George's "Plea to Catholics"

Robby George has posted "Danger and Opportunity:  A Plea to Catholics" over at the First Things blog.  (Click here to read what some of the commenters at the Commonweal blog are saying about Robby's post.)  Here are the opening paragraphs:

We live in a time of both danger and opportunity for the Catholic Church in the United States. The danger is that large numbers of Catholics will, as a result of clergy sex scandals and the large, highly publicized cash awards and settlements following in their train, lose confidence in the reliability of the Church as a teacher of truth, particularly in the moral domain.

Given the powerful dynamics of secularization already unleashed in American culture—dynamics whose impact was discernible even before clergy sex abuse became front-page news—the further demoralization of the Catholic faithful could all too easily result in widespread abandonment of belief in those teachings most severely under challenge from secularist ideologies dominant in universities (including Catholic universities), the print and broadcast media, and the elite sector of American culture generally. In particular, it would erode confidence in the principles of marriage and sexual morality and the sanctity of human life that are integral to the Christian understanding of human nature, dignity, and destiny.

Moreover, the loss of faith that characteristically begins with the abandonment of moral teachings cannot be restricted to such teachings. It tends to undermine belief in those doctrines of faith that require for their meaningful affirmation a sound (if ordinarily informal and implicit) understanding of the meaning and significance of the human person as embodied; these include, above all, the doctrines of the incarnation, the resurrection of the body, Christ’s own bodily resurrection and ascension into heaven, the bodily assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

A little later, there are some (I think) powerful words about transformation, conversion, and Christianity:

. . . What is in need of transformation is not the teaching of the Church but the human mind and heart to which these teachings are addressed. Christianity is a religion of transformation. No one is literally born into it; even infants at baptism are converted to it. There is not a Catholic on the planet or in the history of the Church who is not a convert.

Conversion is effected, by God’s grace, by transformative acts of the intellect and will. And the process of conversion is lifelong, whether one begins it a few days or weeks after birth or on one’s eighty-fifth birthday. Christ is constantly calling us to conversion and making available to us the divine graces that are its fundamental resources. We falter and fail; he lifts us up and puts us back on track. We grow in him, so long as we are faithful in responding to his acts of love for us by our acts of love of God and neighbor.

The Church doesn’t need fundamental transformation; it needs to be about the business of transforming us. This is a task for the whole Church: bishops, priests, and other religious, and the laity. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, this work of transformation of minds and hearts necessarily includes work of cultural transformation. For better or worse, culture is character-shaping and, thus, person-forming. That’s why the task of cultural renewal and reform is part of the Christian task—an essential part. It may not be rejected or neglected by the Church or her leadership in the name of evangelization of individuals; indeed, it is crucial to the project of evangelizing individuals. The task of evangelization is immeasurably more difficult where culture works powerfully against the witness of the Church by fostering, facilitating, and encouraging sin and undermining the efforts of religious communities and families to encourage in their members, especially young people, respect for themselves and others and fidelity to the law of God and moral truth.

I take it that inextricably linked with, and part of, the "culture" that, as Robby observes, is "character-shaping and, thus, person-forming" are law and the legal profession.  Lawyering and law are, it seems, both things in-need-of-transformation and vehicles-for-cultural-transformation. Are they more one than the other?