“Now We Know That the Law is Good”: On Law and Virtue: Fourth Annual Spring Symposium

Date

March 26, 2026

Time

5:30 pm - 7:30 pm

Location

  • Columbus School of Law
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Speakers

Speaker

  • Mary Ann Glendon
    Mary Ann Glendon Learned Hand Professor of Law, Emerita
    Mary Ann Glendon
    Mary Ann Glendon
    Learned Hand Professor of Law, Emerita

    Mary Ann Glendon is Professor of Law Emerita at Harvard University and a former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. From 2004 to 2014, she was President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences under Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. Her books include The Forum and the Tower, a series of biographical essays exploring the relation between political philosophy and politics-in-action; A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and In the Courts of Three Popes: An American Lawyer and Diplomat in the West’s Last Absolute Monarchy.

About the Event

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
Can a Lawyer be a Good Person?

TIME
5:30 pm – 6:30 pm – Presentation
6:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Reception in the Atrium

The Center for Law and the Human Person announces the theme for its Fourth Annual Spring Symposium: “Now We Know that the Law is Good”: On Law and Virtue. The symposium will take place March 26, 2026 at the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law. We are delighted to announce that Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law emerita at Harvard University and a former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, will deliver the symposium’s public keynote lecture. Past speakers have included James Hankins, Yuval Levin, Catherine Pakaluk, Carter Snead, and Carl Trueman.

This age-old question of the relationship between law and virtue has become fresh and urgent once again in our time. Whether the issue is the new hunger for education, legal and otherwise, that centers on the classical and Christian values of truth, knowledge, and human well-being; or the conditions of responsible and genuine citizenship in a fracturing polity; or the fundamental moral and political basis of our laws; or the question whether human character is formed by the law or instead shapes it – whether law is “downstream” of culture or the other way around – in these and countless other contexts, we see the reemergence of the perennial problem of the place of virtue in the law and in the world.


In addition to the public keynote lecture, the symposium will also feature several private sessions with scholars who will present their ideas and research. Our aim is to bring together a community of scholars concerned about the disintegration of law, politics, and morality, and who are committed to a rediscovery of classical virtues and a rebuilding of legal and political institutions necessary to cultivating those virtues in lawyers and citizens. 

This event will be co-sponsored by IHE.

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“Now We Know That the Law is Good”: On Law and Virtue: Fourth Annual Spring Symposium