A Global Church and Its American Law Schools: Toward an Institutional Religious History of American Catholic Legal Thought

Pundits, politicians, and legal scholars are often quick to note that the contemporary Supreme Court is decidedly Catholic in its membership. And yet, scholars of American law and religion have all-but entirely overlooked the history of American Catholic legal thought – a distinctive form of religious reflection on American law that has decisively shaped the legal imaginations of thousands of lawyers and judges over the last century. In light of this overlooked history, this paper will illustrate how scholars can better understand the history of American Catholic legal thought through its institutions of legal education and legal strategy.

First, this paper will explore the origins of American Catholic legal education in the early twentieth century, a period during which largely poor Catholic emigrants sought to obtain valuable professional credentials. In doing so, it will highlight the range of factors that led to the establishment of many Catholic law schools in the early twentieth century, as well as the difficult questions that confronted early American Catholic legal educators who sought to build educational institutions that could be at once Catholic and American.

Second, this paper will explore the institutions of legal strategy that enabled Catholics to be effective litigators by the mid-twentieth century. Focused in particular on the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC), the American Catholic bishops’ official episcopal organization in Washington, this paper will reveal how this institution – and especially its Legal Department – sought to leverage the resources of American Catholic legal thought to advance Catholics’ interests in courtrooms around the country. In concluding, this paper will suggest that turning to the institutions of American Catholic legal education and American Catholic legal strategy can offer new insight into the relationship between law and religion in the twentieth century.