Saturday, April 8, 2000,  1:00 pm - 2:15 pm

“The Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Galileo Affair:  Lessons of Church History"

Dwight Duncan, J.D., J.C.L., J.C.D.
Associate Professor
Southern New England School of Law

Dwight Duncan, professor at Southern New England School of Law, will talk about the occasions in Church history where recourse to force and violence threatened to derail the Church's spiritual mission:  the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Galileo affair.  Interestingly, all of these situations involved the use of legal theory, which was given a theological justification.  This Jubilee Year, in which the Pope has called for an honest examination of conscience by the Church and by individual Catholics, is a good occasion to reflect on some of the lessons of Church history.

Professor Duncan is an honors graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. A native Washingtonian, he practiced law there with the telephone company, now part of Bell Atlantic. He is a member of the Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. bars. His interests include legal history and legal philosophy. He is a founding member of the American Public Philosophy Institute and belongs to the Christian Legal Society and the Canon Law Society of America, in addition to the usual bar associations. His doctoral thesis was on the subject of "Canonization in the Thirteenth Century." He has written articles on legal, moral, and religious issues for a number of review. Professor Duncan teaches courses in Constitutional Law, Legal Ethics, Religion and the Law, and Bioethics.  He has argued cases before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Court and has written briefs for the U.S. Supreme Court.