Some thoughts on natural law and contemporary society

Abstract

Way back in 1950, William J. Kenealy S.J., then Dean of the Boston College Law School, delivered an address at a testimonial banquet in honour of twenty· six members of the Federal, State and Municipal Judiciary, alumni of the School of Law of Loyola University, New Orleans. The opening paragraph of the address ran as follows: 'The majesty of the law? In what does it consist? In marble columns or high-backed leather chairs or black silk robes? No. These are but external symbols of an inward majesty. Does it consist, then, in that in visible force which al ways lurks behind the bench: the battalions of police, the regiments of soldiers, the battleships and bombing planes, which can be summoned to put teeth into a nation's laws? No. It is not force. At least not physical force. For the true majesty of the law is more than its coercive sanction. It is a moral power, springing from a rational people's conviction that they see, enshrined in their courts, one of the few enduring elements of civilised life. It is a moral power, arising from a free people's realisation that the law is the means, under Divine Providence, of enjoying in security the inalienable rights founded in their human nature by the natural law. It is a moral power, flowing from a moral people's persuasion that the administration of just human law demands their conscientious obedience, because it is their human participation in-the Eternal Law of God.'