Legal Commentary

Rick Hills beat me to the punch, and called our attention to the "preposterously unconstitutional" proposal in Connecticut that would impose on the Catholic Church new internal-governance structures.  As one commenter put it, the proposal -- even if is Alien & Sedition Acts-ish in its unconstitutionality -- does at least have the benefit of spicing up the law-and-religion conversation, which is, I suppose, always in danger of falling into the "what, another holiday display?" doldrums.  I don't have, at present, anything to add to Rick's critique, except to shamelessly report that it is an animating theme of my current book project that this kind of measure (more than disputes about Ten Commandments monuments) is what church-state separation, properly understood, is really about.

For more from a canon-law expert, go here; for a good opinion piece by Dean John Garvey, criticizing a similar effort, about three years ago, in Massachusetts, go here; and for a USA Today op-ed, by me, warning of the dangers to religious freedom posed by (perhaps well meaning) efforts to get courts involved in supervising parish-closing decisions, go here.