Clik here to view.
Name that Justice (19th Century edition)
Name this nineteenth-century Justice: [His] religion was the moving principle of his life. It filled him with every Christian grace. Faith, hope, and charity led him in the high career which we have...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cardinal George’s apology
An interesting story out of Chicago about Church, family, public statements, and regret: “When I was talking, I was speaking out of fear that I have for the church’s liberty and I was reaching for an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don Bosco, Friend of the Young and the Poor
Today is the Feast of St. John Bosco (Don Bosco). He was a remarkable man. In honor of his feast, here is an instrumental rendition of Friend of the Young and the Poor, a song by Fr. Stephen Schenck,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Another powerful Gerson commentary on the illiberalism of the contraceptive...
Michael Gerson has another powerful commentary on the illiberalism of the Obama Administration’s “final decision that Catholic universities, hospitals and charities will be compelled to pay for health...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Greenhouse’s telling omissions re: RFRA, contraceptives, and conscience
Linda Greenhouse’s Opinionator column today addresses “the escalating conflict over the new federal requirement that employers include contraception coverage without a co-pay in the insurance plans...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rope-a-dope rulemaking to put off religious liberty litigation loss?
Comments by Vice President Joe Biden yesterday suggest a more conciliatory approach by the Administration toward religious liberty objections to the contraceptives mandate. The Vice President said that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Times-Dispatch op-ed on RFRA and the contraceptives mandate
Today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch contains an op-ed that I authored about the availability of a claim under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act for religious organizations that object to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
From Roper to Rosie to . . .
For the next few weeks, I’ll be be guest-blogging over at CLR Forum, the blog associated with the Center for Law and Religion at St. John’s University School of Law. Some of the posts will discuss...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Justice Brennan and Justice White from the Catholic Bishops’ point of view
During his time on the Rehnquist Court, Justice Brennan voted in seven cases in which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (the “USCCB” or “Bishops’ Conference”) filed an amicus curiae...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Catholic Bishops in the Rehnquist Court: Track Record as Amicus Curiae
By my count, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops filed amicus curiae briefs in 22 cases during the Rehnquist Court. (For a spreadsheet showing USCCB amicus briefs and Justices’ votes for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Catholic Bishops in the Roberts Court: Track Record as Amicus Curiae
In the first six years of the Roberts Court (OT05-OT10), the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops filed seven amicus curiae briefs. Four dealt with religious liberty (Gonzales v. O Centro...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The limited scope of the Catholic Bishops’ amicus curiae briefs
By using the amicus curiae briefs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to define the universe of Supreme Court cases in which the Catholic hierarchy has an interest, it is possible to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
We got our Irish up
Cardinal Dolan, describing the Bishops’ reaction to some of the events surrounding the contraceptives mandate: We got our Irish up when leaders in government seemed to be assigning an authoritative...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gerson on Biden, empathy, and humanity
Michael Gerson’s column on Vice President Biden this evening is a gem. It opens: What to make of Vice President Biden? Sometimes he is gaffe-prone comic relief. Sometimes he is the possessor of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Merry Minervan Christmas from Thomas Jefferson
In an April 1823 letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson discoursed on the meaning of the beginning of the Gospel of John (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Baltimore mayor on the sacredness of true marriage
A couple paragraphs from an AP news story about same-sex civil marriages in Maryland show an inversion of the traditional understanding of church and state, whereby the church superintends the sacred...
View ArticleClik here to view.
NBC interview of Sotomayor in Catholic Church?
This NBC interview of Justice Sonia Sotomayor by Savannah Guthrie looks to have been conducted in a Catholic Church. Is that so? What accounts for that setting? Justice Sotomayor does invoke God at one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Benedict XVI on flexibility, vocation, and following one’s inclinations
God and the World is the second book that arose out of conversations between Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Peter Seewald. (The first was Salt of the Earth.) Here are a couple of excerpts from their...
View ArticleClik here to view.
About Justice Scalia’s headgear
The twitterverse is alive with tweets about Justice Scalia’s headgear for today’s inauguration. At the risk of putting all the fun speculation to an end . . . The hat is a custom-made replica of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Roe at 40, Casey at 20
January 22 remains a day worth remembering. On this day in 1973, the Supreme Court promulgated its profoundly wrong decision in Roe v. Wade. At Mirror of Justice, Rick Garnett has some sober but...
View Article
