We Are an Assembly of Lawyers that Pledge to be God's Servant First
The St. Thomas More Society (STMS) is an independent Catholic association of legal professionals who approach the practice of law through the lens of the Catholic faith and intellectual tradition.
We are practitioners of civil law as promulgated in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States of America, as expressed through the republican and democratic processes that have formed our great country. We also believe that civil law draws its validity from cohering to the eternal, divine, and natural law.
Established circa 1985, St. Thomas More Society’s membership includes attorneys, judges, Catholic law students, and others within the legal profession. We unite in fellowship through quarterly Mass and luncheons, educational forums, Continuing Legal Education seminars, and the annual tradition of the Catholic Red Mass. We promote dialogues that examine the law as transcendent and immanent in both scripture and nature.
Our outreach strives to share the Catholic spiritual and intellectual tradition with the legal profession and the Richmond community.
Mission
Inspired by our patron saint, Thomas More, our duty within the Richmond diocese is to minister to justice with courage, prudence, and self-sacrifice. We seek a camaraderie that draws on the Catholic intellectual tradition, exploring the confluence of faith and reason, law and justice, and how this relationship enriches the public discourse on morality, ethics, and the common good.
We believe that “[t]he philosophy of the Bill of Rights was … tributary to the tradition of natural law, to the idea that man has certain original responsibilities precisely as man, antecedent to his status as citizen. These responsibilities are creative rights that are in man antecedent to any act of government, and they cannot be surrendered to the government. They are as inalienable as they are inherent. Their proximate source is in nature, and in history insofar as history bears witness to the nature of man; their ultimate source, as the Declaration of Independence states, is in God, the Creator of nature and the Master of history.”
—- John Courtney Murray, S.J., We Hold These Truths, Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition. Sheed and Ward, New York, 1960, p.37.
“So true is it that, where there is most law, there is also most injustice.”
— St. Jerome: Letters I,14 (Quoting a Latin proverb: Summum jus, summa injuria). (4th cent.)
Purposes of STMS
Our Board Members
Kevin C. Walsh
Gibson S. Wright
Christopher M. Keegan
Very Rev. Brian Capuano
Michelle LʼHommedieu
Stephen G. Reardon
About Membership
Joining the St. Thomas More Society is an invitation to enrich your life with a fellowship supported by faith, justice, and Thomas More’s venerable legacy. Your active participation shapes the fabric of our community, which is collectively seeking a society with shared spiritual and moral values.
How to Donate
Your generous contributions enable the St. Thomas More Society to continue its mission of fostering a community of legal professionals dedicated to the integration of faith and law. Make a one-time gift or set up a recurring donation to help advance our cause.