Denver Newsroom, Oct 4, 2020 / 05:11 pm (CNA).- The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court would make her, if confirmed, the sixth Roman Catholic on the nine-person court.
While this is deeply concerning to some – and a reason to celebrate for others – both canon and civil lawyers told CNA that the Catholic legal tradition has much to offer the United States.
The Catholic Church has already contributed much to the United States’ legal system – including “the whole idea of law in general,” Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, OP, told CNA.
Fr. Pietrzyk practiced corporate and securities law in a large Chicago law firm before joining religious life, and he currently serves as a member of the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation. He is also a canon lawyer and professor at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park, California.
“It’s the development of canon law (the law that governs the Church) that gives both the United States and Europe their modern notions of law,” he said.
While aspects of canon law were present since the early days of the Church, the use of the term ‘canon law’, as rules and laws governing ecclesial matters rather than civil ones, started around the 12th century, according to New Advent. While the code of canon law has been updated numerous times, it is the longest still-functioning rule of law in the West.
“Even the idea of a professional legal class, that is of lawyers, finds its root in the professionalization of law and the development of the Church’s canon law, in the 12th century. Just the fact that there is a legal profession is something that is owed to the Church,” Pietrzyk said.
More generally, he added, the Catholic tradition has always understood that faith and reason work together. They are, as Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”
Stephen Payne, dean of the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America, said it is this emphasis of reason in the Catholic tradition that makes Catholics good lawyers and judges.
“God is the creator of reason and law is an important field in which human beings seek to apply reason for the common good,” he said.
“It’s that commitment to reason that is an especially important contribution Catholic judges and lawyers…can make in today’s environment, in which many people on both sides of the political spectrum seem to prefer to decide important questions by sheer force of power guided by appetite, or emotional sentiment, through a process that involves attacking other people and attempting to undermine their God-given dignity,” Payne added.
Pietryzk said that the Catholic Church has also always strongly prized education, because of its understanding of how faith and reason work together.
“Education is something that’s very important, particularly the United States. When a new group would come from whatever country to America as Catholics, they built the church and built the school, usually together,” he said.
There are many aspects of the U.S. law and the legal process that also find their roots in canon law, Pietrzyk said, such as the idea in corporate law that entities sometimes have rights like persons would, or the idea of due process.
“People condemn the Inquisition, but the Inquisition was a step above the civil courts because there was real, procedural due process with the Inquisition that just didn’t exist in secular law,” he said.
Payne said he sees a Catholic influence in U.S. law with respect to some issues of social justice, especially as they are treated in Pope Leo XII’s encyclical, “Rerum Novarum” and other works by the three most recent popes.
Their writings on social justice have had “a significant influence on how many people, at least in our country, think about social justice, especially in such arenas as helping the poor, healthcare, immigration, abortion, end of life, workers’ rights, the death penalty, and so on,” he said.
Payne added that the U.S. legal system also includes ideas that come from natural law, a concept emphasized in the Catholic tradition that has roots in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and even further back to Aristotle.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, natural law is “present in the heart of each man and established by reason….It expresses the dignity of the human person and forms the basis of his fundamental rights and duties.”
“Our break with King George III was justified on natural law grounds, and many of our constitutional rights and much of our common law was founded in and flows from natural law and natural rights,” Payne said.
Furthermore, Payne said, “the Catholic intellectual tradition and Catholic social teaching have a great deal to say about the common good and the dignity of the human person. And a significant part of that focuses on the natural law, and how seeking the common good enables individual human beings to flourish in community.”
In a way, Pietrzyk said, the Catholic understanding of human dignity is reflected “in the Declaration of Independence. ‘We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and they’re endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.’”
“This is a very Christian idea,” he said. “As much as we talk about the common good, there’s still a reality to the individual value and the dignity of the person and that the person has rights. Not simply because he’s a citizen of a particular country, but simply because he’s human and that human nature itself, whether born or unborn, endows that person with rights. Modern progressivism in some ways assumes that without understanding it.”
Modern progressivism “collapses” as a philosophy, Pietrzyk said, because it lacks “a coherent sense of a human person. It’s really just this sort of naked kind of freedom, or I would say autonomy.”
