CENTER NEWS
Student Fellows
Each year, the Center selects St. John’s Law students to serve as student fellows and assist with its programs. This year’s fellows were Vincent D’Avanzo ’27, Anastasia Kaliabakos ’27, Isabel Lane ’27, and Kalina Mesrobian ’26. We’re grateful for their hard work, including their contributions to Law and Religion Forum, Legal Spirits, and Center events.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas selected former student fellow Daniel Vitagliano ’20 as a law clerk for the October 2027 Term. He is the first St. John’s Law student to be selected as a Supreme Court clerk.
Events
The Center hosted a regional conference of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies at St. John’s Law. The two-day event gathered scholars from the United States and Europe to present papers on Education, Religious Freedom, and State Neutrality. Participants posted short versions of their papers in an online symposium at Law and Religion Forum.
We also welcomed Ioannis Ktistakis, the Greek judge on the European Court of Human Rights, for a lunchtime talk. He spoke with students and faculty about his career as a human rights attorney and judge, and about the court’s important work.
Together with St. John’s Journal of Catholic Legal Studies (JCLS), the Center hosted its annual symposium on law and religion. This year’s event featured a panel on Roake v. Brumley, a Fifth Circuit case on the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays in public school classrooms, with Professor Christopher Lund (Wayne State) and attorney Eric Rassbach (Becket Fund). The panel proceedings will appear in a forthcoming edition of the JCLS.
Taking the international stage, the Center co-hosted Eighty Years of Religious Liberty, a two-part conference held at the University of Seoul and Doshisha University (Kyoto). The event, co-hosted with the Bech-Laughlin First Amendment Center at the University of Texas, brought scholars from Japan, Korea, and the United States together to mark the 80th anniversary of constitutional protections for religious freedom in Japan and Korea.
Moot Court Competition
The Center hosted the ninth edition of the International Moot Court Competition in Law and Religion at St. John’s Rome campus. This year’s competition was the largest ever, with 100 participants. Co-coached by Professor Movsesian and St. John’s Law Alumni Association President Jim Herschlein ‘85, the Center’s student fellows argued a case on anti-discrimination law and religious exemptions. Center Advisory Board member Hon. Mary Kay Vyskocil ’83 served as one of the competition’s judges.
Reading Group
The Center’s Reading Group continued to bring students, alumni, and friends together to discuss law and religion in works of fiction and non-fiction. This year, about 30 students and faculty participated in a discussion C.S. Lewis’s treatment of natural law in Mere Christianity.
