Yeah, I'm not sure how happy I'm supposed to be about our successful assimilation into American culture.

You've got a point: we don't, demographically, look very different from the rest of the country. If that's the price we had to pay, perhaps it is too high.

Could it have to do with the role of Catholic law schools in opposing critical legal theories, and other deconstructionist legal movements, and the defense of more conservative theories of law? None of the justices went to a Catholic law schools, but there might have been some influence on Catholic professors and students at the top WASP law schools.

Just a thought, it’s probably just a coincidence combined with the assimilation of Catholicism.

"...because Catholics no longer differ that much from other Americans in where they send their kids to school and how many children they have..."

I'd be hard pressed to believe that's true; especially the average size of Catholic families.

Nevertheless, my experience is colored by being both Irish and Catholic, so their is an issue of collinearity...

I see a big change in this country. Back around the time of WWII, my father and aunt were involved with Catholics. Their parents put an end it to. That just wasn't done. Marriage was not acceptable, esp. given the RC requirement for raising kids of mixed marriages in that church. But then, I grew up in a neighborhood that was well mixed between Protestant and Catholic. In high school, we really never thought about who was Catholic, and who was Protestant - but this was after JFK. Things have gotten to the point where 3 of my last 4 girlfriends have been RC, as well as one of my best friends.

From that historical point of view, if you get out of the ethnic communities, Catholicism is pretty much a non-issue these days in much of this country.

On the other hand, a lot of Catholics have moved over to where I think they find a natural home in the Republican Party. This has been long acoming. My father had a Irish RC law partner, who recalls fondly having JFK sitting on his porch during his 1960 presidential campaign (he was the Democratic county chair - and Kennedy's CO state chair Whizzer White was along that day). Yet, by the time he died, he was voting an almost straight Republican ticket (but was still a registered Democrat).

Note though that the move of Catholics to the Republican party has been primarily of the more devout. Those who don't take the Church's teachings overly seriously, whether they be about abortion or divorce, are significantly more likely to stay Democrats.

But what that means is that the devout Catholics who move over to the Republican party find that they often have as much, if not more, in common with evangelical or conservative Protestants as they do with their more liberal Catholic brethern.

Besides, the Republican party is no longer the WASP party. The President who put two African-Americans in a row in at Sec. at State has a brother (JEB) and family who are Roman Catholic.

Let me also add that there may be more comfort in nominating a Catholic over a non-Catholic "conservative" in that there be some thought that a Catholic is less likely to pull a Souter with the Vatican breathing down his neck.

Well, if nothing else this thread is going to demonstrate that anti-Catholic sentiment is alive and well.

It's shameless self-promotion to be sure, but that's what people in my position do: for more on the history of anti-Catholicism and Establishment Clause jurisprudence, I have a piece in 91 Virginia Law Review 1037 (2005).

I suppose Catholics should apologize for the Mortara case when Protestants and Jews apologize for the violence against Catholics in the wars of religion and under the Bolshevik regime in Russia, whose early leadership was predominantly Jewish. In other words, none of us needs to apologize at all for anything done in the past, in other countries, often in contravention of our respective religious doctrines. It's silly to bring up age-old fights such as these, especially when in America most of these animosities of the "old world" have never been as pronounced as in Europe. Specifically, American Catholics have uniquely embraced the liberal ideal of America explicitly, whether in the form of a JFK or an Orestes Brownson. That said, Arthur Schlesinger once noted that anti-Catholicism was an abiding theme in American social history. If anyone has been consistently discriminated against and openly put down in America, it has been Catholics.

I think one reason for the dominance of Jews and Catholics in the law is that both of our traditions have a long history of linguistic interpretation and detailed analysis of laws, rules, and regulations. Protestantism, has a strong strain of anti-intellectualism, rooted in the emotivist ideal of an "individual relationship with God." This is not true of all Protestants or variations of Protestantism, of course, but it's pretty central to numerous Protestant sects, where contempt is openly shown for "the man who would rather read Shakespeare than the Bible." While Catholics and Jews embrace the ideas of authority and tradition within their religious traditions, Protestantism has in many respects broken them down. Even now, I'd wager, Catholics and Jews are overrepresented in the learned professions, specifically law and medicine. I think this comes from the culture of respect for learning as an end in itself, which is largely abesnt from Protestant traditions.

I think this anti-intellectualism explains in part the lack of serious constitutional scholarlship by a Harriett Miers, nor the recognition of this fact by Bush and Miers herself. For both of them, approaching a text with a "good heart" is all that is needed. A lifetime of study is likely only to get one into trouble with unnecessary, byzantine complexity.