Conor Dugan is a Catholic attorney who practices in Michigan. He said the conflict between the Catholic understanding of the human person and the modern progressive understanding of the individual is due to the U.S. founding fathers, who mostly held Enlightenment principles and ideas, such as those from English philosopher John Locke.
The American legal system takes a Lockean view of people as individuals with rights, “which doesn’t necessarily nestle the person in a community,” Dugan told CNA.
On the other hand, Catholics understand the human person as someone who is always in relationship – to God, to others, to himself – and therefore while a person has rights, he also has responsibilities, Dugan said.
“It’s almost like the individual becomes atomized” in the U.S. legal system, he said, and “an individual who is cut off from all those things just has a packet of rights and no responsibility.”
Pietrzyk said an example of this Lockean understanding of the individual can be seen in U.S. law under the 2015 Supreme Court case, Obergefell v. Hodges, which effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
That decision demonstrated “a strong belief in an individual’s rights to marry whomever he wants, regardless of the nature of the institution or the nature of the person. It’s this raw exercise of will, but disconnected from any reality or any nature or anything like that,” he said. “It has no rational core to it.”
The concept of the common good, while mentioned in passing by some U.S. lawmakers, is another area where Catholic lawyers and judges may be able to have an impact, Dugan noted.
“I wonder if that’s something that Catholics can do, is try to bring about a deeper understanding of the common good,” he said.
“None of the Constitution makes sense, unless we have (human dignity and the common good) as a background assumption. And maybe we should make it more explicit at times so that people understand that that’s what the law is for – it’s to protect and to foster the common good, and to protect and ensure the dignity of human persons.”
Pietrzyk noted that it is law that makes a common good possible.
“Pope Francis has talked about this…the importance of the common good, which law helps to preserve. We don’t define our individual good over and against the common good as if the two are in opposition to each other, but our individual good is able to flourish…is only able to reach its fullness with the common good, and that includes the law,” he said.
“We as human beings cannot flourish outside of a society with the common good. And we cannot flourish outside of society that does not have law. It’s law that makes freedom possible. It’s law that makes liberty possible. And it’s precisely within the Church’s legal tradition, that the charismatic side, that is the side of grace, can really flourish.”
Because the United States was not founded explicitly on Catholic principles, Dugan said it makes sense that Catholic lawyers and judges would feel a tension between their religious beliefs and the law of the land.
“I think Catholics in America, and especially Catholic lawyers should feel a tension at times between their faith and the law,” he said.
“And that that’s not necessarily a bad tension. It can help us to offer the contribution [of the Catholic legal tradition] to the world. Because I think we can fill out and make more robust, the good things that are there in the American Constitution, or we can help [them] serve and fulfill their promise,” he said.
Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholicism has been a point of criticism since her 7th Circuit Court of Appeals nomination hearing in 2017, when she was accused of “the dogma living loudly” within her, to recent articles debating – and debunking – whether People of Praise, the charismatic movement to which Barrett belongs, was the inspiration behind the dystopian novel and T.V. series, The Handmaid’s Tale.
Payne said he was not sure why there has been such a sharp focus on Barrett’s religious convictions as a possible problem, since everyone in the field of law brings their own personal views or values to the table.
“I’m not sure why, from an objective point of view, there should be such a focus on the religious commitments of the candidates, especially in a country whose constitution is so clear about the human value of religious liberty,” Payne said.
“Belief in God is well supported by reason, though many in our culture think it’s contradicted by it. In any event, many people who are not religious hold the values they do have very securely and apply them to important decisions in their lives and in their work.”
Pietryzk said that rather than recusing themselves from pertinent cases, it should be the role of Catholic judges or lawyers to bring their understanding of the human person and the common good into their work.
“As Catholics, we understand that human beings are created with a nature, created by God with a nature,” he said. “And discerning what the proper rules are for human beings given that nature is historically part of the work of judges.”
He added that while he does not know Barrett personally, they have many friends in common.
“I do know lots of people who know her and every good thing you hear about her reputation, I’ve heard for a long time,” he said. “She is just an extraordinary woman by everybody’s account.”
Dugan, a former student of Barrett’s, said he thinks that as Catholics and as Americans, “we’ve hit the jackpot” with her nomination to the Supreme Court.
