Catholics and the Law

Michael P. Foley writes at InsideCatholic:

Catholics in America have more reasons than ever to worry about the future of the law. The legal practice of the Catholic faith in the United States is already becoming difficult because of funding abortions via our taxes, scuttling our philanthropic organizations rather than supporting same-sex marriage, or paying for the artificial contraception of Catholic institutions' employees. The international scene is no better: Several years ago, the EU tried to deny Europe's Christian roots in its constitution, and two months ago the European Court of Human Rights fined the Italian government for having crucifixes in schoolrooms.

From all this it would be easy to conclude, like Thomas More's excitable son-in-law Roper in A Man for All Seasons, that the law is a cloak for the devil to do his mischief, and that every law in the land should be cut down in the service of God. But such a view overlooks a remarkable fact: Despite some legislators' hostility to Catholic morality, the legal tradition as we know it owes its existence in large part to the Catholic Church.

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