Remember when President George Bush nominated Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court? As readers and viewers were told for months, Alito would become the fifth Catholic on the court — the most ever.
NPR ran a story about what the preponderance of Catholics meant. It included the quote from Dahlia Lithwick: “People are very, very much talking about the fact that Alito would be the fifth Catholic on the Supreme Court if confirmed.” Lithwick didn’t mention that Sotomayor would be the sixth Catholic in this Newsweek piece about how awesome she would be. And Lithwick and Emily Bazelon (of the incompetent questioning of Ruth Bader Ginsburg fame) had Sotomayor at the top of their list of SCOTUS candidates before she was named. Her potential Catholicism was noted without comment.
The Associated Press ran a brief story about how Alito would be the fifth Catholic. It included a hilarious line about how Clarence Thomas “converted to Catholicism after joining the court.” Except, you know, he was raised Catholic and even considered the priesthood. Here’s the New York Times and Washington Post on Alito. ABC ran a story headlined “Alito Would Create Catholic Majority on Top Court.” The Economist ran a story analyzing the religious make-up of the court.
It wasn’t just Alito. When Chief Justice John Roberts was nominated, NPR’s Nina Totenberg famously said:
People who know him know that John Roberts is a really conservative guy….Don’t forget his wife was an officer, a high officer of a pro-life organization. He’s got adopted children. I mean, he’s a conservative Catholic….a hardline conservative.
I love the terms “high officer” and “hardline conservative.” And not adopted children! No! This piece on Sotomayor did mention Sotomayor’s Catholicism but the discussion of it was rather bland.
Or remember when the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on partial birth abortions? The Philadelphia Inquirer ran that cartoon “Church and State” portraying the five Catholic justices in bishops’ mitres. And the media ran more than a few worried pieces about the Catholic composition of the court.
It’s not that people aren’t talking about Sotomayor being the sixth Catholic on the bench, it’s just that the media all of a sudden don’t find it so interesting. They covered it a bit back in May but the story doesn’t have legs, as they say. (NB: The New York Times ran a great piece on the matter in late May.)
This week, the New York Times asked readers for questions they’d like to see asked of Sotomayor. It then highlighted some of them. More than a few readers brought up her Catholicism. Here’s one from reader Rob Kilby, for instance:
Do you think the court’s composition should reflect society’s composition in terms of ethnicity etc.? If so, even in a general kind of way, how do you feel six Catholics and only one Protestant reflect American society’s composition?
That’s precisely the question (except replace six with five) that the mainstream media was hammering during the Alito confirmation. As of this writing, the Times hadn’t highlighted any of the religious questions. Other outlets don’t seem so concerned about the religious background of Sotomayor anymore either. And the question is why.
Wall Street Journal columnist Bill McGurn explored the issue and raised some interesting questions. Here’s how he began:
In opening yesterday’s Judiciary Committee hearings on Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Chairman Pat Leahy (D., Vt.) alluded to the religious prejudice that has too often intruded on the process.
The first Jewish nominee, he noted, had to answer “questions about the Jewish mind and how its operations are complicated by altruism.” The first Catholic nominee, he added, “had to overcome the argument that, as a Catholic, he’d be dominated by the pope.”
“We are,” Sen. Leahy declared, “in a different era.”
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor under the bright lights at her Senate confirmation hearing, July 13, 2009.
Maybe. It’s true that if Ms. Sotomayor is confirmed there will be six Catholics on the Court — a higher percentage than almost any Notre Dame starting lineup of the past three decades. It’s also true that notwithstanding a few scattered references to this fact, for the most part the judge’s religion has been greeted, as a USA Today headline put it, with a “yawn.”
After noting some other examples of different levels of interest in the Catholicism of Alito, Roberts and Sotomayor, he quotes Princeton professor Robert George saying it all boils down to a double standard — you can read the full column if you desire. Here’s how he ends:
If the indifference to Ms. Sotomayor’s Catholicism were truly a sign of a new respect for the “no religious test” provisions of the Constitution, that would be something to celebrate. But in the unlikely case that this “wise Latina” ever comes to see the legal wisdom of overturning Roe and returning abortion to the democratic process, we’ll be reading a very different story.
