Andrée Seu Peterson on the "Time" cover 
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Catholic majority on the court
Should Sonia Sotomayor be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, she will become the sixth Catholic on the court, joining regular Mass attendees Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, as well as Justice Anthony Kennedy, who attends an annual Mass for D.C.-area Catholics serving in the legal field. Two other justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, are Jewish, while John Paul Stevens is the lone Protestant. Retiring Justice David Souter is Episcopalian.
Since her nomination, Sotomayor has not revealed her faith practices. According to the White House, “She currently does not belong to a particular parish or church, but she attends church with family and friends for important occasions.”
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“She currently does not belong to a particular parish or church, but she attends church with family and friends for important occasions.”
Ah, American civic religion.
Saying someone is a Catholic is no different from saying someone is a Baptist. There are eight dozen varieties standing across the political/theological spectrum.
If only she were a Catholic as the editors of First Things are Catholic rather than as the editors of America are…
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Doncha know if she were hard core preVatican II proLife Catholic like Wm F Buckley (Lord rest his soul!) she’d never ever been even briefly considered for this nomination.
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Judge not that ye be not judged.”
Do not think that Sotomayer’s catholic expression means anything. For many Catholics especially around the Vatican, religion is for the tourists. Sotomayer’s racist decisions and statements are the criteria to see what she might do in the future.
She would be dangerous on the supreme court.
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Hmmm. A Catholic who hates white males and advocates ripping the arms and legs off children. How uncatholic can one be?
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As I understand it, we don’t know if she advocates the ripping off of arms and legs of children. The other, we know, but both sides are wondering about her on abortion. The cases she’s dealt with do not directly touch Roe.
What amazes me is how many leftys here give her a free pass on the racist stuff, but then again, they want white people to feel guilty, too.
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David L.
Good comment. Currently there are 4 First Things like Roman Catholics (assuming Roberts and Alito don’t surprise us). And 2 more cafeteria Catholics.
Though First Things can be surprisingly tolerant in who they have write for the magazine (they actually published a very small piece by me, without knowing that I’m Roman Catholic by baptism, but that’s it; my grandmother told my mom to get me baptized else I go to Limbo if I died as an infant).
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That all of the conservatives on the Supreme Court are Roman Catholic I think says something about the current intellectual state of the Roman Catholic mind v. the evangelical mind. (I don’t mean any disrespect, just making an observations).
There are a number of good, brilliant evangelical legal scholar/judges, but not enough. Michael McConnell who recently gave up his seat on the 10th Cir. and went back to teaching comes to mind. As does my former Corporations prof. David Skeel of Penn (I had him when he was at Temple) and William Stuntz of Harvard Law.
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That all of the conservatives on the Supreme Court are Roman Catholic I think says something about the current intellectual state of the Roman Catholic mind v. the evangelical mind.
Don’t worry, Jon. I’m not smart enough to know when I’m being insulted. It’s easier that way, actually.
But you are right about the relatives numbers of RCC and orthodox Protestant constitutional experts of the sort likely to be nominated to the Supremes. I think Marvin Olasky ran a piece here a while back about the RCC emphasis on natural law and its relevance to constitutional questions.
I have no plans to go over to Rome (that is, unless the anathemas of the Council of Trent were rescinded this morning and I just haven’t heard about it yet) but I do respect much of their intellectual tradition. If only I understood it …
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Heh.
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The only thing it says anything about the evangelical mind is that they don’t go to law school. When I told one of my old ministers that I had just graduated law school, his shocked response was “what were you doing in a place like that?” Having attended a Catholic law school, I had gone to Mass prior to the graduation ceremony and during the homily, it was noted that Joseph of Arimethia and Nicodemus, who took Christ down from the cross were lawyers. I mentioned this — as if to say, not all lawyers are bad people — but there was this dead silence.
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#10 NJLawyer …not all lawyers are bad people…
Well, you seem like a decent sort. So you form a population of one.
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