St. Augustine’s Press

Conscience of the Institution, The

Alvaré, Helen M., editor

This volume is an extraordinarily timely reflection upon myriad aspects of the conscience of institutions. It contains the collected papers of a group of scholars gathered in 2011 at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, in order to address growing threats to religious institutions’ freedom to operate in accordance with their conscientious convictions.

In the recent past, lawmakers more readily acknowledged institutions’ conscientious objections to cooperation with matters concerning marriage and family, abortion, and military action. The last few years, however, have been marked by a growing intolerance on the part of lawmakers at every level and in every branch of government, even to the point of denying the possibility of an institutional conscience. The authors in this volume—philosophers, theologians and constitutional law scholars—offer thick accounts of the possibility of institutional conscience, as well as timely strategic advice.

Helen M. Alvaré is a Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law (Arlington, VA), and Chair of the Task Force on Conscience Protection at the Witherspoon Institute. She writes regularly in the areas of free exercise of religion and family law.