A Commercial Announcement: "Command and Coercion,"

or what I've been doing instead of blogging. This article is, I hope, a section in my projected second book, in which I'll be exploring the relationship of Church and State, not from the perspective of what the Supreme Court has said about it (too muddled with inconsistent and conflicting rationales and results). Rather, I'll be looking at the harm done to religious bodies by efforts to exercise secular-style power.

This section examines the sex abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church and the Church's response as in the light of John Henry Newman's views on the Church's "regal function" and the clerical immunity from secular criminal law fought for by Thomas Becket. As this is a draft, a "pre-print," comments especially welcome.