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1 week ago | 
firstthings.com | Mark Movsesian
Last month, in one of the first liturgical acts of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, one of the four major basilicas of Rome. The act had great symbolic importance, not only because it affirmed Leo’s pastoral authority as bishop of Rome.
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3 weeks ago | 
lawandreligionforum.org | Mark Movsesian
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1 month ago | 
reason.com | Mark Movsesian
Washington State's New Law on Clergy Reporting in Child Abuse Cases | This month, Washington State enacted a law requiring clergy to report suspected child abuse or neglect, even when the information is obtained through a confidential spiritual communication, like Confession in the Catholic Church.
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1 month ago | 
lawandreligionforum.org | Mark Movsesian
Exciting news! I can announce today that Mattone Center alum Dan Vitagliano will clerk for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States in October Term 2027. Dan, who graduated from St. John’s Law summa cum laude in 2020, was a student fellow in the Mattone Center for two years, 2018-2019 and 2019-2020, and is the first graduate of St. John’s ever to be selected for a Supreme Court clerkship.
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1 month ago | 
reason.com | Mark Movsesian
Recollections of a true gentleman | Justice David Souter passed away last week. I clerked for him early in his tenure on the Court, in October Term 1992, and ever since the news, I've been thinking about him—talking with friends, family, and former colleagues who've reached out to share memories and condolences.
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1 month ago | 
lawandreligionforum.org | Mark Movsesian
This is a bit outside my wheelhouse, but I did want to note that next month Notre Dame Press will release an English translation of French scholar Pierre Manent’s recent book, Challenging Modern Atheism and Indifference: Pascal’s Defense of the Christian Proposition. Many observers have noted an uptick in Christianity in France (and the US), especially among young men.
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1 month ago | 
lawandreligionforum.org | Mark Movsesian
Princeton’s Robert George is one of the world’s leading scholars of natural law. This is not a subject that keeps one out of controversy nowadays, but George has a unique ability to engage the public debate thoughtfully from a conservative perspective while retaining the respect of interlocutors on the other side. This summer, Encounter Books will release a new collection of essays from him on current issues, Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth: Law and Morality in Our Cultural Moment.
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2 months ago | 
lawandreligionforum.org | Mark Movsesian
A great benefit of my sabbatical several years ago at Princeton’s James Madison Program was having an office next door to Professor John Wilsey. I always enjoyed and learned a great deal from our hallway conversations. Now lots of other people can benefit, too, since John, a church historian at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is out with a new book, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer (Eerdmans). Looks very interesting.
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2 months ago | 
lawandreligionforum.org | Mark Movsesian
I’ve enjoyed Zondervan’s “Critical Points” series, which publishes brief and accessible introductions to contested questions in Christian thought. Here is a new volume in the series, Natural Law: Five Views, edited by Ryan Anderson and Andrew Walker. The book brings together scholars of natural law from the Protestant and Catholic traditions, which seem to be working in parallel.
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2 months ago | 
lawandreligionforum.org | Mark Movsesian
I’m late getting to this, but I did want to note Ashley Rogers Berner’s most recent book on educational pluralism, Educational Pluralism and Democracy: How to Handle Indoctrination, Promote Exposure, and Rebuild America’s Schools (Harvard). Ashley, a professor of education at Johns Hopkins, is a longtime friend of the Mattone Center who participated in our Tradition Project several years ago.