Bearing, why is it considered anti-catholic to state the obvious? The Catholic Church doesn't increase its numbers in American by proselytization; they rely on large numbers of births to up their membership, and they must retain those members by continued reinforcement of Catholic doctrine during the formative years. That's why parochial education is such a huge deal for the Catholic hierarchy; it's the way they keep their members.

In fairness, this is also what some Protestant churches do, too, although they are much more focused on evangelization as the preferred method of increasing their memberships.

I'd be wiling to wager that the main reason behind any significant increase in the number of Roman Catholics in this country is the influx of immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries in our hemisphere and not from any significant number of conversions. Based on my experience in the South and Southwest, I'd also wager a fair number of these Catholics have been successfully wooed away from the Catholic Church by the Southern Baptists and other evangelical denominations and by groups such as the Mormons.

Simply put, without a form of religious segregation, the Catholic Church can't compete with evangelical Christianity. As you all on this blog like to point out, the problem lies with the Catholic Church, not the protestants. And since they fail in the marketplace, they do what every threatened legacy players does: they seek protection from the market through the form of government subsidies.

Again, how is that anti-Catholic?

Let me also add that there may be more comfort in nominating a Catholic over a non-Catholic "conservative" in that there be some thought that a Catholic is less likely to pull a Souter with the Vatican breathing down his neck.

Interesting, but isn't that essentially the argument used by numerouos anti-Catholic critics: that Catholics obey the Vatican rather than the U.S. Constitution or their own consciences?

It was, let's recall, only forty-five years ago that JFK's Catholicism was a major issue in a presidential campaign.

And with Catholic Bishops threatening to excommunicate or deny communion to those who don't toe the line with the Catholic Church's radical beliefs on reproductive issues, it has become a major issue once again.

Thanks, Popes John Paul and Benedict.

A little off-topic, I know, but...

How fruitful, really, is the search for the Evil Historical Roots of one side or another in today's political debates?

Some here have at least hinted that anti-Catholic prejudice is the reason for the way we've read the Establishment Clause. I've seen someone write that the anti-abortion movement was stirred up by Protestants fearful of being overrun by Catholic breeders.

Even if both of these things are true (I really don't know), does it matter? I think that some people today genuinely believe that abortion is wrong; and that some people genuinely believe that the government shouldn't be excessively entangled with religion.

Even if someone with similar views 50 years ago had accompanying views that all right-thinking people now hold to be abhorrent, I don't see what impact that has on evaluating the good-faith pro-life or pro-separation of church and state views of people today.

According to this site http://www.adherents.com/people/pt/Clarence_Thomas.html, Clarence Thomas is now indeed a Catholic.

O'Connor, despite her Irish surname, is not a Catholic; Thomas, however, has returned to the Church at some point in the years since his confirmation (I believe circa 1996 or so).
HMLP: A lot of what you say may have had some truth in the forties, but it bears little resemblance to present-day reality. The Catholic birth rate is no higher than the Protestant birth rate, or not much higher. Catholic schools and C.C.D. programs these days are at least as likely to be nests of dissent and theological incompetence as they are likely to be Catholic robot factories.
And as for the "man in a white dress": This oft-repeated line is the stupidest cheap shot ever. The Pope, like many people on formal occasions, wears a robe such as was worn in the classical period. Do male judges wear dresses? Do male students wear dresses on graduation day?

Bruce Hayden wrote:

Note though that the move of Catholics to the Republican party has been primarily of the more devout. Those who don't take the Church's teachings overly seriously, whether they be about abortion or divorce, are significantly more likely to stay Democrats.

But please also note that those Catholics who take the church's teachings on social justice, stewardship of the environment, the death penalty, and just war are significantly more likely to stay Democrats. Associating the church's teachings with a single political party is missing the complexity of the catholic community.

Harriet Miers Partner,

You should google more. The statistics show that while immigration is a large part behind the growing numbers of Catholics in America, conversions are not insignificant (and most of those conversions come from evangelical protestants). To state that Catholicism cannot compete with Protestantism is flatly ridiculous, and suggests a sinister bigotry on your part (which your other comments have greatly confirmed). The Catholic church does initiate conversion campaigns directed at evangelicals, though, in the interests of ecunemical understanding.

It turned out in the end that Miers was never brought up Catholic; there were many conflicting reports on this issue, and in the end the Diocese of Dallas was forced to search their records and declare that there was no record of her ever having been baptized a Catholic or having received any other sacraments. She was apparently raised as an Episcopalian.
Also, Bork was not a Catholic at the time of his nomination; he actually didn't convert until a few years ago. His wife was always a Catholic, which may be the source of the idea that he has always been one.

