Observations on the Memorandum “The Crisis in Church-State Relationships in the U.S.A.”

1999 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 704-710
Author(s):  
Samuel Cardinal Stritch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church ◽  
Grave Danger

The presentation of what the author calls a “grave danger” which confronts the Church in the United States in my judgment is not comprehensive. All through our history, we Catholics in the United States have had to face this same attack upon the Church from non-Catholics. The point of the attack has been the same all through the years: namely, that Catholics cannot be loyal to the Constitution of the United States and at the same time loyal to their Church. The notion of religious freedom in the non-Catholic mind in the Englishspeaking world derives from the Protestant doctrine upholding the right of the individual to interpret for himself the Sacred Scriptures.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Church–State Model for an Effective Guarantee of Religious Freedom: A Study of the Peruvian Experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Susana Mosquera
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
Legal Model ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right ◽  
Institutional Guarantee ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Individual Dimension ◽  
The Church

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments established important restrictions on religious freedom. Due to a restrictive interpretation of the right to religious freedom, religion was placed in the category of “non-essential activity” and was, therefore, unprotected. Within this framework, this paper tries to offer a reflection on the relevance of the dual nature of religious freedom as an individual and collective right, since the current crisis has made it clear that the individual dimension of religious freedom is vulnerable when the legal model does not offer an adequate institutional guarantee to the collective dimension of religious freedom.

Why Is There So Much Christianity in the United States? A Reply to Sommerville

2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 858-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Hollinger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church History ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Secular Culture ◽  
The North ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Church

If we are going to explain the slow pace of de-Christianization for the United States relative to other industrialized societies in the North Atlantic West, we might well begin with the church-state relationship. The absence of an established church in the United States has enabled religious affiliation to function, like other voluntary organizations in “civil society,” as mediators between the individual and the nation. I conimented on this rather old idea in a book C. John Sommerville is kind enough to cite in another connection, Science, Jews, and Secular Culture, but since he does not take up this point, I will develop it a bit further here, before reacting to Sommerville's other concerns as expressed in his refreshingly fair-minded rejoinder to my essay in the March 2001 issue of Church History.

The Crisis in Church-State Relationships in the U.S.A.

1999 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 687-704
Author(s):  
John Courtney Murray
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Present State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intense Fear ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
The Church ◽  
Grave Danger

In this memorandum four points will be briefly made.First, a grave danger confronts the Church in the United States, because the Church is the object of a newly intense fear, distrust, and hostility. At the same time a new apostolic opportunity is being offered to the Church, because the Church is now the object of a new interest, curiosity, and sympathy.Second, one great obstacle hinders the Church in coping effectively with the danger confronting her. And the same obstacle also blocks her from making full use of the opportunity offered to her. This obstacle consists in the present state of development of the Church's doctrine on Church-State relationships. This doctrine has not yet been vitally adapted to modern political realities and to the legitimate democratic aspirations, especially as they have developed in the United States.

scholarly journals Institutional Religious Freedom in Full: What the Liberty of Religious Organizations Really Is and Why It an “Essential Service” to the Common Good

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 414
Author(s):  
Timothy Samuel Shah
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Organizations ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
Essential Services ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

Should the freedom of churches and other religious institutions come down to little more than a grudging recognition that “what happens in the church, stays in the church”? In this article, I provide a more robust definition of what I call institutional religious freedom than a crabbed and merely negative understanding. In addition, I also go beyond a libertarian-style defense of institutional religious freedom as the ecclesiastical equivalent of the “right to be left alone” by suggesting a multitude of reasons why institutional religious freedom in a robust form deserves robust protection. Especially amidst exigent challenges such as the global COVID-19 pandemic, an anemic appeal to an ecclesiastical version of negative liberty on merely jurisdictional grounds will not be enough to defend religious organizations from an increasingly strong temptation and tendency on the part of political authorities—often acting on the basis of understandable intentions—to subject such organizations to sweeping interference even in the most internal matters. In contrast, the article offers an articulation of why both the internal and external freedoms of religious institutions require maximum deference if they are to offer their indispensable contributions—indeed, their “essential services”—to the shared public good in the United States and other countries throughout the world. Underscoring the external and public dimensions of institutional religious freedom, the article follows the work of law and religion scholar W. Cole Durham in that it analytically disaggregates the freedom of religious institutions into three indispensable components: “substantive”, or the right of self-definition; “vertical”, or the right of self-governance; and “horizontal”, or the right of self-directed outward expression and action.

scholarly journals A Comparative Study of Political Communication in Televised Pre-Election Debates in Poland and the United States of America

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hinton ◽  
Agnieszka Budzyńska-Daca
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Persuasive Strategies ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Qualitative Methodologies ◽  
The Right ◽  
Statistical Results

This paper combines quantitative and qualitative methodologies to study the persuasive strategies employed by candidates taking part in televised pre-election debates in Poland and the United States between 1995 and 2016. First, the authors identify the key strategies and calculate the frequency with which they are used by individual candidates. This allows for numerical comparisons between politicians in the two polities, as well as between winners and losers, and candidates of the right and the left politically. These statistical results led the authors to look more closely at the individual styles of two contrasting debaters. We conclude that the rhetorical landscape of political communication does not differ greatly between the two countries; although the data suggest noticeable differences in the approach of political parties and between individuals.

