Reflections on the 10th Anniversary of Mirror of Justice

I first came across Mirror of Justice 10 years ago while practicing at a firm in Washington—I was amazed to see that there existed a critical mass of smart, engaged legal scholars in an area called “Catholic legal theory” and followed the blog avidly. My decision to enter the legal academy was shaped partly by the conversation I saw taking place at Mirror of Justice, and, a few years ago, I eventually became a contributor.

Like Rob Vischer, I now have an administrative role that leaves little time for working on Catholic legal theory, though I think a lot about the nature of legal education at a Catholic university. As Rob indicates, Mirror of Justice appeared at a time when there were new law schools (such as his own at St. Thomas) opening with an intentional focus on mission and new conferences and workshops at several schools exploring the distinctive aspects of the identity of Catholic law schools. That period has now passed and there are now enrollment- and employment-outcome pressures facing all law schools—religiously-affiliated or not—that seem, understandably, to crowd out other priorities. That said, I have two brief thoughts about the ongoing salience of the “MOJ Project.”

First, Mirror of Justice was founded amid an era in which Catholic universities generally (and not only in law schools) were engaged in a renewed conversation about their religious identity. As is now, I think, widely recognized, the governance by members of sponsoring religious orders and a strong desire to move out of cultural and intellectual isolation had led Catholic colleges and universities to be somewhat complacent about their mission in the post-Vatican II era. The end of that period and the beginning of a renewed conversation were inaugurated by John Paul II’s Apostolic Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae in 1990 (the discussion of which was sometimes sidetracked by the debate over the relation of bishops to theologians) and publication of George Marsden’s The Soul of the American University in 1996. Marsden demonstrated that religious identity could (and did) disappear from universities over the course of the history of American higher education, and it became apparent to many that Catholic universities were heading down the same path previously traveled by Marsden’s case studies in secularization and the marginalization of religious identity.

The challenge, of course, was and still is how to respond to this historical situation. From that era came the creation of mission officers at many institutions, the development of mission-related courses (such as Catholic social thought and law-type courses) and programs (such as Catholic studies departments) at some schools, and discussion of how institutions should take into account their mission when hiring faculty and staff. All of those developments were important and praiseworthy, and Mirror of Justice was a manifestation of the same spirit.

But there has always lurked the danger of a kind of “extrinsicism” in some of these efforts, and I think the next challenge for Catholic institutions—and even blogs—is to find ways of overcoming it. I borrow the term from Michael Buckley, SJ, and his discussion of these matters in his book The Catholic University as Promise and Project (1999). (I served as Michael Buckley’s research assistant while I was in graduate school at Boston College during the composition of the book.) As Buckley puts it, this view “presents a vision of the Catholic university in which the religious and the academic, however interrelating and intersecting, are fundamentally extrinsic to one another. In no way does either bring the other to its own intrinsic or inherent completion” (11). And so in law schools and in legal scholarship, “religion” is added onto “law,” just as finance majors in most Catholic universities have to take (and resent) classes about “religion.”

The great Catholic university—and Catholic law school—of the future will seek ways in its institutional life to achieve the integration of faith and reason, the sacred and the secular, in new and creative ways. As Buckley wrote in an earlier essay that was later adapted for his book:

The fundamental proposition of the Catholic university is that the religious and the academic are intrinsically related. Any movement toward meaning and truth is inchoatively religious. This obviously does not suggest that quantum mechanics or geography is religion or theology; it does mean that the dynamism inherent in all inquiry and knowledge—if not inhibited—is toward ultimacy, toward a completion in which an issue or its resolution finds place in a universe that makes final sense, i.e., in the self-disclosure of God—the truth of the finite. At the same time, the tendencies of faith are inescapably toward the academic. This obviously does not suggest that all serious religion is scholarship; it does mean that the dynamism inherent in faith—if not inhibited—is toward its own understanding, toward its own self-possession in knowledge. In their full development, the religious intrinsically involves the academic, and the academic intrinsically involves the religious—granted that this development is de facto always imperfectly realized at best or even seriously frustrated. "The Catholic University and the Promise Inherent in Its Identity," in Catholic Universities in Church and Society: A Dialogue on Ex corde Ecclesiae, ed. John P. Langan, SJ (Georgetown University Press, 1993), 82.

Second, I am generally sympathetic to reforms in legal education that emphasize business literacy and experiential learning as a way to prepare our graduates for successful careers, as indicated by Villanova Law School’s strategic plan. I think Catholic law schools and the work of this blog might bring two other important pieces to the discussion of legal education, however.

One is an emphasis on student formation and discernment. As Christian Smith and his colleagues documented in Lost in Transition (2011), many young adults are detached from moral, political, and religious commitments that often leaves them without the resources to make sense of their lives and personal and professional choices. Catholic institutions and the tradition they inherit have a well-developed framework for engaging such questions, and I am excited to see how our institutions will find ways of educating the whole person and engaging our students from within that framework.

Finally, the Catholic law school and “Catholic legal theory,” while committed to preparing students for professional success, also appreciate the full context for law and legal institutions. We are educating souls, not merely imparting skills training for budding bureaucrats. And so at a time when humanistic legal education (and courses in areas such as legal history and jurisprudence) is being very much called into doubt, I hope this blog and our institutions can develop arguments for the importance of such an education--not to the detriment of professional skills and a successful career but because we are the bearers of a great tradition that insists on education as the formation of citizens and participation in God's own work.