Sotomayor said today that she considered Roe to be settled law. Still, isn’t it interesting that a nominee’s Catholicism is only a problem worth media coverage some of the time? Why do you think that is?
The image of Sotomayor, above, was found here, via here.
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Comments (23) |
July 15, 2009, at 9:19 am
A rhetorical question I assume? I think the reasons are pretty obvious.
July 15, 2009, at 9:28 am
I find the liberal media’s obsession with the fear that Catholics on the Supreme Court might be secretly wired into the Pope’s brain so reminiscent of that glorious period in American history when the Know-Nothings and their political and ecclesiastical allies dominated. Today’s Know-Nothings are the NY Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, Time, Newsweek, the Nation, the New Republic. I’m surprised that the Republican descendants of the KNs haven’t raised the issue.
July 15, 2009, at 9:49 am
Because Sotomayor’s Hispanicity pushes the MSM’s “reflect society’s composition” button harder than does her Catholicism.
July 15, 2009, at 10:18 am
Because she is a Kennedy Catholic (i.e. non-believing), with a “special privilege” race card. Does she even go to Church?
July 15, 2009, at 11:05 am
It’s curious that Supreme Court justices are predominantly from liturgical religions, Roman Catholic, Jewish Episcopalian, Lutheran. I wonder if it has anything to do with the liturgical nature of the courts.
July 15, 2009, at 12:07 pm
[…] “The good Catholic” […]
July 15, 2009, at 12:48 pm
It seems obvious to me, though apparently not to you, why the media focused on Alito’s and Roberts’ Catholocism a great deal, and why it has focused on Sotomayor’s much less. That’s because there was every indication that R&A would be strong votes on the court against Roe/Casey. As you know (you point it out often enough) the Catholic Church has some pretty strong opinions about abortion. … Now, Sotomayor has given no indication that she will vote to overturn or severely limit Roe/Casey. So the difference between the two is that the former is news, which means it’s information that people are willing to go out of their way and/or put up with ads to obtain, and the other is not. It’s a non-story, really.
Maybe there’s a story out there on why Sotomayor’s judging will apparently not be influenced by her religious convictions, while R&A’s is, but honestly I don’t get the outrage. The possibility of over 30 years of Supreme Court precedent on a major issue being overturned, and the connection of that overturning to the plurality faith in this country, is news. That not happening, well, it’s to be noted, but it’s not news to nearly the same extent.
July 15, 2009, at 12:56 pm
Actually, he’s what is known as a re-vert - somebody who fell away from the faith and returned as an adult. Word is that Scalia had something to do with it.
Interesting observation about liturgical nature of the courts. Chancery courts in England were run by the church back in the day in England. Don’t know about the US.
When at law school at U of IL, we observed a large number of Catholics in the student body. In fact, a surprising number of women students had gone to all-girl Catholic high schools. Both Jews and Catholics have a long history of parsing documents and referencing prior authoritative opinions. Jesuit schools in particular turn out a lot of lawyers. When I was at St Louis U we were required to have a philosophy minor - that’s a good preparation for abstract reasoning. And, since there were informal admission quotas for Jews at elite Eastern schools in those days, SLU had a lot of Jewish students.
July 15, 2009, at 2:32 pm
“Because Sotomayor’s Hispanicity pushes the MSM’s “reflect society’s composition” button harder than does her Catholicism.”
Why didn’t the same button work for Thomas?
July 15, 2009, at 2:41 pm
“Why didn’t the same button work for Thomas?”
Because he was an unrepentant Black Conservative. That makes him a traitor. Duh.
July 15, 2009, at 2:55 pm
A political blog had a fun comment on this issue that was in part a take on the NY Times questions: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/07/protestants-catholics-and-jews-on.html
July 15, 2009, at 3:08 pm
First, he wasn’t the first Black on the SCOTUS; his predecessor Thurgood Marshall was. Second, his qualifications were clearly short of those of the man he was replacing. Third, a huge flap erupted over his alleged coarseness with those who reported to him.
