2/10/05--Boston College Law School is pleased to announce that on February 28, 2005, Judge John Noonan will present the lecture “A Church that Can and Cannot Change.” The event will occur in the Law School’s East Wing Building, Room 120, from 4-6 p.m.

John Noonan is a United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Prior to appointment to the bench he taught law at Notre Dame from 1961 through 1966 and at Berkeley from 1967 through 1985. He is Robbins Professor of Law, emeritus, at the University of California. He has also been a visiting professor of law at Boston College, Harvard, Southern Methodist, and Stanford, and has given the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Lectures at Harvard Law School. From 1961 through 1967 he was the Editor of the American Journal of Jurisprudence.

Judge Noonan is the author of five major theological works: Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (1965), the story of the evolution of a moral doctrine; Power to Dissolve (1970), an account of annulment and divorce in the Catholic Church; Bribes, an exploration of bribery, grace and redemption; The Lustre Of Our Country. The American Experience of Religious Freedom (1998), the story of how American example influenced the evolution of Catholic thought on the treatment of heresy; and, most recently, A Church That Can And Cannot Change (2005), a synthesis of the factors retarding or encouraging the development of moral doctrine.

This event is part of the Church in the 21st Century project, which began in September 2002. The purpose of the group is to explore the issues underlying the clerical sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church by providing a forum and resources to assist the Catholic community in transforming the current situation into an opportunity for renewal.

C21 Website: www.bc.edu/church21