“It’s hard for me to imagine anyone having a negative thing to say about her,” he said.
“I went back and looked at some emails we exchanged over the years, giving me career and family advice, how to navigate the tensions of a busy practice with family and things like that…I just think we’ve gotten a real gift in this nomination. I hope she’s confirmed.”
[…]
From personal ‘lived’ experience when first considering a spiritual life it was the Trappist Abbey Our Lady of the Genesee [now sadly Genesee Abbey speaks for itself] the monks offered Mass in the simplest of settings in their temporary dwelling while the Abbey was being constructed – in accord with the ancient rite. It was the most spiritual, beautiful liturgical experience.
It was then that my sense of Christ’s presence deepened. Although by the time many years later ordained when the Novus Ordo was the rule, I previously had the great privilege of attending Mass at Precious Blood Monastery in Brooklyn offered by Msgr Joseph B Frey, Director of the Confraternity of the Precious Blood that included, with the printing of religious inspired books the Adorers of the Precious Blood.
In 1910, the Precious Blood Monastery in Brooklyn NY became the home of the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood which was founded by Mother Catherine Aurelia of the Precious Blood [Aurelia Caouette] in 1861 in Quebec, Canada. Back to Msgr Frey, who loved the TLM and wrote a book called My Mass.
When the changes came Msgr Frey conveyed the same joyous love of the Mass. His movements and tone conveyed holiness, awareness of Christ’s presence. Although that all began with the TLM.
Every Catholic worthy of the name should envy you the beautiful spiritual heritage you have known. I will search for Msgr. Frey’s book. Thank you for commenting, Father Morello.l
Asante Sana Sarah.
We had a Precious Blood order priest serving our Southern parish years ago. He got recalled back to wherever the order’s home base was. Ohio maybe?
Father related back then that the only way he got a new pair of shoes was when another priest had died-assuming the shoes fit. Perhaps they had a supply of deceased priest’s shoes on hand. Who knows?
I presume, then, that those Catholics who do not believe in the Real Presence think that what they’re receiving is merely a piece of bread. They really are fools then, since the bread is very lousy bread indeed. I could point them to any number of bakeries that make far superior bread. And, if that’s the case, just stay home and don’t bother to go to church at all. Better yet, get yourself to Dunkin Donuts on Sunday morning for some superb pastries.
I agree totally with this! Absolutely more enjoyable to go purchase a dozen donuts for the family from Dunkin’, then go home with the treats and relax with the Sunday paper in an easy chair. Why go to church to eat a wafer that has no taste and no meaning!
Krispy Kreme, please Deacon Edward…
🙂
My apologies to the KK faction for showing partiality to DD
Disbelief in the Real Presence is symptomtic of the doubts spread by Modernists concerning 2 other questions:
1) Was Jesus just a man good man like any other religious leader, or is He the Christ?
2) Was the resurrection a collective symbolic cŕeation or did Jesus historically rise from the dead?
The correlation between disbelief in the divinity of Christ and His historical resurrection and disbelief in the Real Presence would probably be a perfect match.
Otherwise put, this is not just about Latin Mass and receiving on the tongue.
This is about a crisis in dogmatic preaching and basic catechism about the second person of the Blessed Trinity.
We might conclude, those in contact with priests formed traditionally have more likelihood of developing Real-Deal Catholic Faith.
Those in contact with Vatican II liberals / who listened to Pope Francis’ relativist ramblings have less likelihood of developing the Real-Deal Catholic Faith. They remain nominally Catholic with the potential to develop the Catholic Faith if brought into contact with it.
Conclusion: without the Traditional wing of the Catholic Church, all that remains of Catholicism is a heritage show at different stages of being emptied of the faith.
Mr. Cracked Nut, I generally agree with your sentiment: it seems obvious to me that if you don’t accept Jesus as God, it’s going to be very difficult to accept that same Man can become present in the Eucharist some 2000 years after his death. To that end, I think you’re spot on about Catechesis. I’m not so sure, however, that a view of Church that divides participants into either the “modernists” or the “traditionalists” is a helpful distinction. Tradition itself only carries weight in so far as the Magisterium asserts its Goodness. By necessity, an Ecumenical Counsel is always traditional. So to attempt to divide the Church into “Vatican II Liberals” in opposition to, I suppose (and forgive the license I’m about to take if it’s not what you mean), “Pre-conciliar Traditionalists” seems to be an unhelpful dichotomy. Perhaps a more useful distinction are orthodox Catholics as opposed to unorthodox Catholics.
