Thanks to Rick for his recent post highlighting John Breen's fine talk at this last weekend's University Faculty for Life (UFL) conference. The conference was supported by a generous grant from Our Sunday Visitor Institute, and hosted by the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, Notre Dame's chapter of University Faculty for Life, and the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life. After all lhe recent controversies concerning Notre Dame and the life issues, it was good to be at Notre Dame with the many members of that community who support the pro-life cause in so many ways.
In addition to John's talk, the conference featured an interesting discussion of the Phoenix abortion case with Father Kevin Flannery SJ and Father Tom Berg, and talks by individuals such as Sam Calhoun, Tom Cavanuagh, Michael New, Teresa Collett, Clarke Forsythe, Mark Rienzi, Bill Saunders, Chris Kaczor, Richard Stith, Gerry Bradley, and John Keown. David Solomon of Notre Dame's Center for Ethics and Culture also gave a wondeful talk when he received UFL's Smith Award for distinguished contributions to pro-life scholarship.
Next year's UFL conference will be on June 1-2, 2012 at BYU.
Richard M.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Here is a link to a very interesting article by Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel. The article is entitled "Before (and After) Roe v. Wade: New Questions about Backlash." Here is the first paragraph of the abstract--
"Today, many Americans blame polarizing conflict over abortion on the Supreme Court. If only the Court had stayed its hand or decided Roe v. Wade on narrower grounds, they argue, the nation would have reached a political settlement and avoided backlash. We question this court-centered backlash narrative. Where others have deplored the abortion conflict as resulting from courts “shutting down” politics, we approach the abortion conflict as an expression of politics—a conflict in which the Supreme Court was not the only or even the most important actor."
It is important to focus on the Court's role in the conflict over abortion because the Court's decisions have had a profound impact on the nature of the struggle over the issue for nearly 40 years. But I think it is a mistake to overstate the Court's role, and to that extent I agree with Greenhouse and Siegel that there is a danger in being too court-centered. It is not uncommon to hear people place the entire blame for the current situation on Justice Blackmun. And while Justices Blackmun and Brennan played a pivotal role, it is important to focus on the broader culture. That is why it is so important that certain cultural trends on this issue (e.g., the increasing pro-life sentiment among young people) are encouraging.
Richard M.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Sandro Magister continues his fascinating series on religious freedom. Here. This latest installment includes an analysis by the Benedictine theologian Basile Valuet who has written a 6 volume study of religious freedom. In reading on this topic, I think it is important to be skeptical about claims that Church teaching has changed--whether these claims come from the right or the left. Valuet contends that there is continuty in the Church's thinking about this issue.
Richard M.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Here is the schedule for the 2011 University Faculty for Life (UFL) annual conference. The conference, which will be held on June 10-11, 2011 at the University of Notre Dame, is being supported by a very generous grant from Our Sunday Visitor Institute. Conference speakers include David Solomon (Notre Dame), Sam Calhoun (W & L), John Breen (Loyola Chicago), Tom Cavanaugh (University of San Francisco), Michael New (Alabama), Teresa Collett (St. Thomas), Clarke Forsythe (AUL), Father Kevin Flannery SJ (Gregorian), Father Thomas Berg (St. Joseph's Seminary), Mark Rienzi (Catholic U), Bill Saunders (AUL), Chris Kaczor (Loyola Marymount), Richard Stith (Valparaiso), Gerry Bradley (Notre Dame), and John Keown (Georgetown).
The local hosts for the conference are the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life, and UFL's Notre Dame chapter.
Richard M.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Here is a link to Janet Smith's recent article in the June/July 2011 issue of First Things. Here. The article, which is entitled "Fig Leaves and Falsehoods," discusses the debate about whether it is moral to use evil means (lying) to serve a good cause. She concludes, hesitantly disagreeing with St. Thomas and others (Chris Tollefsen, for instance), that it is sometimes necessary to deceive.
Richard M.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Susan's post on the jurisprudential legacy of Pope John Paul II reminded me of a symposium published by Ave Maria Law Review on "Pope John Paul II and the Law." The symposium (here and here) includes papers by (in order of appearance) George Weigel, Father Robert Araujo SJ, Father Kevin Flannery SJ, Jane Adolphe, Ed Peters, Gerry Bradley, Richard Myers, James Eyster, and Howard Bromberg.
Richard M.
Friday, April 29, 2011
That is the title of a recent article by Martin Rhonheimer. Rhonheimer's article is the subject of this very interesting piece by Sandro Magister. Rhonheimer discusses Dignitatis Humanae and explores what he contends is the discontinuity between Vatican II's teaching on religious liberty and prior papal writing on the topic. I think Rhonheimer places too much emphasis on Dignitatis Humanae's brief discussion of the issue of the confessional state. Russell Hittinger has noted that the Vatican II Declaration on religious liberty is largely silent on that issue. But Rhonheimer's article looks to be a very interesting perspective on this contested matter.
Richard M.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The Ave Maria Law Review (Vol. 9; Issue 1)(2010) has just published a symposium on "The Future of Rights of Conscience in Health Care." The symposium grew out of a conference that Lynn Wardle (BYU) and I organized. The conference was generously supported by University Faculty for Life and was also sponsored by the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU and Ave Maria School of Law. The conference was held at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU last February. The symposium issue of the Ave Maria Law Review contains papers by (I'll list them in order of appearance) Lynn Wardle, Kent Greenawalt, Rob Vischer, Armand Antommaria, Robin Fretwell Wilson, Richard Myers, Jill Morrison and Micole Allekotte, and T.A. Cavanaugh.
Richard M.
