Alito confirmed giving high court 1st Catholic majority - the smallest number of senators in the president's opposing party to support a Supreme

WASHINGTON – Senators may have pressed Judge Samuel Alito about the power of precedent during his confirmation hearings, but now the Supreme Court faces the unprecedented: Alito marks the fifth Roman Catholic justice, giving the bench a Catholic majority for the first time in history.


Alito became the nation's 110th Supreme Court justice Jan. 31, confirmed with the most partisan victory in modern history.


The Senate voted 58-42 to confirm Alito as the replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.


All but one of the Senate's majority Republicans voted for his confirmation, while all but four of the Democrats voted against Alito. That is the smallest number of senators in the president's opposing party to support a Supreme Court justice in modern history. Chief Justice John Roberts got 22 Democratic votes last year, and Justice Clarence Thomas – who was confirmed in 1991 on a 52-48 vote – got 11 Democratic votes.


Across the country, Catholics contacted were encouraged by the milestone.


“I’m amazed!” said Sister Anne Marie Warren, 52, superior of Our Lady of Peace Retreat and Convent in Beaverton, Ore. “I think God is really trying to help our country and little doors are opening, even though there seems to be so much devastation in our morals and our society.”


“It’s awesome for our faith in a time when there’s so much controversy within the church,” said Dominique Ballachino, 43, a mother of six in Mobile, Ala.


“Catholics have needed a morale booster for quite some time,” agreed Dick Lyles, chief executive officer of Relevant Radio, the largest Catholic talk radio network in the country.


Ballachino said she’s grateful for the positive example the new justice will set. “There have been so many bad moral examples,” she said. “Alito will help our young people who are starving for good examples.”


Thousands of Relevant Radio listeners have echoed Ballachino’s sentiment, Lyles said. “More than anything, many Catholics simply want good people of character with strong, proven values in positions of responsibility so our young people have viable role models to emulate.”


Some young adults recognize that desire, too. “Not only that Alito is Catholic, but that he seems to uphold the Catholic principles is comforting,” said Nick McCarthy, 22, a senior at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis.


In addition to Alito’s strong morals, many Catholics also approve of his judicial style. “The impression I get is that he seems like someone who will read the constitution as it’s supposed to be and not rewrite it or legislate from the bench. That wasn’t the original purpose of the judiciary,” McCarthy said.


The Catholic factor


Amidst celebration, Catholics are analyzing the role of “the Catholic factor” in Alito’s confirmation hearings. Some consider the anti-Catholic attacks on Alito overt. Human Events, a national conservative weekly, posted Patrick J. Buchanan’s article “Who’s Practicing McCarthyism Now” Jan. 12. Senators’ repeated questions about Alito’s membership in a Princeton alumni group that demonstrated bigoted views was a “smear,” Buchanan wrote. It was motivated, he added, by a fear that Alito would vote to overturn abortion.


Lyles recognized an anti-Catholic undercurrent in those questions, too. “Alito ruled on more than 4,000 cases and wrote more than 1,000 opinions. By raising this tangential issue, Senators tried to play into the anti-Catholic bias that Catholics are somehow racist and sexist,” he said. “It was a weak effort and people would have to agree that it backfired, but nonetheless it is important to see the behavior for what it was.”


Overall, many consider the Catholic factor in Alito’s confirmation hearings surprisingly, refreshingly minor.


“The Catholic factor was insignificant, which is its greatest significance,” said Dennis Coyle, a politics professor at The Catholic University of America here who studies the interplay between values and policy. “That is, nominating a Catholic is no longer a rare and controversial occurrence.”


That marks dramatic progress in interfaith relations since 1960, when many Americans doubted presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy’s ability to rule the nation and stay faithful to the Catholic Church.


“The difference between Catholics and Protestants has been put aside in recent years,” McCarthy said. Perhaps Americans are taking to heart the emphasis on Christian unity preached by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, the college senior said.


The Supreme Court’s new Catholic majority shouldn’t surprise Americans, Lyles pointed out, adding that Catholic education has a longstanding tradition of shaping strong minds while instilling integrity.


Coyle agreed. “[The Catholic majority] says something about Catholic achievements in legal and intellectual circles, and the important role many Catholics play today in the narrowly governing conservative coalition,” the professor said. “If you want a thoughtful, disciplined jurist of conservative bent today, many will be Catholic.”


A Catholic impact


The Supreme Court’s historic shift has sparked speculation about its impact on the country’s Catholic community and its legal landscape.


Ballachino sees the shift as a chance to raise the bar in Catholic leadership. “I hope the justices’ strong morals and public service can give a little kick to other Catholic leaders who get bogged down with less important stuff.”


Lyles expects the altered bench to raise the public opinion of Catholics. “The biggest impact will be that most fair minded people – and most people are fair minded – are likely to adopt a more positive attitude about what it means to be Catholic.


“There is no doubt that in time Alito will be seen as one of the keenest minds to ever wear a Supreme Court Justice robe,” Lyles said.


In the judicial arena, he added, the Catholic milestone is good news. “It can only strengthen court decisions to have more people of character serve on the Supreme Court.”


At the same time, Catholics should temper their wishful thinking with a grain of salt, said Donald Kommers, a law and politics professor at Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. “The Supreme Court justices are not going to be legislating their values,” he said. “But they are going to be interpreting the Constitution of the United States to some extent by their values.”


To what extent that will be remains unclear. The Catholic Supreme Court justices certainly don’t vote in lockstep, Coyle pointed out.


Rather, they occupy an ideological spectrum, Kommers said: Justice Clarence Thomas anchors the most orthodox point; Justice Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice John Roberts fall in the middle; Justice Anthony Kennedy marks the most liberal point. Legal experts expect Judge Alito to join the middle camp, closer to Scalia than Thomas in his incremental approach to overturning the court’s past decisions.


That said, Kommers does expect the bench’s Catholic majority to bring about significant change in four arenas:


-- Restrict abortion rights.
Alito is likely to tilt the court to support a ban on partial-birth abortion, Kommers said. Doyle agreed: “Given Alito’s record, I would expect him to construe ‘undue burden’ narrowly, and uphold many abortion-limiting provisions.”



-- Increase religious liberty.
Twenty years ago, the Supreme Court would strike down any form of state aid to parochial schools, practicing a strict separatist approach to church/state relations. Alito is likely to further broaden the bench’s growing accomodist perspective, which grants some state aid to parochial schools.



-- Heighten state authority.
“A Catholic who subscribes to the social doctrine of the church is more likely to uphold state legislation over federal intrusion,” Kommers said.



-- Support dioceses dealing with assets disputes.
Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris set precedent last December in ruling that Portland’s Catholic archdiocese can’t shield the sale of parish assets from compensation claims made by victims of clergy sexual abuse. Victims there may now seek compensation from assets including parish churches and schools within the archdiocese, increasing the archdiocese’s assessed value from what it argued should be $19 million to at least $500 million. If such cases reach the Supreme Court, which is probable, Kommers expects it to support a diocese and limit its assets.



Unaffected Areas


Kommers said the high court’s new Catholic majority isn’t likely to overturn two major laws: the legalization of abortion and capital punishment. With Kennedy upholding Roe v. Wade, Alito marks only a possible fourth vote to overturn it.


And as to capital punishment? “That’s an area where even an orthodox Catholic like Scalia does not think the church’s moral views have any business influencing the Supreme Court,” Kommers said. “Those justices think that matter belongs to state law.”


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Capecchi, a free-lance writer of Inver Grove Heights, Minn., is a graduate in journalism at Mount Mercy College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and is a Catholic Press Association award-winning news and features writer.