Diversidade do direito civil

Na verdade, falamos da liberdade contratual em estabelecer contratos civis (casamento, divórcio, testamento, contratos comerciais, etc) e regulá-los por tribunais arbitrais. Um tema caro ao anarquismo.

Os auto-proclamados defensores do ocidente e da sua ideia de conservadorismo nem vislumbram que não só a civilização europeia nasce da diversidade do direito e da pulverização dos estados, como não querem perceber que as práticas religiosas livremente praticadas foram atacadas pela imposição de um direito civil que passou e meter-se naquilo que deve ficar na esfera civil (ou de cada um) como o casamento ou o testamento. Na verdade, o próprio catolicismo tem tudo a ganhar se cada um puder escolher as suas próprias regras.

Registo duas opiniões insuspeitas de membros da Igreja favoráveis ao (polémico) discurso do Arcebispo de Canterbury sobre a possibilidade de aplicação de a cada um o seu direito (sort of) em casos civis.

*the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com:
I was more than a little suspicious of the feeding frenzy in the media over the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent lecture: Civil and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective. I printed off his lecture and read it quickly. My first impression was that this was a serious attempt to address a genuine problem of post-enlightenment positivism in law, and that it could have important implications for Catholics as well as Muslims. There certainly seemed to be little justification for the tabloid headlines.I am not a canon lawyer so I thought I would leave it alone until I had a chance to chat with Fr John Boyle about it. When he arrived at Ampleforth, he said that the train had wifi and so he was able to read the lecture and write about it on the journey up.His post is a common sense appraisal of the issue and I agree with him. See Bishop Burkha or Williams the Wise?

*south-ashford-priest.blogspot.com: Bishop Burkha or Williams the Wise?
Well, I've read the speech. And I think it is an excellent speech. It is very philosophical and the Press have, in my humble opinion, been grossly unfair to him. From the very beginning the Archbishop refers to the "largely secular social environment" as one in which the question of special legal provisions for religious groups become sharply focussed. He makes no bones about the fact that "among the manifold anxieties that haunt the discussion of the place of Muslims in British society, one of the strongest, reinforced from time to time by the sensational reporting of opinion polls, is that Muslim communities in this country seek the freedom to live under sharia law."

Sometimes our fear of things can be quite irrantional. Sometimes it seems that Latin at Mass provokes a similar fear as sharia amongst some parishioners!He also mentions the difficulties that the Catholic adoption agencies have been facing in relation to the Sexual Orientation Regulations.I think his basic point is that society is made up of more than what makes a state. A totally secuarlised legal system places too much emphasis on individual acts and not enough on the context and cultural background of those acts. People are related to one another in all sorts of ways and it is those relationships that must be taken into account to define what is just and equitable.A legal universalism is, therefore, unhealthy in any society, a universalism that states that the State and its legal system is supreme. Such a system, born out of the Enlightenment, becomes intolerant of the free desire of people to relate to one another in particular ways. It should be possible for different systems to exist within a State that, as it were, moderates the systems in the society to ensure that both the individual and the common good may be protected."