Is this correctly viewed as a Catholic majority or a Jew shortage?

I still think Kozinski was a better choice.

HMLP You mock the attire of the Pope. You ascribe base, money grubbing motives to Catholics for gov't funds and state that Catholics can't compete with evangelicals unless they're educated separately. (I guess non-Catholics learn their faith by magic.)

You're saying that Catholic Doctrine cannot stand up to critical analysis or "fails in the marketplace", whatever that means in a religious context, without offering any explanation why.

You further say that the only way Catholicism grows is by people being born into it, clearly implying that Catholics don't really think about what they believe.

That is how it is anti-Catholicism. If you mock our leadership, slander our adherents and don't give us credit for making informed decisions like you can, we'll see it for what it is. Do you now?

fred, you've just made my point very well. The Popes and Catholic bishops, by threatening politicians and justices who don't toe their line with communion denial or worse, have raised the specter of "the tunnel between the White House and the Vatican" raised against Al Smith in 1928 all over again.

I decided to do some googling. I only spentg 15 minutes on this, but here is what I found.

According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, "Since 1960, 71% of the U.S. Catholic population growth has been due to the growth in the number of Hispanics in the U.S. population overall." As far as membership goes, "[i]n 2002, 82,292 people were received into full communion with the Catholic Church. In addition, 81,013 adults and 1,005,490 infants were baptized." So explain to me how "conversions are not insignificant (and most of those conversions come from evangelical protestants)"?

Assuming these numbers were a reasonable representation of modern activity in the church, and the 1 million in live births pretty much explains how the Catholic Church grows from 53 million in 1990 to 62 million in 2000 (the numbers available from the American Religious Data Archive). Even if the overall Catholic birth rate is declining, I'd be willing to bet that the birth rate among Latino Catholics is greater than that of non-Latino Catholics, and hence, provides the vast majority of those 1 million infants that were baptized.

The past project manager of The Hispanic Churches in Public Life study stated that "[f]or every one Latino who returns to the Church [after a time in a protestant or evangelical church], about four leave [permanently]."

I apologize for making the "man in the white dress" comment. From what I have read, the Pope wears a cassock pretty much all the time, not just when he is in public. I believe even judges take off their robes in chambers (at least the one I worked for did). But looking back, it is a cheap shot, and I won't use it again.

I've read back over and can't find any "sinister bigotry" in my comments. I am not advocating, for example, that Catholics be barred from holding public office. I merely point out what I think are fair points: the Catholic Church is an authoritarian institution that relies primarily on the births of its adherents to generate significant gains in its membership; that it relies on parochial education to retain these adherents; and that the Church cannot compete in the theological marketplace, as evidenced by the startingly low number of adult baptisms (as opposed to the adult receptions into full communion, which as I understand it, are those Anglicans, Orthodox, etc., who come over with a valid infant baptism already).

I have other thoughts concerning the notion that Catholics have "a long history of linguistic interpretation and detailed analysis of laws, rules, and regulations" that is helpful to a modern democracy. I certainly agree that those raised in the Jewish faith are much more intellectually honest, and think Cheburashka might have hit the nail on the head as to how to frame the question.

Religious minorities (Catholics &Jews) would now comprise 78% (7 of 9) of the Supreme Court, representing 24% and 2% of the American population. The former are very underrepresented in the Ivy League, but are now overrepresented on the top court. Yes Catholics have assimilated and gone over to the right (as are some Jews, historically allied with the left), but the bigger story is that of majority American protestantism itself, divided between the weak left-leaning WASP established denominations following European protestants into intellectual lethargy and low-birth-rate extinction, and on the other hand strong, right-leaning evangelicals constituting a majority of the majority (Miers, Texas, SMU) who cannot manage entry to the court (or the Ivy League for that matter).

You should google more. The statistics show that while immigration is a large part behind the growing numbers of Catholics in America, conversions are not insignificant (and most of those conversions come from evangelical protestants).

According to the American Religous Identification Survey, roughly 4,300,000 US adults who did not self-identify as Catholic in 1990 did in 2001, and roughly 9,500,000 US adults who did self-identify as Catholic in 1990 did not in 2001.

The growth of Catholicism in the USA appears to be coming from births and immigration rather than from conversions, because the latter contribution is a net negative.

I state this to try and put some numbers behind these arguments, not because I think the argument itself has any validity. Nobody's denomination has a plurality anywhere close to 50%; if religion is a popularity contest then everybody has lost.

"Given entropy's inexorable pull" -- Entropy is not a force<, so entropy can not "exert a pull" on anything. Apparent Bezuhov slept through the physics lectures where this point was belabored.

