Conservative Catholics on Watch for Questions on Nominee’s Faith

c. 2005 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Catholic groups on Wednesday (July 20) said they would guard against any attempt to use religious faith to derail the nomination of Judge John Roberts, a devout Catholic, to the U.S. Supreme Court. To make the point explicitly clear, they pointed to the very Constitution that Roberts would […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Catholic groups on Wednesday (July 20) said they would guard against any attempt to use religious faith to derail the nomination of Judge John Roberts, a devout Catholic, to the U.S. Supreme Court.

To make the point explicitly clear, they pointed to the very Constitution that Roberts would swear to uphold, and its prohibition against using any type of “religious test” as a qualification for higher office.


“A person’s religious faith, and how they live that faith as an individual, has no bearing and no place in the confirmation hearing,” said Joe Cella, president of a new Catholic group, Fidelis, formed to support conservative judges.

After another Catholic, William Pryor, saw his appeals court nomination stalled in 2003 over questions of his “deeply held religious beliefs,” Catholic activists said they would not allow Roberts to face the same scrutiny.

The debate in some ways is an extension of last year’s election-year tug of war, focused on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, over what it means to be a Catholic in public life. Some conservatives have also complained that Democrats are uncomfortable with “people of faith” serving on the nation’s top courts.

But it also has reopened questions of whether a nominee’s faith is fair game for inspection, and resurrected age-old fears that some Catholics face an ideological “litmus test” about their ability to divorce their public lives from their private faith.

By all accounts, Roberts is a devout Catholic who attends Mass weekly at the Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda, Md. Growing up in Indiana, he attended a Catholic high school.

His pastor, Monsignor Peter Vaghi, is chaplain to the John Carroll Society, a Washington-based group for Catholics in public life, and his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, sits on its board.

Vaghi and other church leaders in Washington declined to comment Wednesday, citing privacy concerns. But those who know him say Roberts is no religious zealot, but rather a quiet family man of firm faith.


“John is a guy who goes to Mass, he’s a practicing Catholic, but … like most Catholics who are serious about their faith, it’s not something they talk about a lot, it’s something that he lives,” said Shannen Coffin, a Washington attorney who has known Roberts for a dozen years.

If confirmed, Roberts will join Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy as Catholics on the high court.

Nonetheless, Coffin and others are concerned about an “anti-Catholic witch hunt.” Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League, said a judge’s personal religious beliefs, Catholic or otherwise, should not influence his rulings.

“Any scratching around this area would suggest that there’s a veiled religious test by asking questions about his deeply held views,” Donohue said. “Our antennaes will be up on that.”

The biggest question facing Roberts’ tenure on the high court will likely be his views on abortion, and whether he would use his seat to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion.

In 1991, he signed a brief for the first Bush administration saying that Roe v. Wade was “wrongly decided and should be overruled.” However, during his 2003 confirmation hearings for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Roberts said “nothing in my personal views would prevent me” from upholding Roe v. Wade as the settled law of the land.


Even Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, an independent group that supports abortion rights, said Roberts’ faith should be off limits, unless his beliefs influence his interpretation of the Constitution.

The only way to find out may be to ask Roberts directly, she said, adding that that does not amount to anti-Catholic bigotry.

“If a senator opposes a person based on their position on abortion, and that person happens to be Catholic, to say that is ipso facto anti-Catholicism, that is utter nonsense,” she said.

Deal Hudson, executive director of the Washington-based Morley Institute for Church and Culture, said he doesn’t expect Roberts’ faith to become an issue, and said both sides would be well-served not to make it one.

“From the senators, I think there will be some attempt to keep things civil,” said Hudson, a conservative Catholic with close ties to the White House. “The last thing that either side wants is to appear prejudiced, one way or the other, towards a person of religious faith.”

MO/PH END ECKSTROM

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!