May 26, 2009, 3:43 pm
The Catholic Court
By Charles M. Blow



Thirty years ago eight of the nine Supreme Court justices were Protestant. Now only two are. Five are Catholic, and two are Jewish. If federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as a replacement for Justice David H. Souter, who is Protestant, she will become the sixth Catholic justice on the court. For context, only a quarter of the population is Catholic.

Does/should this matter? Why?

(It should be noted that the Catholics now on the court constitute its entire conservative arm.)

Correction: As some have noted, William Brennan was also Catholic. Thanks. The wording of the post has been changed to reflect that.

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Source: http://blow.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/the-catholic-court/

Not really. In terms of social attitudes, conservative Christians (Catholics and Protestants) share similar beliefs such as anti-abortion, anti gay marriage views. Although the court's conservatives happen to be Catholics, there are liberal ones out there like Sotomayor, and the possibility of one day getting a conservative Protestant on the bench is not far-fetched at all.

DominicanChic:

You miss the point made; The United States of America is not Italy, Spain or Mexico where 99.9 % of the population is Catholic. It's a paradigm shift for the U.S. Supreme Court to have 6 of its 9 Chief Justices Roman Catholics in a predominantly Protestant nation that allows freedom of religion through its Constitution; And, in which Catholics comprise only 25% of the population.

How does the ratio of Catholics to no-Catholics justify such a Over-representation?

The Pilgrim fathers and many others that followed came to these shores fleeing the Catholic and the Anglican Churches; Religious persecution of which the Roman Catholic Church was a leading factor...
How do they now dominate politics in the land of separation of Church and State?
Our Constitution is opposed to the Catholic dogma that men are subject to the Pope as representative of God on Earth; While, "most" Roman Catholics uphold their religious belief above country! Their first allegiance is to the holy see and its pontiff...

Where is the justification for such a disparity in the land of the free.. Free....From Popes or Kings?

Read your history; This Republic wasn't meant to reflect the "latin" countries, it was intended to break away from the clerical tyranny and its DOMINION.

Arsenio, I did get the point, but the one I was trying to make is that it can't bother the majority Protestant community if there are so many Catholics in power because in addition to being a majority Protestant, separation of church and state supporting country, we still lean more towards the socially conservative side. These Catholic conservatives are representative of that, and so many people within the country just do not have a problem with them.

DomincanChic:

I look at the big picture; Not the window dressing political inclinations or professions.
My concern, and yes I do mind! Is that these RC on a Supreme Court can, and will eventually subvert the U.S. Constitution. Catholic's profession to the holy see is weightier than their allegiance to homeland! That's why the American Experiment turned all the previous government models on their heads by placing government out ot the reach of the Church...On the other hand, RC answer to their church, first, and country second; That's why they are called Roman Catholics, they are loyal first to Rome!

I am a Protestant, and I do see DR Presidents galavanting about from one mass to another; and I accept it as a given in "SANTO Domigo" (Holy Sunday) DOMINICAN Republic, whose constitution establishes the country as Catholic (wholelly).

Now, in the USA, in contrast, I'm alarmed to see Presidents consorting with Catholic clerics, and appointing Catholic Supreme Court Judges.

President John F. Kennedy stated as a candidate he would not allow his religion to dictate to him how to proceed on administrative issues, and he was on his way to express that in person to a group of high ranking clerics in Dallas on that fateful day.....Shot in the act...

Watch the headlines these movements back to Rome will transform the American Republic into a theosophy! The prophecies are coming true before our very eyes....
With this Catholic-ward trend....National ruin will follow!

A few observation's why it's disturbing to see 6 out of 9 Supreme Court Justices being Roman Catholic:

George W. Bush: The best way to honor Pope John Paul II, truly one of the great men, is to take his teachings seriously, to listen to his words and put his words and his teachings into action here in America! — Patricia Zapoa, Catholic News Service, March 24, 2001.

In 1960, John Kennedy went from Washington to Texas to assure Protestant preachers that he would not obey the pope. In 2001, George Bush came from Texas up to Washington to assure a group of Catholic bishops that he would obey the pope. — Washington Times, April 16, 2001.