Can anyone tell me if Bezuhov's history is as bad as his/her physics?

Conversion are not insignificant because approximately 160,000 people joining the Catholic Church per year is a boatload of people. True, it's easier to be born into a church than to make an adult decision to change religions and become Catholic. I don't have numbers on contra-conversions (Catholics becoming Protestant) but I'd suspect it's not so high.

Perhaps this simply reflects the religious composition of the legal profession. What percentage of all layers is Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, agnostic...? I'd love to be informed, if anyone knows.

Geeze. I don't think I have ever been on a thread with such notions about the Catholic Church that are as ridiculous as these.

I am a devout Catholic. A convert no less. I don't think we Catholics spend a lot of time figuring out ways to make everyone Catholic. We figure our life is the best witness (as Mother Teresa pointed out many times) And I certainly don't think we think about it when a Supreme Court nominee is selected. I didn't even realize he was Catholic until I read this thread.

Those of us who are conservative Republicans know what we want in a judge. Our faith may influence our view, but we don't confuse that faith with politics or judicial power.

Pointing out how many Catholics don't live their faith or what Popes messed up in the past in no way describes our faith or diminishes it.

We can only hope that all of the Justices follow their consciences when carrying out their judicial responsibilities.

Hey, I got it! If I cite an encyclical as precedent, it's not religious, it's just citing international law! If I can cite Belgium, why not Vatican City?

Next, maybe the 10 Commandments will be OK, as they show one wandering tribe's legal system!

Some of you seem to fear us automaton Catholics, who may soon have five automaton Catholics on the Supreme Oligarchy. That's an attempt to satire by the way.

This goes way back to Roach's post and Jews and Bolshevism: It is ridiculous to copmpare the actions of the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope to those of individuals who happened to be Jewish (and then really only by Jewish religious law or the latwer Nuremburg and not their own beliefs).
Firstly, the Bolshevik Jews did not kill people as Jews, they killed them as Bolsheviks, believers in a system antithetical to Judaism and under which they killed large number of Jews, as well (I once read a statement from a Russian Communist saying that he only wished that those from Christian families would persecute Christians as muich as those from Jewish families persecuted Jews under the Soviet government).
Secondly, the Catholic Church is an organized religious structure, so that the Pope has the authority to speak for all Catholics. No Jew has that authority; Judaism in general is highly disorganized and the actions Bolshevik heretics cannot possible be ascribed to the Jewish religion or other Jews. Marx may have been a Jew in my book (i.e. Jewish Law), but he certainly did not consider himself one and would have hated me for acting as one.
Thirdly, the regime in the Soviet Union was never "predominantly Jewish." Many Jews were ionvolved, perhaps in numbers greater than those that existed in the Pale of Settlement (where Jews were allowed to live in Russia), but that doesn't make it predominantly Jewish, just like the Supreme Court is not predominantly Jewish.
I am not a Protestant nor an expert in protestantism, but it seems unfair to blanketly refer to extremely diverse religious groups by the term "Protestant" and then blame them all for the actions of one religious group. Can you honestly blame the Methodists for Anglican or Episcopalian actions? Catholocism, again, does have a hierarchy with the Pope at the top. Just like we could blame Anglican or Russian Orthodox actions on their leadership.
That said, I think Roach certainly does have a point about Protestantism and anti-elitism and intellectualism (if individual interpretations are correct, then no rigorous anlytical methods need be utilized). The priesthood is seen as the highest calling by Catholics, a learned profession, just as the study of the Law was (and is still in many circles) seen as the highest calling by Jews. Those Jews who have given up Jewish Law have replaced this reverence with other studies, including American Law. Perhaps the number of Jews in law out of proportion to their numbers (even more than Catholics) can be understood because while Catholics believe that the priesthood was for a minority, Jews felt that all Jews had to study the Law. But it's really all conjecture.

Catholics have done terrible things down through the ages (just like everybody else) but that is different from saying the Church itself was anti-semitic.
I'd make the same case for some of the actions of Catholics as David Z. regarding Bolshevik Jews not acting in there capacity as Jews but on behalf of king or country rather than church.
Would a pre-Vatican II church that was anti-semitic risk so much to rescue Jews from Hitler?

As I recall, Augustine was a huge promoter of the whole "Jews Killed Jesus" theory, and I think the Inquisition targeted Jews for punitive action and declared the Talmud to be blasphemous.

Gordon,

Of course it applys to Catholic Judges and poltitians! A person, no matter what he does for a living, has to decide if he wishes to follow the teachings of the Church or not. He is FREE to not do so in the name of his politics. The Church also has a right to say, "well, you are going against teaching so you must not receive the Eucharist." Both have that right.

