Defending the CLT Project

Two thoughts on justifying the CLT project:

1.  As someone who has spent her entire academic career teaching at Catholic law schools (Notre Dame and U of St. Thomas Minneapolis), I don't spend much time worrying about whether effort spent on exploring the contours of a Catholic legal theory is a waste of time.  I simply consider it to be part of my job.  Isn't that what Ex Corde Ecclesiae demands of us?  Some excerpts:

31. Through teaching and research, a Catholic University offers an indispensable contribution to the Church. In fact, it prepares men and women who, inspired by Christian principles and helped to live their Christian vocation in a mature and responsible manner, will be able to assume positions of responsibility in the Church. Moreover, by offering the results of its scientific research, a Catholic University will be able to help the Church respond to the problems and needs of this age.

32. A Catholic University, as any University, is immersed in human society; as an extension of its service to the Church, and always within its proper competence, it is called on to become an ever more effective instrument of cultural progress for individuals as well as for society. Included among its research activities, therefore, will be a study of serious contemporary problems in areas such as the dignity of human life, the promotion of justice for all, the quality of personal and family life, the protection of nature, the search for peace and political stability, a more just sharing in the world's resources, and a new economic and political order that will better serve the human community at a national and international level. University research will seek to discover the roots and causes of the serious problems of our time, paying special attention to their ethical and religious dimensions.

If need be, a Catholic University must have the courage to speak uncomfortable truths which do not please public opinion, but which are necessary to safeguard the authentic good of society.

33. A specific priority is the need to examine and evaluate the predominant values and norms of modern society and culture in a Christian perspective, and the responsibility to try to communicate to society those ethical and religious principles which give full meaning to human life. In this way a University can contribute further to the development of a true Christian anthropology, founded on the person of Christ, which will bring the dynamism of the creation and redemption to bear on reality and on the correct solution to the problems of life.

I realize this might not be of much comfort to those who are not teaching at Catholic universities, but I think an argument could be made that Catholics teaching at non-Catholic universities share these responsibilities to some degree.

2.  One aspect of the CLT project that hasn't been mentioned yet in this debate is the extent to which it is aimed at helping the Church figure out the appropriate responses to some of the difficult issues debated in the posts of MOJ (compare paragraph 31 of the Ex corde excerpt above with para. 32 & 33).  In addition to trying to persuade the World to shape itself according to Catholic principles, aren't we, as lay people with, theoretically at least, some particular expertise in legal theory, supposed to be helping the Church think through new developments?  Aren't we "where the Church does its thinking"?  It seems to me that this aspect of the Project needs no defense against criticisms such as the one that started this discussion.

It does, however, raise some other questions for us.  Such as:  Is "the Church" listening to us?  And, even more interesting, to me, (again quoting Paragraph 31 of Ex corde)  exactly who are the "women who, inspired by Christian principles and helped to live their Christian vocation in a mature and responsible manner, will be able to assume positions of responsibility in the Church" (emphasis added)?

Lisa