The pope is the ruler of the world. All the emperors, all the kings, all the princes, all the presidents of the world are as these altar boys of mine. — Priest D. S. Phelan, Western Watchman, June 27, 1912

It is here that the tremendous power of the church makes itself felt. It is through this direction [Jesuits] that statesmen are compelled to act, not for the benefit of the country to which they belong, but for the benefit of the Church, which controls them. — M. F. Cusack, The Black Pope, Marshall, Russell, and Co., p. 106.

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1st. The most sacred principle of the United States Constitution is the equality of every citizen before the law. But the fundamental principle of the Church of Rome is the denial of that equality.

2nd. Liberty of conscience is proclaimed by the United States, a most sacred principle which every citizen must uphold, even at the price of his blood. But liberty of conscience is declared by all the popes and councils of Rome, a most godless, unholy, and diabolical thing, which every good Catholic must abhor and destroy at any cost.

3rd. The American Constitution assures the absolute independence of the civil from the ecclesiastical or church power; but the Church of Rome declares that such independence is an impiety and revolt against God.

4th. The American Constitution leaves every man free to serve God according to the dictates of his conscience; but the Church of Rome declares that no man has ever had such a right, and that the pope alone can know and say what man must believe and do.

5th. The Constitution of the United States denies the right for anybody to punish any other for differing from him in religion; but the Church of Rome says that she has the right to punish with the confiscation of their goods, or the penalty of death, those who differ in faith from the pope.

6th. The United States have established schools all over their immense territories, where they invite the peoples to send their children, that they may cultivate their intelligence and become good and useful citizens. But the Church of Rome has publicly cursed all those schools, and forbidden their children to attend them, under pain of excommunication in this world and damnation in the next.

7th. The Constitution of the United States is based on the principle that the people are the primary source of all civil power. But hundreds of times, the Church of Rome has proclaimed that this principle is impious and heretical. She says that all government must rest upon the foundation of the Catholic faith; with the pope alone as the legitimate and infallible source and interpreter of the law. — Charles Chiniquy, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, Chick Publications, p.284.

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The Vatican condemned the Declaration of Independence as wickedness and called the Constitution of the United States a Satanic Document. — Avro Manhattan, The Dollar and the Vatican, Ozark Book Publishers, 1988, p. 26.

The pope is the supreme judge of the law of the land.... He is the vicegerent of Christ, who is not only a Priest forever, but also King of kings and Lord of lords. — La Civilta Cattolica, March 18, 1871, quoted in Leonard Woolsey Bacon, An Inside View of the Vatican Council, American Tract Society, p. 229.

The absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error — a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a state. — Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Letter, August 15th, 1854.

We will rule the United States, and lay them at the feet of the Vicar of Jesus Christ [the pope], that he may put an end to their Godless system of education, and impious laws of liberty of conscience which are an insult to God and man. — Charles Chiniquy, Fifty years in the Church of Rome, Chick Publications, p. 282, (emphasis supplied).

let us hope they are members of Opus Dei better yet if we could get a Jesuit confirmed to the high court then we could have incense and holy water in the courtroom

If we are going to talk percentages let's look at the tiny percentage of the original colonists who were 'pilgrim fathers' escaping persecution. Most colonial Americans were not in that boat, metaphorically speaking. They came like most immigrants to improve their lot in life.

Small world coincidence, Justice Antonin Scalia graduated from the same Jesuit high school I did (cue spooky conspiracy music ). Word there was that Scalia refused to donate any money to the school ... because when he was a student decades ago it was also a military school, and he was disappointed that after the 70s it became optional to be a cadet. Talk about a hard ass conservative

And if my mind doesn't betray me, not all the 13 original colonies were Protestant. Or are we forgetting that Maryland was founded originally as a Catholic haven by some Irishmen, running away from the PROTESTANT parlamentarian persecutions that were common before the English Civil War? Are you forgetting, Arsenio, that, if it's true that the Catholic Church has its Inquisition, it's no less true that the Protestants had its Test Act on the case of Great Britain (against Catholics and Irishmen, which were basically the same) or the beatings, hangings and persecutions that Catholics were the victims on Calvinistic Holland, the Protestant principalities of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Cantons of Switzerland?

lautaro I think you have been betrayed but I could be wrong