Rick asks what others think about the points raised by Steve Bainbridge and Dave Hoffman objecting to the tendency to equate serving the common good and the public interest with what we term "public interest law."
The broad point that one can serve the common good by practicing in a variety of areas outside of those labeled "public interest law" seems to me patently obvious. And I have no disagreement with Rick's conclusion that one can serve the poor and disadvantaged by being a conscientious prosecutor.
However, I do quarrel with the point raised in Steve's post and I've expressed my skepticism (OK, more than skepticism) of his and Michael Novak's "rising tide raises all ships" position in my article, A Catholic Vision of the Corporation (posted on the sidebar). Thus, I don't think one can claim to be serving the common good simply by becoming a corporate lawyer and helping corporations make a lot of money.
Having said that, I do think corporations have the potential to greatly serve the common good, as I argue both in the piece cited above and also in Using Religion to Promote Corporate Responsibility (also posted on the sidebar). As a result I do agree with the more general claim that one can be a corporate lawyer and serve the public interest - by helping foster business practices that are consistent with principles of human dignity, solidarity and the common good.
I've posted before about the issue of access to health care. A new report by Families USA, using data from the Insitute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, updated by the Urban Institute, provides state-by-state estimates of the number of Americans who die because of lack of health insurance. "Among the figures cited is the fact that more than seven working-age Texans die each day due to a lack of health insurance. Other reports reveal that, on average, approximately 960 people in Illinois died in 2006 because they had no health coverage, and nearly 9,900 uninsured New Yorkers between the ages of 25 and 64 died in the years 2000 to 2006." Find the state reports and the press releases related to the report here.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Amy Welborn gathers a number of links providing information about Pope Benedict's visit to the United States here. Her post also lists a number of resources useful for those trying to gain more insight into the writings and thoughts of Benedict.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
I just returned from Boston College Law School, which hosted the 2008 Spring Conference of Religiously Affilated Law Schools. It was a wonderful two days of discussion. The conference opened with a panel entitled Teaching Through the Lens of Faith, in which the speakers (which included MOJ'er Amy Uelmen) talked about different ways of engaging religious issues in the classroom. It is fair to say that the panelists expressed very different views of the role of religion in public policy discourse and therefore on how religious views are presented in the classroom. The second panel addressed Student Vocational Discernment and featured discussion of the different ways that institutions address the spiritual, moral and professional formation of young adults. I spoke during this panel about some of the retreats and other programs of spiritual formation I have been giving here at St. Thomas over the past year. Other panels included Scholarship Through the Lens of Faith, The Challenge of Inclusion, and Hiring (and Admitting) for Mission. The hiring and admitting panel was the only one I was a bit disappointed with, largely becuase I think it tried to address too many different issues in too short a period of time. I'd like to say a little more about the other panels - especially the one on the Challenge of Inclusion, which raised - well - the most challenging issues, and I will try to come back and say some more on that (after I finish playing catch-up. I'm hoping Mark Sargent or Amy Uelmen will chime in as well.
As is always the case at these gatherings, the meals and fellowship outside of the formal sessions were as valuable as the sessions themselves and allowed for more extended and informal discussion of the issues that came up during the day. It is always good to spend time with old friends and make new ones. And having Greg Kalscheur say mass for the Catholics among us every morning was also a wonderful part of the experience.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
My daughter and I visited the Science Museum of Minnesota yesterday. (A very cool science museum, by the way, for children of all ages.) The museum is currently home to a circulating exhibit organized by the United States Holocause Memorial Museum, Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race. The exhibit details the development of Germany's efforts to "cleanse" itself of those viewed to be a "biological threat" to the its growth and prosperity. One horrifying example of what proceeds from a failure to recognize that each human person has a dignity that comes from our creation in the image of God. And, although there are obviously differences between what occurs by power of the government and what occurs by individual choice, it is hard to look at this and not think about decisions being made today in various ways about what lives are worth living.
I have posted more about the exhibit and my reactions on my blog here. I highly recommend a visit to the exhibit. For those in the Twin Cities area, it will be at the Science Museum here until May 4; future sites can be found here.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Holy Saturday is treated by many as simply the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, when we ready the churches for the Easter Vigil and shop for Easter dinner. But, what Holy Saturday offers us is a period to reflect on a world without Jesus, a chance to let the effect of Jesus' death permeate our being. Accepting this invitation allows us to more fully appreciate the signifiance of Jesus' rising for us. I have a fuller reflection on Holy Saturday as "tomb day" on my blog here.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
MOJ friend Russ Powell, of Seattle University School of Law, has just posted to SSRN a working paper, Theology in Public Reason and Legal Discourse: A Case for the Preferential Option for the Poor. Here is the abstract:
"There is a strange disconnect between the formal understanding of the separation of religion from government in the United States and the almost ubiquitous use of religious language in political discourse, not to mention the web of complicated religious motivations that sit on or just below the surface of policy debates. This paper presents an argument for the relevance of the principle of the "preferential option for the poor" from Catholic social thought in public reason and legal discourse in order to explore the possible advantages of making the veil between religion and the secular state more permeable. As a case study, it proposes dialogue between Catholicism and complementary secular thought, including standpoint theory, outsider methodology, and law and economics to explore possibilities for more effectively ensuring justice for the poor and marginalized. (An earlier version of this article was presented at Law, Culture and the Humanities at Georgetown Law Center in 2007.)"
I heard Russ present this paper at Seattle's March 7 symposium on Religion, Pluralism and the Law (about which I posted here) and am very much looking forward to reading the piece. It can be downloaded here.
