In late 1983, the Columbus School of Law of The Catholic University of America was awarded a three-year program development grant by the Henry Luce Foundation, Inc. for the purpose of developing an interdisciplinary program in law and religion. Since its inception, the purpose of the program has been to encourage the study of law and religion through creative use of the resources of The Catholic University of America to bring together scholars and legal practitioners having an interest in law and religion to collaborate on research, scholarship and education programs.

To that end, the Columbus School of Law seeks to serve as a catalyst in developing proposals for funded research and as a clearinghouse for information and ideas on which interdisciplinary research projects can be based. The goal of the program is to draw together the resources and expertise of several disciplines and to focus them on issues of practical or theoretical importance in the development of law or legal policy relating to religion, religious institutions, public morality and ethics.

Including the symposium which appears in the pages which follow, the project has sponsored presentations dealing with religion and politics (October, 1984), trends in separation of church and state (February, 1985), as well as co-sponsoring the publication of Peace in a Nuclear Age: The Bishops' Pastoral Letter in Perspective (C. Reid ed. 1986).