A two-thirds Catholic majority in the Supreme Court? Not quite

NATIONAL: "Sotomayor Would Be Sixth Catholic Justice, but the Pigeonholing Ends There," by Laurie Goodstein, New York Times, 31 May 2009.

So weird when you think we've only elected one Catholic president and they killed him in office--last one to go, BTW.

But with Sotomayor (a name I simply love to pronounce out loud), we quietly slip into a reality that, on the face of it, is really kind of stunning: six of 9 Supremes being Catholic: righties Scalia and Alito and Thomas, Chief Roberts, and swinger Kennedy. Sotomayor would easily be the most liberal of that crowd.

But the article argues that the current five, plus Sotomayor would hardly constitute anything near a block (although one might argue that Scalia and Alito and Thomas come close--with Roberts as the frequent fourth). Interestingly enough, the four conservative Catholics are all committed mass go-ers, with Kennedy (one assumes from the article) being the sometimes and thus the natural moderate. Sotomayor is described as a "cultural Catholic" (alas, I fit that category better than conservative/committed, but it's hard since I married the minister's daughter and she's just a tough sell on going to hell over a missed mass).

Studies, we are told, "have consistently shown that the 57 percent of Catholics who rarely or never attend Mass are far more liberal on political and cultural issues than Catholics who attend weekly or at least once a month."

I guess I'll never miss enough masses to be a true liberal, then.

Some examples: regular attendees find same-sex marriage okay to the tune of 44%, but non-regulars (and me) register in at 61%. On abortion, 52% (and me) or non-regulars say it's morally acceptable, but only 24% of regulars do.

Hmmm. I guess I'm too liberal already, despite my frequent-but-imperfect attendance.

Anyway, gist of article is that abortion debate has led to the concentration of Catholics, because of the litmus test for selection.

Now, I guess, we've got one of my Catholics heading up there.

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

Tom! This is quite interesting post but because of your openess think it is deserving of comment. Disclosure--I was raised a Quakerterian--Mother Quaker; Father Presbyterian. I am a believer in Christ but not a member of any congregation.

The fact that six of nine of the members of SCOTUS when the nominee is confirmed are raised Catholic and/or current members of that face is really a landmark in US History for a numberof reasons. Southern Europeans to the US after the Civil War until WWI, like the Irish, were almost considered non-white by the then US majority. In reality it was as much religion as anything else that drove this discrimination. So really very few Catholics on SCOTUS before 1950 and actually that might be an interesting figure to know. We also know very few Jews on the Court from the beginning. So what does this indicate if anything about the future.

Well here is my take. Catholicism including its leading Post-WWII Pope was a bastion against "Godless Communism". And after 1973 when abortion made legal also bastion against abortion.

Neither of these factors is of interest to me however. A recent book who's author I cannot remember is "The Children of Aristotle" discussing the full revelation of the works of Aristotle to the Western World from the libraries of Cairo, Baghdad, and Damacus. The books thesis is that a 250 year long crisis was set off in Catholicism over the "faith" versus "reason" argument. St. Thomas Acquina had a lot to do with this debate and allowing Aristotelian logic to become part of the Western Heritage. After all we do call the West the West not Christendom. The author also concludes that Islam never even argued much less reconciled the faith versus reason argument but decided firmly on the basis that faith was the only guidepost.

For a SCOTUS that often wrestles with questions of great significance to our democracy (republic) and hopefully applies its best reasoning and logic to the problems contained in the cases it reviews allows me to conclude that reason still is part of the Western Tradition.

But there are really good histories of legal theory and philosophy and history in the US and available to interested persons. Be they lawyers or non-lawyers. In one of my outstanding courses on legal history in law school I became aware of the so-called "natural law" argument of Catholicism. This deeply affected me and my approach to the law. Influenced by historical events and perhaps more than a little by the classif "Judgement At Nuremberg" showing at the Law School repeated during my years there, and by the authorization by the Department of Justice to show WWII German propaganda films which were NOT authorized for release to the US public the whole aborrent system of the racial purity laws in NAZI Germany were an example of the perversion of the law that could occur.

Many say this is not a war of Christendom vis a vis Islam. But it is interesting that as the WESTERN world's Protestant sects have withered except for the Evangelicals and certain other groups it is possible that the Catholic Six will be defenders of the faith so to speak and might well have a different take on the "torture" and "indefinite detention" and other questions to come before them. SCOTUS has not finally ruled on many issues but it is possible the "Faith versus Reason" will become a searching personal issue made more dramatic by the religiousity faded or vibrant of these members. Time will tell.

[Louis Heberlein]

But when I watch CSPAN I see a lot more Pontification from Congress folks.

Isn't it the stealthy Mormons that we were warned about during last election?

[hof1991]

Well, outside the hierarchy, Catholics are just about anybody. A majority voted for Obama. Maybe they don't go to church as often, but if church becomes an hour of Fox News highlights, then Dems are unlikely to show up. I was at a FUNERAL recently where the sermon was about abortion. Oh, he did take a minute to mention the lady for whom the Mass was being offered. Local pastor repeated the canard (ie lie) that Obama was going to outlaw all religious speech, including wireless microphones used in churches. Catholics who are Dems aren't leaving, just not showing up as often.

As Scalia said, he has no idea what a Catholic judge would be like. He is a conservative judge and a Catholic, but when he is a judge, he is a judge first.

[large]

Shouldn't matter if the Judge is even a Muslim, as long as he/she understands and follows the Constitution as it's written . . and applies neither Sharia or Biblical Law . . or notions he/she acquired while growing up . .