Sooner Catholic Conference

I want to second the other comments about the fantastic conference of Catholic legal scholars at the University of Oklahoma this past week. As Lisa notes, it was especially nice to be in the company of Paul Griffiths and Steven Smith, whom so many of us admire for the insight and clarity of their work. As a faculty member at Villanova, I was delighted by the Augustinian theme that pervaded the conference. Augustine is the dominant figure of Western Christianity, but it's particularly challenging, I think, to plumb the depths of Augustine's thought (partly because he wrote so much over such a long period!) for contemporary legal scholarship other than a vague idea about the corruption of human nature. May this conference and others to come help remedy that.

I offered some brief comments in response to Steve's book, which I also reviewed in Commonweal a couple months ago. I have some mild Catholic reservations about Steve's skepticism about the plausibility of the principle of double effect in Vacco v. Quill, but I am a great fan of The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse. Put it on your summer reading list.

Many thanks to Michael Scaperlanda for his organization of the conference and to Michael and Brian McCall for their hospitality in Norman.