Thomas used the “Black conservative = cultural traitor” line in his counter-attack to the flap but it was a massive playing of the race card — eg, “high-tech lynching.”
July 15, 2009, at 6:43 pm
Although I expect S. Sotomayor will be a reliable liberal voice on the Supreme Court—I would love to see her upset everyone’s applecart by taking a few unexpected controversial conservative stands.
For listening to her at her hearings she almost sounds like a semi-strict constructionist on the Constitution. It will be interesting to see the media’s reaction if she isn’t reliably liberal. The anti-Catholic invective will likely be uproarious. We’ll probably see cartoons like Nast’s hate-filled Know-Nothing cartoons of crocodile bishops crawling out of the Atlantic to devour America.
July 15, 2009, at 10:14 pm
That is one amazing piece of art. You could do an interesting poll asking Hispanics whether that image offends them or not.
July 15, 2009, at 11:24 pm
I’ve read the links above and other stories exploring Judge Sotomayor’s religion, and I simply cannot find any evidence that she actually IS Catholic today in any meaningful way. So she was “raised Catholic” — so what?? As the linked New York Times piece states,
So why no MSM interest in Sotomayor’s religion? Because she’s NOT CATHOLIC.
July 16, 2009, at 12:38 am
Actually, the ethnic media has a number of quotes from people who know her as a Catholic. And since that’s where she got the vast majority of press before the nomination popped her into the spotlight, it should surprise no one that they know her better than the MSM.
July 16, 2009, at 11:39 am
Sabrina, can you give us some links, or at least citations? I did a search in ProQuest’s Ethnic NewsWatch and didn’t find anything like what you are suggesting.
July 16, 2009, at 1:28 pm
Darel,
I think I provided links and direct quotes in the original GR post when Sotomayor had just been nominated. But I’ll go back and get you some links and post them here again later tonight or tomorrow.
July 16, 2009, at 1:45 pm
Sabrina, what you posted doesn’t make any sense. First because even the MSM, with it’s double standard sees a good story as its primary objective. When Sotomayor was was first nominated, her supposed Catholicism and attendance to Cardinal Spellman HS were both a big part of the story from all sources. Ten weeks later, evidence sorroborating that original take, or something that contradicts it would still be big news. The NYT, which openly oposes Cathoicism, would be only two happy perpetuate Sotomayor’s populist image by confirming that she’s still going to Church lika a good Puerto Rican. Conversely, the Times also knows that if it contradicts the original reporting on Sotomayor’s Catholicism, it will have no effect on the actual outcome of her nomination. Everybody wins, as far as the NYT is concerned.
Incidently, as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, you are not Catholic unless you meet all of the following requirements:
1) You have been baptised.
2) You have confirmed your baptisma promises in adulthood, Meaning:
You accept ALLL Catholic Revelation, teaching, law and dogma
3) You attend Mass weekly and on Holy Days. There you
* Recieve the Sacrament of Communion
* Confess your sins in general to God and your fellow parisoners
* Reafirm and profess your acceptance of the totality of the Catholic Faith
(all Catholics do each of these things at least once a week)
These are the reqirements for membership to the Catholic Church. Those that do not follow them, but still call themselves “Catholic” have actually invented their own religion, with its own rules and rituals. People like Ted Kennedy, Rudy Guiliani, and Nancy Pelosi fall into this category. I suspect Sonya Sotomayor does too.
July 16, 2009, at 2:15 pm
Not to worry, TMatt, I know the requirements of Catholicism. In case you hadn’t noticed I work at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Amused,
S
July 16, 2009, at 2:16 pm
That’s not TMATT, that’s “Matt 16:26”!
July 16, 2009, at 2:40 pm
Sorry for the confusion. Matt, not TMatt.
July 17, 2009, at 10:53 pm
Sabrina, I went back and looked at your posting on May 26 which cited this Catholic News Service article:
And here’s the quote from El Diario/La Prensa NY:
In my opinion, that’s pretty weak evidence for her status as a Catholic in 2009.