Citizenship and Allegiance in Constitutional and International Law

1907 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 914-929 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. W. Willoughby
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
American Citizen ◽  
The Status ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

The recent report on Citizenship of the United States, Expatriation, and Protection Abroad, together with the work of Mr. Van Dyne on Citizenship of the United States, and the invaluable Digest of International Law, by Prof. John Bassett Moore, render easily accessible and readily comprehensible the principles of the American law with reference to the status of our citizens and of aliens for the time being within our territorial limits. At the same time, however, these publications make more evident the fact that, in many instances, the conflicting claims of two or more states upon the same individual are settled rather by mutual concessions than upon principle; that legal and political rights are asserted, but with an understanding, more or less explicit, that under given circumstances they will not be exercised. Thus, by a legislative act, legally binding upon our executive and judicial officers, we have declared the right of the individual to expatriate himself to be an absolute and indefeasible one, and that the naturalized American citizen is to have the same rights and is to receive the same protection as the native-born citizen, whether or not the state of original allegiance consents to the expatriation thus involved. In practice, this law, thus formally declared, has never been rigidly enforced, for the very good reason that to attempt to do so would lead to constant and serious international difficulties.

scholarly journals The Private Investigator and the Right to Privacy

1969 ◽  
pp. 256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine F. Geddes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Right To Privacy ◽  
Private Investigator ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

The author examines the law with respect to the status and powers of private investigators and reviews cases in both Canada and the United States involving the activities of private investigators. Possible remedies available against the private investigator, both in tort and criminal law, are reviewed, as well as American cases on the common law of invasion of privacy, Canadian cases under the various provincial Privacy Acts and possible remedies under the Charter of Rights. Privacy is the right of the individual to decide for himself how much of his life, his thoughts, emotions and the facts that are personal to him he will share with others.

Accessing Reproductive Technology in France

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-162
Author(s):  
Laurence Brunet ◽  
Véronique Fournier
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Assisted Reproductive Technologies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
The Right To Privacy ◽  
Cultural Foundations ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

This chapter compares French and American approaches to assisted reproductive technologies (ART). These countries are a fascinating (and unexplored) mirror: the United States focuses on the individual, while France emphasizes the best interest of society as a whole. This results in an access to ART largely open in the United States, yet all costs are covered by patients, and an access strictly regulated by law in France (and quite restricted until recent changes), yet costs are fully financed. This chapter introduces readers to the legal framework of access to ART in France and its cultural foundations. It highlights the insistence on the “right to privacy” in the United States, a concept much less valued in France, and concludes with a discussion, using clinical cases, of the ethical issues underlying tensions between reproductive autonomy and public policymaking, which differ in both countries.

Challenges, Hopes, Vocations

2019 ◽  
pp. 62-82
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Fichter ◽  
Thomas P. Gaunt ◽  
Catherine Hoegeman ◽  
Paul M. Perl
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church Ministry ◽  
New Generation ◽  
The Church ◽  
Broad Understanding

This chapter first looks at the challenges identified by the bishops: secularism, religious freedom, indifference, marriage, family, lack of priests, and relativism. Additionally, attention is given to the challenge of addressing clergy sexual abuse. Second, we examine their hopes for the future: young adults, laity, spirituality, vocations to Church ministry, Pope Francis, priests, Hispanics, and evangelization. Third, we look at how the bishops are encouraging vocations to priesthood and religious life. How are they promoting a new generation of priests, sisters and brothers to serve the Church? These three issues provide a broad understanding of where the bishops of the United States may be leading the Church.

scholarly journals Constitution and Family in the United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 651-668
Author(s):  
Carl A. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Community Involvement ◽  
Living Arrangements ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Family ◽  
Family Based ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

Decisions of the United States Supreme Court beginning with Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) have transformed family law in the United States. By characterizing the right to marry as a fundamental constitutional right and procreative decision-making as both a fundamental liberty interest and privacy right, the Court has “deregulated” the institutions of marriage and family. During this same period the Court’s approach to legal questions involving the rights of non-marital cohabitating couples as well as individual procreative decision-making has tended to blur legal distinctions between the family based upon marriage and other living arrangements. The widespread adoption of mutual consent and/or marital breakdown as grounds for the dissolution of marriage in the United States has significantly altered the social dynamics of marriage and further reduces distinctions between marriage and other living arrangements. However, recent decisions by the Court in Hardwick, Michael H., and Webster point to a change of direction in the Court’s view of privacy which may signal a willingness to tolerate greater community involvement in establishing protective regulation of the institutions of marriage and the family based upon it. The Court also appears to be in the process of significantly narrowing the constitutionally recognized right of privacy when viewed as a zone of autonomous decision-making for the individual or non-marital couple.

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