Recent news stories make one wonder if our legal system is abandoning our traditional Anglo-American principles of justice and instead becoming increasingly unreasonable, unprincipled, and allowing itself to become a tool for furthering political bias, revenge-seeking, and “making examples.” We can start off with the spectacle of the two-year-long investigation of the 2016 Trump presidential … Read more
Ever since Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke received her fifteen minutes of fame a few years back at the congressional hearings on the Affordable Care Act, we’ve been hearing a lot about “reproductive justice.” It’s a rather queer pairing of words, don’t you think? For what does justice have to do with a basic biological … Read more
Defending himself against the accusation of capital crimes, Socrates famously asserted that the main concern should not be the value of a man’s life, but the value of his life insofar as it is good and just. Socrates crucial point is that justice is more important than life itself, for an unjust life, as he … Read more
I still vividly remember the nuns who taught my elementary CCD classes, and the impression they made on me and my fellow students. They hammered the implications of the Ten Commandments into us, as well as the consequences for disobedience, with a heavy seriousness that made its mark on my memory. Our pastor, Father (now Monsignor) … Read more
“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross” (H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America). This article addresses the question of how God is both just and merciful in the light of some insights of Pope Francis’ recent book … Read more
Perched majestically atop courthouse buildings in almost every land, there stands the Roman goddess Justitia, armed with sword in one hand, scales in the other, exercising her fine art of giving all and sundry exactly what they deserve. Often depicted wearing a blindfold to emphasize the pure impartiality of her judgments, one cannot help but … Read more
When referring to the nationalizing of medicine known as the Affordable Care Act, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the law to see what’s in it.” “[Law] is nothing else than an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated,” … Read more
Here’s a rather silly story brought to my attention recently. It should tell us something about how very silly lawyers’ views of morals and the law have become in recent years. According to Religion News Service, among others, one Dola Indidis, a lawyer in Kenya, has petitioned the International Court of Justice to nullify the … Read more
Criminal law and criminal justice in the United States may reasonably be said to be in a state of crisis in many different aspects: the increasing amount of criminal law, the kinds of things it tries to address, its enforcement, the level of criminal activity, and punishment. The sub-title of a book published by the … Read more
Imagine members of the lay faithful being invited to instruct the cardinals who come to Rome to select a new pope. They would be asked precisely whom they would choose as successor to St. Peter. Of course the cardinals are not obliged to take counsel with mere mortals. However avid some of us might be … Read more
Aristotle, that common sense fellow, defined justice as giving to each his due. That definition admits of equality in inequality, in obvious ways. The indulgence we allow a child we deny to a grown man; the familiarity with which we treat the paperboy might offend the elderly woman in church. Each person is equally deserving … Read more
And Lucifer approached the Throne, and from across the abyss there came a clamor, a wailing bereft of beauty, tone, and voice, as though a malignant choir had become suddenly awash in boiling oil. “Oh Great One,” he began, he who had been known throughout history as the Tempter, but who could tempt no more, … Read more