Search results for ""author gerard v. bradley""

The most controversial foundational issue today in both legal philosophy and constitutional law is the relationship between objective moral norms and the positive law. Is it possible for the state to be morally “neutral” about such matters as marriage, the family, religion, religious liberty, and – as the Supreme Court once famously phrased it – “the meaning of life”? If such neutrality is possible, is it desirable? In this volume of essays one of our country’s leading constitutional lawyers answers “no” to both questions. In the first three chapters, Gerard Bradley investigates the central moral justification of punishment, the morality of plea bargaining, and how the criminal justice system should treat the family. These essays reflect both Bradley’s decades as a teacher of criminal law as well as his earlier experience as a trial prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. The second triptych of papers has to do with the raging controversy over same-sex “marriage,” and the broader movement toward a socially sanctioned orthodoxy about sexual orientation of which the “marriage” movement is one part. These papers reflect the author’s years of philosophical work on the marriage question, as well as his more practical experience as a popular debater and expert witness. Finally, Bradley takes up the questions of religious liberty and how our democratic polity should treat religion. These chapters cover the original meaning of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, the role of Catholicism in the post-World War II controversies over movie censorship as they played out in the Supreme Court, and emerging challenges to religious liberty in the 21st century.

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Before the Second Vatican Council, America’s Catholics operated largely as a coherent voting bloc, usually in connection with the Democratic Party. Their episcopal leaders generally spoke for Catholics in political matters; at least, where America’s bishops asserted themselves in public affairs there was little audible dissent from the faithful. More than occasionally, the immigrant Church’s eagerness to demonstrate its patriotic bona fides furthered its tendency to speak with one voice about national matters, and in line with the broader societal consensus. And, notwithstanding the considerable conflict which Catholics encountered, and generated, in American political life, there was before the Council broad agreement in American culture about the centrality of Biblical morality to the success of Americans’ experiment with republican government.In other words: before the Council, American Catholics’ relationship to the political common good was mediated, somewhat uncritical, and insulated from conflict (both within and without the Church) over such fundamental matters as protection of innocent life, marriage and family life, and (to a lesser extent) religious liberty.This has all changed since the mid-1960s. For the first time in the Church’s pilgrimage on these shores, controversial questions about the basic moral requirements of the political common good are front and center for America’s Catholics. These questions require Catholics to confront matters which heretofore they either took for granted, read off from the background culture, or which they left to the bishops to handle. But the Council Fathers rightly recognized that Jesus calls upon a formed and informed laity to act as leaven in the public realm, to bring Gospel values to the temporal sphere. In this book of essays touching upon Catholic social doctrine, the truth about human equality and political liberty, and religious faith as it bears upon public life and the public engagement of lay Catholics, Gerard Bradley supplies indispensable aid to those seeking to answer Jesus’ call.

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Why would a priest turn his back on his priesthood and walk away from his religious vocation and its demanding responsibilities? Why did he become a priest in the first place? And how do such men make reparations for their defection? Both Sides of the Altar strives to look at these questions through one such priest’s life, that of Frank Morgan. This book was a “Labor of Love” for Fr. John A. Hardon, s.j., now deceased, who urged him to put pen to paper to tell his story. It traces Frank’s life during the seminary, his life as a priest in the 1940s and 1950s, and as a layperson in the years that follow. Through it Frank walks through his own thought processes as he looks back over 60 years, evoking the raw emotion and feelings of his decision to leave behind his priestly ways, and enter the life of a Lay Person. It compares how he was treated both with kindness and with disdain. His narrative shows his constant persistence in trying to serve the Roman Catholic Church throughout his entire life. Truly showing both sides of the altar as only a man who lived it can tell. Insights into the current plights the Catholic Church faces, as well as poignant observations on solutions are presented in a loving and well told tale through his own voice. Frank’s underlying love of the Church and its teachings are a constant theme as he shares his life story.

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Liberalism at the Crossroads offers succinct, accessible, and well-written surveys of the ideas of the leading participants in the contemporary philosophical debate about liberalism. Christopher Wolfe brings together analyses of leading liberal thinkers from across the spectrum as well as influential critics of liberalism, including John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, Robert Nozick, Michael Sandel, Richard Rorty, Joseph Raz, and William Galston. For the second edition, each chapter has been thoroughly revised, and new chapters on Susan Moller Okin, Richard Posner, and John Finnis have been added to include representatives of liberal feminism, law and economics, and natural law. The result is an invaluable overview of contemporary political theory, ideal for both students and scholars.

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