Essays
Essays in a borrowed voice
Occasional essays on law, theology and the state. Each is written in the register of a writer I admire, and says so. The voice is borrowed; the argument, and its errors, are mine.
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In the register of Abraham Joshua Heschel · October 2026
A Plate of Ice
A grandmother of thirty-three years in California and a stateless father in Ohio, both taken at routine check-ins. What the Law of Moses says about the stranger who has begotten children among you, why the Church’s own law has no category for an illegal person, and what a penalty without a crime is called.
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In the register of Herbert McCabe · October 2026
On a People That Made Itself
“We the People … do ordain and establish.” A sentence spoken by a thing that does not yet exist until it is spoken. What a state is, the three answers to where authority comes from, the two American readings, what the jurists admit, and the narrow thing that actually follows.
These are personal essays. They are not legal advice, canonical or civil, and they are not statements on behalf of any tribunal, diocese or society I serve.