What Does Laudato Si Mean For the Legal Professional?

 

This is the question my CUA colleague (and longtime friend of MOJ), Lucia Silecchia, endeavors to answer in her recent compelling essay in the Seattle Journal of Environmental Law. Professor Silecchia recognizes the value of Laudato Si beyond the constraints of a narrow reading which limits it to an environmental ethics papal letter. She invites us to glean so much more from it by describing the encyclical as:

an invitation for attorneys to reflect anew on their obligations toward each other, to the clients who entrust them with so many things, to the ideals of justice that profession and promise bind them to uphold, and to the passion for what is right and good that drew them to a common vocation a few, or many, years ago.

Capitalizing on Pope Francis's theme of stewardship, Professor Silecchia teases out from this document ten important "rules" for attorneys categorized under the dual concepts of Stewardship of Clients and Stewardship of Justice.

The notion of the law as a vocation is not novel, but Professor Silecchia injects into that idea a modern and contemporary framework well worth considering. This piece deserves a read and presents us with another excellent addition to her impactful body of work addressing issues of morality, ethics, and spirituality that face law students and young attorneys today. (See here, here, and here for a small sampling.)