Dear James,
Thank you for the correction, brother in Christ. Your suggestion of Orthodox/heterodox is a gôod one, but perhaps the term “Post-Conciliarists” and not “Vatican II liberals” would have been better? Since the implementation of the Spirit of the Council bears little ressemblence to the council texts.
The problem being the preconceived ambiguities that were planted therein by the political-scheming enemies of Holy Mother Church.
PpBXVI claimed that the real council had yet to be discovered. Where there is hope, there is a way?
But the devastated vineyard is in a State of Decay, as attested to herein.
What characterises those persecuting the SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM TLM is a spirit that stands in opposition that great light in the darkness that was ppBXVI, and therefore the True Council of Vatican II of which he spoke and upon which he acted by signing SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM on 07.07.2007.
Anyone who has seen 07.07.07 on a tabernacle knows it stands for God’s holy name. The path to discovering the True Council is the restoration of SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM rather than Post-Conciliarism?
Howdy Mr. Cracked Nut,
I think the biggest problem with people understanding the landscape of Catholicism in the United States post-Vatican II is an over-simplistic characterization of the movements of various groups before and after the Council. No question that the implementation of the Council was mostly spearheaded in the US by those who claimed the “Spirit of the Council” (who were mostly of a group later called Concilium). This group believed the changes of Vatican II to be a “rupture” with the past – and it’s this group that, mostly, millennials and zoomers are pushing against by seeking a return to a more Scholastic (pre-conciliar) model of Catholicism.
The problem is that neither the Concilium or Scholastic vision of Vatican II really capture what the Council teaches. There is a authentic path to adopt the Council – and it’s the path of Communio theology which stands in continuity with the pre-Conciliar church while still embracing the teaching of the Council. The teachings of Communio are Traditional for this very reason, including embracing the Ordinary Form of the mass (Pope Benedict was of this ilk, btw, despite also bristling at the liturgical abuses implemented mostly by Concilium folks).
All that to say, there is a more nuanced way of looking at the Church’s growth and development that I find very hopeful for where we’re headed in the next pontificate. I could say much more on this topic; but suffice it to say, there is a way to approach the Sacramental Life of the Church with reverence that is consistent with the Council, and I think we’re just coming to the moment where the Church is ready to try it.
Peace,
James
Dear James,
If I may:
“I think we’re just coming to the moment where the Church is ready to try it [reverence].”
Why for 60 years was it possible to try out anything except Sacred Tradition?
What ppBXVI did with SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM 2007-2021 was to try the tried and tested! And normal Catholicism was working so well the meanies shut it down.
Traditionis Custodes was implemented with “an over simplistic characterisation” that too many Catholic faithful were being attracted to tradition and consequently questioning the validity of the last 60 years of Post-Conciliarism. Perish the thought.
We can only pray that the wisdom of ppBXVI will provide an impetus for the Church to exit the Post-Conciliar impasse of tearing-down Catholicism.
A restoration of SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM would be the logical first step towards rediscovering the Catholic Church of the Council: the Catholic Religion as taught and lived ad33-1962. Without it, what use is there in the council texts which issued from and adressed the Catholic Religion and not a Post-Conciliar heritage show busy building the freemasonic brotherhood of man?
But what is cause here, and what is effect? Does belief in the real presence lead one to prefer these liturgical practices, or does participation in these liturgical practices lead one to believe in the real presence? This is a distinction of some importance.
Faith, good works…good works, faith.
Perhaps a little bit of both, one fuels the other.
Going back to the tradition of capitalizing Body and Blood and Real Prescence and His and Him will go a long way to realizing the True Prescence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist too.
