Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “‘A Noble Alchemy’: Benefit of Clergy and the Early History of Leniency” Matthew P. Cavedon Criminal justice reform efforts have recently focused on the consequences of having a record. There is a growing sense that society needs to show mercy to those who pay the consequences for doing…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “Vatican Criminal Reforms Ignore Glaring Problems Even as Jurisdiction Expands Worldwide” Matthew P. Cavedon On February 16, Pope Francis announced changes to the Vatican’s criminal code. These alter court procedures to protect a few defense rights and make punishment more merciful. They come alongside recent expansions in the…
Photo by Ravi Pinisetti on Unsplash. The New Age of Rights In the 1990s, the European Union (EU) seemed to be done. The Old Continent was pacified. Soviet imperialism had melted away. European dictatorships — from Portugal to Spain, from Greece to Romania — had ended. European citizens could travel from Italy to the Netherlands,…
Photo by Mohammed Nasim. This article is part of our “What’s Wrong with Rights?” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Nigel Biggar’s publications are predictable, but never uninteresting: predictable in that he is unashamedly a conservative moral philosopher who self-defines as a professional Christian ethicist, a description which seems…
A New History of the Church in Wales: Governance and Ministry, Theology and Society, edited by Norman Doe An Overview by Norman Doe This paper draws on themes and materials explored in N. Doe, ed., A New History of the Church in Wales: Governance and Ministry, Theology and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020) as…
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Right / Flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0 Florida is the most populous battleground state, famous for high-stakes contests, razor-thin margins, and trouble with electoral administration. Back in 2000, George W. Bush won Florida by 1,784 votes. In Florida, perhaps more than in any other state, every vote counts.…
Photo of cells by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Public Domain) A virtual conference organized in partnership with Brigham Young University Law School, Emory University Law School, Notre Dame Law School, St. John’s University School of Law, and the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. View the full video and browse all essays here.…
Photo / James Coleman / Unsplash The coronavirus pandemic has had (and continues to have) worldwide implications. Quite apart from the tragic loss of life and the damage to economies, individuals have faced significant restrictions in their personal lives, which includes, but of course is not limited to, limitations on the extent to which they…
Great Christian Jurists in French History edited by Olivier Descamps and Rafael Domingo This volume is part of a fifty-volume series on “Great Christian Jurists in World History, “presenting the interaction of law and Christianity through the biographies of 1000 legal figures of the past two millennia. Commissioned by the Center for the Study of…
The Medieval Luther edited by Christine Helmer Staging a conversation among distinguished Luther scholars, historians of Christianity, and philosophers, The Medieval Luther makes the case that it is impossible to understand Luther’s most important doctrines without exploring his philosophical inheritance. After all, Luther was an ardent participant in and contributor to the philosophical disputes of…