Osler's Razor

I'm a Christian who works at a Catholic school and who holds a chair in preaching. I've given sermons in six states for four different denominations. Religion is important to me, and I have thought and written a lot about the role of faith in public life (and tried to live with a role for faith in my own public life).

 As President Trump has prepared to nominate a new Justice to the Supreme Court, there has been a fair amount of (probably accurate) speculation that the pick will be 7th Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett. I have colleagues that know her and think highly of her, and others who very much against her nomination (the latter group, I should note, does not include people who know her).

Judge Barrett is Catholic and reportedly a member of an ecumenical group called People of Praise, which has Catholic roots and fewer than 2,000 members in the United States. People of Praise was founded in South Bend, Indiana, where Judge Barrett taught at Notre Dame. 

In reaction to the idea that Barrett might be nominated, some people have declared that religion should be off-limits as a topic of inquiry, and that questioning her about her religious beliefs would be a form of discrimination against Catholics. 

I'm wary of that argument, and I would like to explain why.

Implied in that bar is the idea-- sometimes expressed openly-- that faith does not impact a judge's work. And that's where they lose me.

Faith, if it is real and whole and genuine, isn't segmented into one part of life or another; the God you see and feel and believe in is the God of your entire life. That doesn't mean, say, that you are going to start talking about Jesus in court, but it does mean that your faith is going to direct you as to what is important and what moral imperatives can be addressed through your work. What is a belief in God if that God can't follow you to the office? 

The truth is that for all of us our faith or non-belief shapes us, especially in forming the very morality that is going to guide us in our most important choices... and it should. That means that to truly understand a candidate for the court, that bar must be breached. And it is a bar-- after all, laws often prohibit employers from asking candidates for a job about their faith. 

Another way in which faith is a legitimate area of inquiry is in regard to religious diversity on the Court. Again... faith influences what we think is important and how we see the world. That means a diversity of viewpoints is a good thing in a deliberative body that represents the nation as a whole.

Of the 8 Justices now, two are Jewish (Kagan & Breyer), five are Catholic (Kavanaugh, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, and Roberts) and one (Gorsuch) was raised Catholic but worships as an Episcopalian. According to the Pew Religious Landscape survey, about 21% of Americans are Catholic-- but that 1/5th of the nation makes up either 62% or 75% of the Court (depending on how you categorize Gorsuch). While Catholics have a super-majority on the Court (which would increase with Coney), they are outnumbered in the United States not only by Evangelical Christians and by "Nones"-- those with no religious affiliation. Yet, those groups have no representation on the court.

If you're wondering if I raised this point with Obama's picks, well, yes I did. It even led to this strange exchange with Linda Greenhouse and Jeffrey Toobin on CNN (you have to scroll down some to get to it).

Here is what I said then about Kagan (to USA Today) and I would say the same now regarding Barrett: "She should not be called upon to defend her religious beliefs but in those areas where belief is going to inform a justice's principles, they should be open in letting the public know this. It should be part of the broader public discussion."

# posted by Mark Osler @ 1:00 AM