Looking for:
Catholic court
Click here to ENTER
Thirty years ago eight of the nine Supreme Court justices were Protestant. Now only two are. Five are Catholic, and two are Jewish. Souter, who is Protestant, she will become the sixth Catholic justice on the court. For context, only a quarter of the population is Catholic.
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. The wording of the post has been changed to reflect that. I also invite you to join me on Facebook , follow me on Twitter or e-mail me at chblow nytimes.
This skews the court to believing that life starts at conception when a lot of us think a childs life starts when it could exist outside of its mother, say 20 weeks. All we need is for Obama to include a reneg on pro-choice to his reneg on FISA, torture, military tribunals, cronyism susman for plumb ambassadorship in london , and now he is pandering to the hispanics just s Bush did with gonzales.
Is it possible that there are fewer fundamentalist i. Are Catholics and Jews the only conservative Americans who still have the work ethic previously ascribed only to white Protestant males? Should we be concerned? About their religious beliefs per se—no.
About the tendency of fundamentalist conservatives to allow, indeed insist upon, their beliefs trumping the rule of law—definitely yes. I think she will be a great justice that will follow the constitution not legislate from the bench. Great topic too. The Supreme Court was not all Catholic in According to your newspaper, in his obituary, William J. Brennan Was Catholic. As a nonbeliever, I look at them collectively as all religious since none of them identify themselves as nonbelievers.
But I recognize that all faiths have conservative, moderate and liberal adherents and belief systems, so what I would like to know of the 9 is how their beliefs would guide their judicial philosophy in a secular government…oh and I would like to see an atheist member of the court or at least a Unitarian Universalist as many of our founding fathers were , but I am not holding my breath.
What should be praised in all this, is the role of Catholic education and the intellectual rigor and stimulation it can bring to children regardless of background.
To bad the number of Catholic schools are declining. Looking at the dismal record and costs of many public schools in the inner city, this liberal may soon start endorsing vochers.
The court should resemble the makeup of our Nation, not only Race, Gender, but also Religious affiliation. Again though, religious preference should not have any bearing on appointed or elected leaders. Still looking for that day when religion is removed from policy making and policy interpretation. The test should be knowledge of constitutional law and philosophy of law.
If committee members suspect that being, e. Catholic, might incline a prospective Supreme Court Judge to be automatically vs. Politically it does not matter. The interesting thing about the number of Catholics on the Supreme Court is that it would make one think that Roe v. Wade would be in jeopardy, but clearly it is not.
Also one would think that issues like Capital Punishment, or Stem Cell research would also be at judicial risk with so many Catholics on the court, but again clearly not. Catholics and Jews like Protestants all have their own unique and independent views and opinions on any one subject that more often than not reflect the same diversity of opinions and views that all Americans share.
But then the two Jews vote with the editorial board so there is no pointing in rocking the boat. It does when Catholic insist on basing their legal views on the obscure and irrational ideologies of the [Roman] Catholic Church. It does not matter, in this case at least.
If some body of officials does not mirror the population, that should cause us to suspect discrimination and, most important, look to see if it really is a matter of discrimination. If the group is elected, for example, we ask if it reflects some flaw in districting, voter registration or election procedures.
But when we investigate to see if there is discrimination against the under-represented group, here Protestants, the answer is clearly no. All six Catholics were nominated by Protestant presidents. Only four of the six are right-wing; Kennedy is a moderate or at least a swing voter and Sotomayor is either liberal or moderate. Indeed it is likely — in my view — that the very conservative justices, all named by one or the other of the Protestant Bushes, were chosen for their views on abortion, without regard for their religious affiliation.
What matters most — again in my view — is not where or whether the justices worship, but how they vote. Cheers, Gary McCardell. The Founding Fathers feared Catholics due to them holding fealty to Rome and thus, being under the control of the Spanish Crown as well as other kings.
The Protestants were proud of being many different sects. This is why they decided to enshrine the division of church and state. This is hideous. It is the death of our democracy. Liberal, conservative, wealthy, poor, gay, straight, —even pro-life and pro-choice,— I know Catholics in all these categories.
Not to mention the range of racial and ethnic identities. Humility seems to be the key, whether in a president or in a member of the Court. Can this honored person treat such a position, no matter how lofty, as public service, or will the honor feed a desire to reshape the law in order to better reflect the views of his or her own deity?
We saw during the last eight years how well America is served by someone who hears voices, and the Roberts Court is likely to produce some privacy rulings that suggest its justices see Aquinas rather than Jefferson as a role model.
I hope that Justice Sotomayor will remember, as Scalia et al. See next articles. Comments are no longer being accepted. Yes it matters and matters BIG. Dear Charles, I think she will be a great justice that will follow the constitution not legislate from the bench. What this demonstrates is how utterly excluded atheists are from the supreme court. Sadly, it does.
So in that regard, if it does impact their decision making… The court should resemble the makeup of our Nation, not only Race, Gender, but also Religious affiliation. According to Wikipedia, William Brennan was a Catholic. Why should it matter is my question? So should I care if all nine justices were Jewish, or Baptist, or Moslem?
If they were all good judges, why should I care? David B. We should have at least one agnostic Supreme. I nominate Bill Maher.
Ecclesiastical court – Wikipedia – Site Search Navigation
It may also happen that any given controversy must be settled by one judicial sentence, even though diverse tribunals exist, because the cases, on account of their “quantity” — to use the terminology of the Roman law — i. Rosas and J.
– EUR-Lex – CJ – EN – EUR-Lex
Court Magazine: The Catholic Church – Guilty Of Igniting Global Poverty And What World Leaders Can Do About It [Bonner, Joseph] on ecclesiastical court, tribunal set up by religious authorities to deal with disputes among clerics or with spiritual matters involving either clerics or. An ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain courts having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious.