I just had the occasion to re-read a terrific speech that then-Cardinal Ratzinger gave back in 1991 entitled “The Problem of Threats to Human Life.”http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=187&repos=1&subrepos=&searchid=292732 The speech anticipated Pope John Paul II’s great encyclical Evangelium Vitae. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae_en.html
Soon after re-reading the speech, I realized that Father John Conley, SJ, gave a talk at the 2005 University Faculty for Life conference in which he highlighted the importance of the 1991 speech (and another later speech by Cardinal Ratzinger on freedom and truth). Here is Father Conley’s assessment of these speeches: “Cardinal Ratzinger made a central contribution to the cause of human life by illuminating the background anthropological disputes, especially those concerning the nature of human freedom, that have made the case for the comprehensive right to life unintelligible in elite sectors of the Western world.” http://www.uffl.org/vol15/conley05.pdf
The speeches (and Father Conley’s essay) are well-worth reading.
Richard M.
Richard Myers
Richard S. Myers, the Vice-President of UFL, is Professor of Law at Ave Maria School of Law, where he teaches Antitrust, Civil Procedure, Conflict of Laws, Constitutional Law, and Religious Freedom. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Kenyon College and earned his law degree at Notre Dame, where he won the law school's highest academic prize. He began his legal career by clerking for Judge John F. Kilkenny of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Myers also worked for Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue in Washington, D.C. He taught at Case Western Reserve University School of Law and the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law before joining the Ave Maria faculty. He is a co-editor of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law Tradition: Contemporary Perspectives (Catholic University of American Press, 2004) and a co-editor of Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy (Scarecrow Press, 2007). He has also published extensively on constitutional law in law reviews and also testified before Congressional and state legislative hearings on life issues.
Married to Mollie Murphy, who is also on the faculty at Ave Maria School of Law, they are the proud parents of six children - Michael, Patrick, Clare, Kathleen, Matthew, and Andrew. http://www.avemarialaw.edu/index.cfm?event=faculty.bio&pid=11705E7D4E0111010366
