Teaching Jurisprudence in a Catholic Law School

(Excerpt) Jurisprudence plays an important role in John Breen and Lee Strang’s history of Catholic legal education and in their prescription for its future. Legal philosophy in general, and the natural law tradition in particular, provide a central justification for the existence of distinctive Catholic law schools. They are right to argue so. As part of the broader Catholic intellectual tradition, which emphasizes the unity of knowledge and the eternal significance of mundane practice, natural law philosophy rejects mere vocationalism.

It can provide the animating form and direction of a legal education that is more than one damn thing after another in preparation for the bar.