among Amy, John Breen and Greg Kalscheur. I have great respect for those three, all of whom teach at Jesuit law schools. I recognize that they are all engaged in efforts to express something "Catholic" in their schools, and would not want to discourage them or their colleagues in their efforts to accomplish even more. I also certainly would support the goal that Greg has articulated for Jesuit legal education, and admire what he has been trying to do at BC. But we must not delude ourselves with reassuring platitudes about different paths and different missions. There must be some ground minimum of engagement with Catholicism present before a school can call itself "Catholic." It is simply not enough to talk about "justice," or "diversity" or being a "man for others" unless some meaningful flesh is put on those bones. I am not talking about indoctrination in dogma. I am not repudiating ecumenicism, or urging exclusion of diverse voices and views. I am talking about some institutional commitment to grappling with the truths of the faith. I would ask, in all humility, that my friends explain how any Jesuit law school in the United States expresses, articulates and implements a conception of "justice" that is in any way different from that espoused by every secular law school, or how they actually serve Greg's goal of opening their students to the sacred. Similarly, can any of them show with specificity that their school's conception of "justice" is expressly (or even implicitly) shaped, informed, or even touched by the Catholic moral, philosophical and spiritual tradition? Would they deny that any such "privileging" of Catholic discourse would be regarded internally as not only unacceptable but threatening and even offensive? I hate to challenge my friends in such a cranky manner, but I believe strongly that complacency about Catholic legal education today will lead only to more rapid slide into irrelevance. John Breen's challenge from within the heart of Jesuit legal education is a stirring one. I don't think we have yet begun to see any kind of real response. The tired formula of "clinics, pro bono, jurisprudence and ethics," endlessly repeated by the apologists for the status quo, has no resonance when none of that is rooted in any Catholic or religious content, and the actually practice is fundamentally indistinguishable from that of virtually every secular law school.
--Mark
