CONFERENCE: THE FOUNDATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: CATHOLIC CONTRIBUTIONS, PART I: ARTICLE: RETRIEVING A CATHOLIC TRADITION OF SUBJECTIVE NATURAL RIGHTS FROM THE LATE SCHOLASTIC FRANCISCO SUAREZ, S.J. Spring, 2012 Reporter 10 Ave Maria L. Rev. 343 * Length: 21559 words Author: Steven J. Brust, Ph.D.+ + Steven J. Brust, Ph.D, in political theory, The Catholic University of America. M.A. in philosophy, Franciscan University of SteubenvilleI would like to thank Robert Fastiggi for including me in the conference on human rights in the Catholic tradition.

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obert P. Kraynak, Citizenship in Two Worlds: On the Tensions Between Christian Faith and American Democracy, 16 Josephinum J. Theology 288, 290-94 (2009) [hereinafter Kraynak, Citizenship in Two Worlds]; see also Annabel S. Brett, Liberty, Right and Nature: Individual Rights in Later Scholastic Thought 4-6 (1997) (discussing subjective rights and the Spanish neo-Thomists); Ernest L. Fortin, On the Presumed Medieval Origin of Individual Rights, in Classical Christianity and the Political Order: Reflections on the Theologico-Political Problem 243, 243-64 (J. Brian Benestad ed., 1996) (arguing for the differences between natural law and natural rights theories); Ernest L. Fortin, Sacred and Inviolable: Rerum Novarum and Natural Rights, in Human Rights, Virtue, and the Common Good: Untimely Meditations on Religion and Politics 191, 192 (J. Brian Benestad ed., 1996) [hereinafter Human Rights, Virtue, and the Common Good] (suggesting that Rerum Novarum attempted to fuse modern and pre-modern thought, with mixed results); Ernest L. Fortin, The Trouble with Catholic Social Thought, in Human Rights, Virtue, and the Common Good, supra, at 303, 305 [hereinafter Fortin, The Trouble with Catholic Social Thought] (positing that the true originator of rights doctrine was Hobbes); Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory 69 (2d ed. 1984) (making his famous claim that rights do not exist); Tracey Rowland, Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II 152-54 (2003) (echoing MacIntyre); Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law 1150-1625, at 29-30 (1997) (briefly summarizing Michel Villey's view that subjective rights originated with Ockham's nominalism); Douglas Kries, In Defense of Fortin, 64 Rev. Pol. 411, 412-13 (2002); John R. T. Lamont, Conscience, Freedom, Rights: Idols of the Enlightenment Religion, 73 The Thomist 169, 179-80 (2009) (arguing that Suarez followed Ockham by proposing natural law to be founded upon a morality of obligation, rather than a Thomistic morality of virtue). To understand the influence exerted upon most present day Catholics who follow this view of modern natural rights, see generally Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (1950), and, in a nutshell, James V. Schall, S.J., The Modern Regime of Rights, The Catholic Thing (May 3, 2011), http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-modern-regime-of-rights.html. There are other Catholic authors who address rights, but I have limited my references to those who address more of the specifics of the aspects of the debate, which I cover in this Article. I also do not include the good number of non-Catholic authors who have much to say about rights. 3 See, e.g., Kraynak, Citizenship in Two Worlds, supra note 2 (stating that rights as claims against external authority, or entitlements to social welfare, are not easily squared with Church doctrine); Lamont, supra note 2, at 233-35 (discussing his own and Villey's concerns with the Church's teachings on rights).