Catholics on the Supreme Court: Conflict?

David Gibson has flagged an interesting editorial by Joyce Appleby (emerita, UCLA).  Appleby seems to be concerned about the number of Catholics on the Supreme Court, and suggests that they recuse themselves in certain cases, cases in which, she holds, their "ingrained conviction" is as problematic as the social or financial entanglements that often are the reason for a given judge's recusal, particularly in the lower courts.  [Appleby editorial]  [Gibson comments]

Hmmmm.

Think of it this way:  we have a mini-trend of naming Catholics to the Supreme Court.  We aren't talking about an outbreak of Catholic devotion; or the Catechism of the Catholic Church suddenly rocking the charts at Amazon.

Not that there'd be anything wrong with that.  

I suggest that we are not seeing "Catholic" as a new litmus test for the Court, rather what we are seeing is a trend in which Catholic formation seems to show up when the current culture goes looking for good judgment about our common life.

Members of the Court do not write the law, but they engage with its most fundamental questions as they talk through the hard cases. How shall we decide when contracts, made in good faith, lead to conflicting results?  How shall we protect minority voices in a democracy, and what are the limits of that protection?  What is appropriate punishment, and which acts, in our own day, should be called "crimes"?  

"Catholic issues" do not come before the Supreme Court, though religious issues do, to the extent that they arise as we interact with one another.  And, at the moment, there's an interesting trend in which people with Catholic backgrounds are found to have the requisite combination of intellect, analysis and judgement -- not to mention a social sensibility (which we dare not call "empathy').

Hmmm.  Appleby does seem to be making an anti-Catholic argument, "Nativist," as Gibson suggests. 

I wonder if we need to look a little deeper, what if we turned her argument around...  

Perhaps she's playing one card to reveal another:  her real target, I suggest, is not the "Romish" tendencies of American Catholics, but rather the tendency of some Roman Catholic bishops to chastize public officials whose exercise of office seems to disregard their own authority.

  

In other words, it's not the Catholics on the Supreme Court that need to "recuse" themselves. 

Sotomayor: a Catholic intellect, not an ideologue

A sixth Catholic for the Court?  Works for me.

For the once-over on Sotomayor as Catholic, Michael Paulson at the Globe has a good round-up of first impressions HERE.  (I'm adding his "Articles of Faith" to the re-invigorated blogroll box...)

Permit me to wave the flag for a minute here.  Note Paulson's own observation, at the end of his post, about Obama's nod to Catholic schools as a traditional path "up" for the disadvantaged.  This is certainly a plus, but more than that...the sixth Catholic part isn't about abortion politics, it's about having a coherent intellectual worldview, one that certainly foregrounds concern for others but which does so on the basis of employing a comprehensive rationality.   

In other words, we have Catholics on the Supreme Court not because the U.S. public is fascinated by the lurid glamour of Vatican-fixated moviemakers, we have Catholics on the Supreme Court because their formation predisposes them to the art of enacting principles in the real world -- to jurisprudence.

Point two.  One more time, let's repeat together:  the question of abortion is not a question specific to Catholic faith.  Sotomayor may be judged a good or bad Catholic by whichever bishop chooses to speak out -- I'll go way out on a limb here and guess that one might -- but this nomination is NOT "wafer watch" material.  The question of abortion always comes up in a SCOTUS pick and, from what I've seen thus far -- I've heard of two rulings in which she "leaned center right" -- we have no reason to think that she's at all ideological about "life" or "choice."   (UPDATE 5/27:  Waldman at Beliefnet has the specs on the abortion-related rulings.)

Bottom line:  making the SCOTUS pick be a case about Catholic abortion politics is a great way to avoid the real intellectual contributions that Catholics are making...and thus, a really bad idea.

Odds n' Ends

I observed two entries ago the rising number of young adults who are comfortable with gays and lesbians AND call themselves pro-life. This is surprising only to us old people who are obsessed with red state/blue state categories.

Young viewers of contemporary TV have been fed a steady high-sugar diet of friendly lesbians and celebrity teen bumps, all shot with gorgeous production values. And certainly -- given that both homosexuals and unmarried mothers have been portrayed for decades as selfish, sinful, deviant and/or mentally ill -- allowing a few other folks on the set of "Leave it to Beaver" is only fair.

For example, Matt Bai, in today's Times [HERE], notes that acceptance of gay marriage is growing so quickly that political figures' positions are lagging behind the grassroots; most leading Democrats, for example, are on record as in favor of gay unions but opposed to having the state affirm gay marriage.  Expect some revisionism as November 2010 approaches. 

And yes, "pro-life" is increasingly a socially acceptable default position, which does not mean that one rejects all abortion on principle, as observed in a piece featured in this blog's Today's Reading section two days ago (you do check out Today's Reading everyday, yes?). One could argue that this is problematic:  as the label goes mainstream, it loses its tight focus and becomes a bigger tent -- not all self-proclaimed "pro-lifers" are opposed to all abortion; some want to overturn Roe, some don't; some think there's a difference between early and late-term cases, etc.  But this lack of precision is an issue only if you're a pollster. For the rest, the fact that many are casually claiming to be pro-life makes it more likely (I hope) that they will be open to a consideration of the genuine claim that the unborn have on us. It's not a rigorous position, but it's a start.

ON THE OTHER HAND...

It may not surprise you to hear that shopping at the local mall sends my soul into free-fall. Margaret Faith, age 8, and I, walking through the local mall a few weeks ago, decided that Victoria sure can't keep a secret. And last night's eye-roller, dress shopping with a teen, was a store devoted to young women's fashion with a distinctly "come hither" tone. The store is called "Maybee" but should really be known as "Quite Likely," if not "A Sure Thing."

All of which is lite chuckle material. But then I find that the tween aspirational fashion store Limited Too is now called ... wait for it ... "Justice." A pink-and-purple bottoms n' tops store called Justice, that sells "looks you luv for less."

So, yes, it's possible to "mainstream" a term into George Orwell territory.

*****

ALSO, on the SCOTUS pick: With regard to the President's widely-assumed preference for a second female justice and his stated claim that the next justice needs "empathy," Rodger Citron and Dahlia Lithwick argue HERE that "Conflating judicial empathy with gender is bad for both women and the law." Let's hope Obama's not channeling John Paul II on this one. In his more direct remarks today, Obama chooses instead to use language of "a common touch" and "a practical sense of how the world works."  Better.