From MOJ:
We, the members of Mirror of Justice, are a group of Catholic and Christian law professors and former law professors. We wish to express our profound concern with the course of events at Ave María School of Law (“AMSL”). While we differ among ourselves in our religious and political convictions, we share a commitment to Catholic legal education and respect Ave Maria's serious desire to express its religious identity. We write as legal academics and as persons who believe and expect a Catholic law school to be “a living institutional witness to Christ and his message.” (Ex Corde Ecclesiae, ¶ 49).
The statement goes on to explain the standards by which we evaluated the situation, our understanding of the core facts of gravest concern, and the conclusions we have drawn. In closing, we wrote:
By the failure to live their Christian commitment, the AMSL Dean and Board cause scandal in the legal, academic, and religious communities. This scandal is exacerbated by the fact that their actions are taken on behalf of a law school named for the Blessed Mother of Christ. We echo this sentiment expressed earlier by an MOJ contributor: “The hour is not too late for [AMSL’s Dean and Board] to model for the legal and academic communities the essence of a Catholic Christian law school. In fact, [we] would suggest [that they] have a better, clearer opportunity to mirror Christ now than when [they] first began because the only path left open is through the cross. It may not be what [they] had planned, but God works in mysterious ways.”
We pray that all involved with AMSL will have the courage to exercise the convictions of Christian discipleship to reconcile all parties involved in the matters we have discussed.
I am proud to be part of the blogging community at MOJ and to have co-signed this important statement.
