December 20, 2023 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

It has been one of the great experiences of my academic life to work alongside Marc DeGirolami for the past 13 years. A few years ago, when Marc received the inaugural Cary Fields Professorship here at St. John’s, I wrote about his talents as a tireless, thoughtful, and influential academic. I won’t repeat my comments, but I do want to thank Marc for teaching me so much about what it means to be a scholar. I will do my best to live up to his example, now that he is moving down I-95 to become the St. John Henry Newman Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Law and the Human Person at Catholic University.

I also want to thank Marc for all his contributions to the Mattone Center. Whatever we have achieved here — this blog, as well as the many conferences, podcasts, colloquia, and webinars — has been a joint effort. And I want to thank Marc for the greatest gift of all: his steadfast friendship through thick and thin.

We’ll plan on continuing Legal Spirits — look for new episodes in 2024 — and collaborating on projects in the years ahead. For now, though, brother, congratulations to you and your new colleagues at Catholic, and Godspeed. I’ll miss you.

After nearly 15 years, I am leaving St. John’s Law School and the Mattone Center for Law and Religion. My professional life has been spent very happily here, in equable and productive study and teaching with my excellent, learned friend and colleague, Mark Movsesian. I have been proud of our Center’s work–from its large undertakings, such as our Tradition Project, to its smaller labors in our occasional seminars, podcasts, and our Reading Society (of which I have grown particularly fond). It has been an honor and delight for me to be a part of all of it.

Permit me to thank all of the participants and supporters that have made the work of our Center such a great joy for me over the years. In an era of turmoil for American higher education, the Center will live on in my memory as an example, and a beacon, of what true liberal learning in the law, at its finest, can be. For my cherished St. John’s students and, in teaching them, for me. MOD