Our intellect can allow us to ponder variable descriptions of the Eucharist, and how it should be presented and maintained. But in simplicity, it is the body of Christ, and the absolute essence of the Catholic Mass, and of our faith. At my last duty station in the Navy, I finally became Catholic. My first communion was sort of a miracle in a sense. My Navy duty watches were draining: two eve watches (4PM-12AM), 8 hours later, two day watches (8AM-4PM), 8 hours later, two midnight watches (12AM-8AM). My last midnight watch ended on a Sunday (I was baptized between my two eve watches), and now I was eligible to receive the Eucharist at Mass. However, the last midnight watch was the most frantic, and hectic watch I ever served. We detected 13 Soviet submarines, 18 miles offshore; up and down the East coast (each submarine had 19 nuclear armed missiles). In the Mediterranean, three Soviet ships deliberately bumped into our ships. And China suddenly had 3 army divisions situated at their closest land point to Taiwan. And my duty station was handling and forwarding a ton of messages concerning these specific issues. When the shift was over, I just wanted to get a ton of sleep. But I also wanted to attend Mass. At Mass, I was quite dreary and drained. When it came time for Communion, I dragged myself up to receive the Eucharist. After I received the Eucharist, I took 3 steps, and then suddenly every cell in my body exploded with energy. So after Mass, I drove the 3 hour drive to my parent’s house. I entered the foyer, closed the door, and then suddenly, every ounce of energy left me. I was confused, and wondered what happened. Then I remembered that this all started when I received the Eucharist. At that point, Jesus spoke directly to me: “IT IS my body, always treat it with reverence and respect”. It wasn’t something in my mind, but what I physically heard with my ears. The Eucharist is simply a miracle every time we receive it. That is really the only concern we should have about it.
This certainly is interesting research; but I wonder if it goes far enough to really identify what’s going on. Most people whom I know who attend the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite attend because they’re seeking it out – not necessarily because they’ve been going to it their whole lives. Even in the case of this paper, they’ve indicated that the average age of those attending the EF is around 49 years old, which is older than the typical sample. Given Vatican II having occurred some 60 years ago, I’d assume its far more likely for anyone born after the Counsel to have sought out the EF rather than being raised attending it.
For the record, I certainly think that utilizing all the sacramentals, gestures, praying in Latin during the sacred liturgy, and fostering easy access to Adoration asserts our collective belief in what we’re saying we’re doing (receiving Jesus in the Word and Eucharist) at our parishes and, broadly speaking, reminds congregants/parishioners of the Truth of what we practice at Mass. At the same time, I’m not convinced that correlation necessarily equals causation in all of the tested-for practices. If you really want to know what’s happening in mainstream America, I’d want to see what the data say after you remove those who attend a parish that exclusively offers the EF of the Latin Rite.
The beauty of the whole thing is the validity of the sacrament is that it is not dependent on either the moral status or the beliefs of the celebrant. If he was validly ordained and uses the correct lectionary, the sacrament is valid. At the same time it is not necessary to believe in order to receive grace from reception of the sacrament. Myself being unable to get my head around the whole idea of transubstantiation, I take great comfort in a saying sometimes attributed to Queen Elizabeth I of England – “ His were the words that spake it ( the consecration) His were the hands that brake it ( the bread ) what His word does make it, I accept take it”. In this way I don’t need to know exactly what happened, but I can will to accept it in the fullest measure that Christ means it to be. Even a doubting Thomas can receive in good faith! Praise God!
This survey should not come as a surprise. The new mass teaches a Protestant understanding of the Eucharist, so after 50 years the we have the majority of Catholics with a confused understanding of our faith.
If I may: in your article you have made the following statement: “Five indicated that person is “certain that Jesus is really present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.”
I have a problem with the phrase “in the bread and wine of the Eucharist”. Using the word “in” implies that the substance of bread still exists! My understanding of ‘transubstantiation’ is that the bread, despite appearances, ceases to exist and the substance of bread is completely changed into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus the Christ.
From my very limited understanding, it is the Anglican/Episcopalian belief of “Consubstantiation” that the Body of Christ co-exists in the ‘consecrated bread”. I could be totally wrong.
As an aside: the phrase “Jesus is present in the Blessed Sacrament” is also somewhat misleading… Jesus is the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Sacrament is Jesus, totally and completely!
Our English language is very deficient to explain and present the mysteries of our Faith.