Free Republic

Recently, I was blessed to have both the time and the opportunity to visit St. John Paul II’s shrine in Washington D.C. It was one of those pilgrimages that, in spite of my living only a four hour drive away, I had yet to complete. However, in this Year of Divine Mercy, my wife and I were determined to go, and the fact that the shrine was also hosting an exhibit of relics and items from St. Thomas More’s life provided the final impetus. We were not disappointed. We had before us the examples of two men who confronted the...

The Catholic impact on Western law can hardly be overestimated.A common accusation against Roman Catholicism is that it is legalistic, slavishly beholden to an elaborate set of rules and precepts and thereby resistant to the movements of the Holy Spirit or the mercy of God. The charge may not be entirely without its merits, especially at certain times in the Church's history, in certain places, and with certain figures, but for it to be evaluated fairly an important distinction must be drawn between the prominent use of or focus on law on the one hand and legalism on the other....

20-June-2011 -- Catholic News Agency St. Thomas More, Martyr Of The English Reformation, Remembered June 22 DENVER, COLO., June 19 (CNA/EWTN News) - On June 22, the Catholic Church will honor the life and martyrdom of St. Thomas More, the lawyer, author and statesman who lost his life opposing King Henry VIII's plan to subordinate the Church to the English monarchy. Thomas More was born in 1478, son of the lawyer and judge John More and his wife Agnes. He received a classical education from the age of six, and at age 13 became the protege of Archbishop John...

The first person Monsignor James P. Farmer defended when he served in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps in the early 1970s was a man from Puerto Rico who spoke no English. The future priest, then a young lawyer who knew no Spanish, received the case on appeal after his new client had already been convicted. The Puerto Rican had been previously represented by another man who also wasn’t bilingual. Remembering that a criminal law professor at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law had once told him that lawyers have a right not to defend someone,...

ST. JUDE ELECTION NOVENA We have an opportunity as Catholics to elect a President and Vice-President whose political platform is largely favorable to and supportive of Catholic moral and social teaching, especially on the pre-eminent Catholic moral issue of the right to life, and to keep out of power a President and Vice-President whose political platform is largely hostile to Catholic moral and social teaching, especially with regard to the respect and protection of all life from conception to natural death. Let us pray a nine day novena to St. Jude, the patron of hopeless causes, for John McCain and...

by Charles S. LiMandri Other Articles by Charles S. LiMandri 9/11 in Perspective: Thomas More — A Man for This Season 09/11/06 In 1929, G.K. Chesterton said, “Blessed Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in about 100 years’ time.” In This Article...Conflict of Interest?Threats Within and WithoutIn God’s Hands Conflict of Interest? The prophetic import of Chesterton’s words has become increasingly poignant in our own time. My introduction to Thomas More came, as...

DEBATES in the New South Wales Parliament are notoriously brutal but MPs can take some comfort from the fact that unlike their patron saint, they won't be beheaded for their principles. Sydney Catholic Archbishop Cardinal George Pell today unveiled a statue of St Thomas More, the patron saint of lawyers, statesmen and politicians, in the Speaker's Garden at Parliament House in Sydney. The bronze statue was a gift to the Parliament from the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney. St Thomas, who was born in 1477 or 1478, was executed in 1535 for high treason after refusing to publicly accept King Henry...

Law Center Defends Michigan’s Ban on Partial Birth Abortions in the Federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ANN ARBOR, MI —The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed its opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in defense of Michigan’s ban on partial birth abortions. The Law Center is asking the court to overturn the lower court ruling, which struck down the ban and denied its prime sponsor, Standing Together To Oppose Partial-birth-abortion (“STTOP”), to intervene in the lawsuit. The Act, known as the Michigan Legal...