Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1997
Publication Information
47 J. Legal Educ. 13 (1997)
Abstract
The most obvious and the most personally important way in which scholarship reflects faith knows no distinction between Protestants and Catholics. For all of us who are Christians, the life of the scholar is our vocation, our contribution to the building of the Kingdom, our share in the church's mission. We did not just stumble upon this life of scholarship, or choose it because it is interesting, exciting, or fun (though sometimes it is). Rather, we discerned through prayerful reflection upon our gifts, our opportunities, and the needs of our communities that God called us to serve others by striving to know, and to communicate by teaching and publication what we come to know. Perhaps some dramatic experience like that which befell Saul on the road to Damascus pointed us on the scholarly way. No matter. The discovery occurred.
What of the questions we choose to engage? Again, it seems to me that Catholics and Protestants alike are properly influenced by the scholarly state of the art, by a senior colleague's advice, and by what the elite law reviews seem to want. Partly, it is a matter of what interests us: that some question seems compelling is quite possibly evidence of God's plan for us. But this feeling of being grabbed must be subordinated to a calm consideration of what, here and now, is worth figuring out because it will help build the Kingdom.
Is that the end of the way our faith influences our scholarship? Is there anything between the covers (after we have identified a topic) that distinguishes the Catholic legal scholar's articles, book chapters, monographs? Where on the pages are the Roman fingerprints? Let us leave aside the more obvious telltale signs: a citation to Aquinas or to a document of Vatican II; a decidedly pro-life perspective on abortion by someone named Murphy whose middle initials are F. X.; an article on social justice by someone named Gaffney.
Recommended Citation
Gerard V. Bradley,
Catholic Faith and Legal Scholarship,
47 J. Legal Educ. 13 (1997).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/761
Comments
Reprinted with permission of Journal of Legal Education.