Priests of the Law tells the story of the first people in the history of the common law to think of themselves as legal professionals. In the middle decades of the thirteenth century, a group of justices working in the English royal courts spent a great deal of time thinking and writing about what it meant to be a person who worked in the law courts. This book examines the justices who wrote the treatise known as Bracton. Written and re-written between the 1220s and the 1260s, Bracton is considered one of the great treatises of the early common law and is still occasionally cited by judges and lawyers when they want to make the case that a particular rule goes back to the beginning of the common law. This book looks to Bracton less for what it can tell us about the law of the thirteenth century, however, than for what it can tell us about the judges who wrote it. The judges who wrote Bracton - Martin of Pattishall, William of Raleigh, and Henry of Bratton - were some of the first people to work full-time in England's royal courts, at a time when there was no recourse to an obvious model for the legal professional. They found one in an unexpected place: they sought to clothe themselves in the authority and prestige of the scholarly Roman-law tradition that was sweeping across Europe in the thirteenth century, modelling themselves on the jurists of Roman law who were teaching in European universities. In Bracton and other texts they produced, the justices of the royal courts worked hard to ensure that the nascent common-law tradition grew from Roman Law. Through their writing, this small group of people, working in the courts of an island realm, imagined themselves to be part of a broader European legal culture. They made the case that they were not merely servants of the king: they were priests of the law.

The sexual abuse of children and teens by rogue priests in the U.S. Catholic Church is a heinous crime, and those who pray for a religious community as its ministers, priests and rabbis should never tolerate those who prey on that community. The legal disputes of recent years have produced many scandalous headlines and fuelled public discussion about the sexual abuse crisis within the clergy, a crisis that has cost the U.S. Catholic Church over $3 billion. In The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses, two eminent experts, James O'Reilly and Margaret Chalmers, draw on the lessons of recent years to discern the interplay between civil damages law and global church-based canon law. In some countries civil and canon law, although autonomous systems of law, both form part of the church's legal duties. In the United States, freedom of religion issues have complicated how the state adjudicates both cases of abuse and who can be held responsible for clerical oversight. This book examines questions of civil and criminal liability, issues of respondeat superior and oversight, issues with statutes of limitations and dealing with allegations that occurred decades ago, and how the Church's internal judicial processes interact or clash with the civil pursuit of these cases.

This fast-paced, inspiring and original work proposes that, if religions fade, then secular law provides a much more comprehensive moral regime to govern our lives. Backed by potent and haunting images, it argues that the rule of law is the one universal framework that everyone believes in and that the law is now the most important ideology we have for our survival. The author explores the decline of religions and the huge growth of law and makes predictions for the future of law and lawyers. The book maintains that even though societies may decide they can do without religions, they cannot do without law. The book helpfully summarises both the teachings of all the main religions and the central tenets of the law – governing everything from human relationships to money, banks and corporations. It shows that, without these legal constructs, some of them arcane, our societies would grind to a halt. These innovative summaries make complex ideas seem simple and provide the keys to understanding both the law and religion globally. The book will appeal to both lawyers and the general reader. The book concludes with the author's personal code for a modern way of living to promote the survival of humankind into the future. Vividly written by one of the most important lawyers of our generation, this magisterial and exciting work offers a powerful vision of the role of law in centuries to come and its impact on how we stay alive.

In the early 1950s, New York City’s teachers and professors became the targets of massive investigations into their political beliefs and associations. Those who refused to cooperate in the questioning were fired. Some had undoubtedly been communists, and the Communist Party-USA certainly made its share of mistakes, but there was never evidence that the accused teachers had abused their trust. Some were among the most brilliant, popular, and dedicated educators in the city. Priests of Our Democracy tells of the teachers and professors who resisted the witch hunt, those who collaborated, and those whose battles led to landmark Supreme Court decisions. It traces the political fortunes of academic freedom beginning in the late 19th century, both on campus and in the courts. Combining political and legal history with wrenching personal stories, the book details how the anti-communist excesses of the 1950s inspired the Supreme Court to recognize the vital role of teachers and professors in American democracy. The crushing of dissent in the 1950s impoverished political discourse in ways that are still being felt, and First Amendment academic freedom, a product of that period, is in peril today. In compelling terms, this book shows why the issue should matter to every American.

Two hundred years after canon law prohibited clerical marriage, parish priests in the late medieval period continued to form unions with women that were marriage all but in name. In Defiant Priests, Michelle Armstrong-Partida uses evidence from extraordinary archives in four Catalan dioceses to show that maintaining a family with a domestic partner was not only a custom entrenched in Catalan clerical culture but also an essential component of priestly masculine identity. From unpublished episcopal visitation records and internal diocesan documents (including notarial registers, bishops' letters, dispensations for illegitimate birth, and episcopal court records), Armstrong-Partida reconstructs the personal lives and careers of Catalan parish priests to better understand the professional identity and masculinity of churchmen who made up the proletariat of the largest institution across Europe. These untapped sources reveal the extent to which parish clergy were embedded in their communities, particularly their kinship ties to villagers and their often contentious interactions with male parishioners and clerical colleagues. Defiant Priests highlights a clerical culture that embraced violence to resolve disputes and seek revenge, to intimidate other men, and to maintain their status and authority in the community.

Many members of the Catholic Church today--clergy as well as laity--find no useful purpose for the Church's legal structure, or canon law. They may view canon law as arbitrary, antiquated, or even a hindrance to the movement of the Spirit, especially within the context of developments following the Second Vatican Council. Kevin E. McKenna counters this attitude with an overview of the positive features of Church law and a modern analysis of the canonical tradition of the Church. McKenna argues that the utilization of canon law in the Church today is not only desirable, but necessary and that it can be highly constructive when the law is viewed as a ministry of service. The call of the Church since Vatican II has been towards communion--with Christ, among Christians, and between local churches. The concept of communion provides a structure and a path that can clarify and encourage individual participation in developing the common good. After a discussion of the development of Church law and the effect Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II have had on contemporary canon law, McKenna's work underscores the role of canon law in highlighting the rights of all members of the Church. Canon law is necessary to assist in the orderly carrying out of the gospel demands and to protect the freedom of individual Church members. Practical applications of canon law include the annulment process and alternatives for resolving disputes within the Christian community. The Ministry of Law in the Church Today provides practical guidance and rationale for the role of law in the Church for pastoral ministers who are accustomed to seeing canon law as a problem rather than a solution. This book will also appeal to laity who harbor a curiosity about the usefulness of Church law in everyday Christian life.

Sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults by Catholic clergy is not a new phenomenon. Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes reveals in shocking detail a deep-seated problem that spans the Church's history.

Andrew Riggsby provides a survey of the main areas of Roman law, and their place in Roman life.