Professor to discuss 'trusteeism' and Catholicism in early U.S. corporate law

 The University of Detroit Mercy School of Law McElroy Lecture Series proudly presents Sarah (Sally) Barringer Gordon, Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law & Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, March 19, from 5 to 6 p.m. at Sts. Peter & Paul Jesuit Church, 629 East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit. 

 
The complimentary lecture will be followed by a reception  in the Atrium of the School of Law.
 
Gordon will speak on “An American Heresy: Trusteeism and the Corporate Law of Religion in the Early National United States.”  The lecture will address the history of American Catholicism and its engagement in corporate law, especially in the early national period. 
 
Within Catholicism, the only heresy to emanate from America is known as “trusteeism,” so called because lay trustees were the source. By the early nineteenth century, individual church corporations routinely were required to elect trustees, who then were vested with all the temporal property of the church. Before long, trustees began to assert themselves, claiming that as owners of the property they should have a say in who was called to preach to them, and whether or not their finances should be used to pay off the debt for construction of other Catholic churches. All across the country, controversies raged between lay trustees (as well as a few sympathetic clergy) and the church hierarchy, producing widespread protests and even riots. In the early 1800s, corporate law thus became a key bone of contention among Catholics.  Reverberations of these conflicts are felt even today, such as in the St. Sebastian Kostka Church case from St. Louis, where a suit by trustees against the Church was successful last year. 
 
The annual McElroy Lecture is made possible through a gift from the estate of alumnus Philip J. McElroy. 
 
To register, visit www.law.udmercy.edu.  Questions may be directed to UDM Law Assistant Dean Denise Hickey at hickeydp@udmercy.edu or 313-596-0202. 
 
Parking will be provided at Christ Church Detroit across Jefferson Avenue. 

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