Mirror of Justice

A New Supreme Court Case From Montana Concerning the “Blaine Amendment”

In the latest episode of Legal Spirits, Mark Movsesian and Marc DeGirolami discuss a new case that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, concerning a Montana law that created a tax credit scholarship program whose proceeds were directed, in part, to religious schools.

Review of Miscamble's book "American Priest": Father Ted's Lack of Vision

 

Over at Public Discourse, my friend and co-author Lee Strang and I recently published a review of Rev. Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C.'s book American Priest, a biography of Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C.  We wrote the review not only because the book is deserving a wide readership, but also as part of our ongoing book-project on the history of American Catholic legal education.

Father Ted  is, of course, the man who, as president of the University of Notre Dame from 1952-1987, worked to transform the school from an unremarkable men's Catholic college (better known for its football than its academics) into one of America's elite universities.  As much as anyone, Hesburgh is responsible for changing the face of Catholic higher education in the United States.

For all the changes he helped to bring about, Father Hesburgh enjoys the reputation of a visionary, and a man of great ambition.  Surely some of this reputation is well deserved.  Yet, somewhat surprisingly, we believe that the conclusion to be drawn from Father Miscamble's book is that Father Ted lacked the vision and imagination necessary to achieve the goal that Hesburgh set for himself: to make Notre Dame into a truly great university (as measured by the standard's of the secular academy) and one that is at the same time authentically Catholic.  Father Hesburgh seems to have thought that the ongoing Catholic identity of a Catholic university could be assured simply by hosting a theology department, supporting an active campus ministry, and fostering a sense of community in student residential life.  While each of these qualities is important, the goal of a "great Catholic university" simply cannot be attained absent the thoughtful implementation of practical strategies in the hiring and retention of faculty that are designed to build and sustain a community of Catholic intellectuals. 

We encourage everyone to read the review and Father Miscamble's excellent book. 

 

 

 

 

Robert Louis Wilken on Religious Freedom: This Thursday at Villanova

For interested readers in the Philadelphia area, the distinguished historian of Christianity Robert Louis Wilken will be speaking at Villanova this Thursday (September 5) at 4:00pm about his recent book Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom (Yale, 2019). Details here.

China’s Prisons Swell After Deluge of Arrests Engulfs Muslims

The Chinese government has built a vast network of re-education camps and a pervasive system of surveillance to monitor and subdue millions from Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region.

Now China is also turning to an older, harsher method of control: filling prisons in Xinjiang.

The region in northwest China has experienced a record surge in arrests, trials and prison sentences in the past two years, according to a New York Times analysis of previously unreported official data.

Full article from The New York Times