Pope Benedict XVI’s Legal Thought: A Dialogue on the Foundation of Law

Description

Throughout Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's pontificate he spoke to a range of political, civil, academic, and other cultural authorities. The speeches he delivered in these contexts reveal a striking sensitivity to the fundamental problems of law, justice, and democracy. His contribution goes well beyond the community of Catholic believers, since he didn't rely on moral or doctrinal arguments, but on what all humans have in common : reason. This book takes on Benedict XVI's pivotal question "How do we recognize what is right ?" in contemporary democratic and pluralistic constitutional contexts, and discusses five speeches in which the Pope Emeritus reflected most explicitly on this issue along with the commentary from a number of distinguished legal scholars from different cultural and religious backgrounds. It responds to Benedict's invitations to re-open a public conversation on the limits of positivist reason ; to leave the windowless "bunker" in which positivism has confined human reason ; and to reach out for a wider understanding of human possibilities, in the name of the "whole breadth of reason". Although the topics of each address vary, they nevertheless are grounded on a series of core ideas, which Benedict sketches, unpacks, and develops in an organic and coherent way to formulate a "public teaching" of justice and law. Marta Cartabia, full professor of constitutional law, is a Member of the Italian Constitutional Court since 2011, currently serving as Deputy President. She has taught in a number of Italian universities and was a visiting scholar and professor in France, Germany and the United States. Andrea Simoncini is currently a full professor of constitutional law at the University of Florence, Italy. In 2009 he was Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer at Notre Dame University where he was also a visiting professor at the Law School.