The politican is free to do what his conscience bears. The Church does not tell a politican what he must do in govt. It tells a politican what he must do to be Catholic.

It's not like many issues force a Catholic to make this choice. In fact, I can only think of the grave sin of abortion.

But, in my view of course, the unborn child has right to life no matter what any Church says. I think the "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" pretty much covers it for me.

Right Wing Sparkle:

You are right about politicians. But do you really think that JUDGES are free to do what their conscience bears, when their religious leader tells then "rule against abortion, or you're outta here!"?

Any Judge who thinks that his rulings will be based upon the commands of his religious authorities is not fit to serve on the Court and should resign or be impeached.

What is the difference between a Catholic Judge deciding a case based upon the Pope's relgious edicts, and a left-wing judge deciding a case based upon his personal notions of equity and justice?

> "Mortara himself decided to leave his family, a fully voluntary decision as he time and again reiterated"

So everything's in order then. You won't object if Ian Paisley abducts some Irish Catholic kids, raises them as fundamentalist Protestants, and then lets them make a free decision on adulthood as to which religion they'll adopt?

As for judges choosing between the US Const and the Catholic Catechism... there is nothing in the US Const that requires an RC judge to contravene his or her church's doctrines. Ie, nothing binding on the Supreme Court itself (as opposed to particular interpretations of the Const, which are adopted by the SC and binding on the other actors in the legal system). If there were a clause denouncing Popery, or barring the Jesuits from entering the country, or declaring "Every pregnant person has the right to have his oor her baby killed before it is fuully born, or afterwards if it's deformed"... maybe then, aliter for Alito. But there's no such clauses. Also, since it lost its temporal power base, the Papacy has rediscovered the merits of religious freedom -- apparently it was on the desk of Catholic doctrine all along, but for centuries someone placed the beer coaster of "Error has no rights" over it.

Gordon,

The statement made by Ratzinger was in response to the repeated statements of politicians saying: "I'm a faithful Catholic and I support abortion laws." There is zero consistency in being a Catholic and supporting abortion laws. It has nothing to do with judging at all, periodl. Ratzinger's statement means that a Catholic politican cannot possibly expect to write a law allowing abortion, or euthenasia, or genocide, or torture, and say that he's still Catholic (after being warned privately by the Bishop or Priest).

Nowhere does the Church require that a judge reviewing the Constitutionality of abortion laws, or any other laws, comport them with Catholic doctrine. Unlike you, the Church understands the difference between constitutional review of laws and legislatively enacting them. To uphold the Constitutionality of abortion, or to require it be struck down as an issue properly decided at the state level, is not an issue for Catholicism. Period. Jason Jonas says it best: "there is nothing in the US Const that requires an RC judge to contravene his or her church's doctrines."

Honestly, why the heck you thought Ratzinger's statement would be a zinger is beyond me. I asked you specific questions; you balked. And it is your sort of sinister questioning: well, this CATHOLIC judge better not be reviewing anything on the basis of his CATHOLIC religion, that causes bigotry.

Gordon,

The church is not compelling politicians to vote against abortion. It is reminding them that the church's position is profoundly anti-abortion and that acting in a pro-abortion way will have significant effects on their personal spirituality. Like any private club if you don't follow the rules of the club you risk your membership, more so if you do it publicly.

It also annoys me that the Catholic Church is continually brought up for anti-semitism when the church's actions are not as anti-semitic as some people declare. For example in the Mortara case the only religion apart from Catholicism allowed to be practiced in the Papal States was Judaism. Protestants were not allowed, nor Muslims nor Hindus, nor Zorastrians, nor Wiccans it was Catholics and Jews, nobody else. OK the Catholic Church treated the Jews pretty shabbily, but they treated them better than they treated anybody else. If you want an example of how effective the Church could be if they truly persecuted a group have a look at the treatment of the Albigensian Heretics (estimated 1,000,000 casualties and the complete extermination of the heresy in 20 years).

Harriet Miers' Law Partner
The Holy Office (commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition) had no official powers over Jews practicing their religion, they had powers over Jewish converts to Catholicism, Catholics who converted or reverted to Judaism and Jews who proselytised. They had the same powers over Muslims too. There are some isolated examples of the Inquisition overstepping the mark towards Jews practicing their religion but that was mainly in the time of Tomas de Torquemada. Possession of a Talmud by a Catholic was considered by the Holy Office to be evidence of apostacy or heresy, not blasphemy (Apostacy and Heresy were considered to be far more serious sins than Blasphemy)