Editorial

Judge John Roberts - nominated by President George W. Bush to be the next Supreme Court justice - happens to be a member of the Catholic Church. He and his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, belong to Little Flower Parish in Bethesda, Md.

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If confirmed, Roberts would be the 10th Catholic in the history of the Supreme Court. He would be the fourth current member of the court, joining Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas (note that when Thomas was confirmed in 1991, he said he was raised Catholic but was not practicing; he has since returned to the church).

Impact of faith. Does a Supreme Court justice's religious faith make any difference? Should membership in a church be considered during the confirmation process?

I believe a justice's faith can and should be considered as one factor in assessing his or her character and moral integrity. But membership in a particular denomination should not be seen as a barrier to serving on the court. Rather, it should be looked upon as a positive factor.

According to a Catholic News Service article, the Web site, www.adherents.com, reports that only one justice in the history of the Supreme Court has not been a member of any church. Of the court's 107 justices, 33 have been Episcopalian, 18 Presbyterian, 15 "Protestant," 10 Catholic (one became Catholic after leaving the court), nine Unitarian, five Methodist, and a smattering of other faiths.

Supreme Court justices have been people of faith. It would seem obvious that their faith had some impact on the decisions they made on the bench. It would be next to impossible to completely divorce one's faith from such decisions, although justices primarily examine the Constitution and legal precedent in making their rulings.

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Catholic social teaching. In considering another Catholic justice, members of the Senate would do well to explore the breadth of Catholic social teaching and its impact on a potential justice's decisions.

In that vein, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote a letter to President Bush on July 6 (before his nomination of Judge Roberts). The bishop urged the president to consider "qualified jurists who, preeminently, support the protection of human life from conception to natural death, especially of those who are unborn, disabled or terminally ill" and "consider jurists who are also cognizant of the rights of minorities, immigrants, and those in need; respect the role of religion and of religious institutions in our society and the protections afforded them by the First Amendment; recognize the value of parental choice in education; and favor restraining and ending the use of the death penalty."

That is a concise summary of many of the main tenets of Catholic social teaching - a pretty good set of principles that people of other faiths could support. These are principles which justices of the Supreme Court should be considering when making decisions relating to so many of the complex issues facing our society today.

Some reports indicate that Judge Roberts has been reticent to talk about his Catholic faith. Instead, he should be proud of it! He would join a distinguished group of Catholics - and people of other faiths - whose principles have served them well on the Supreme Court of our nation.

Mary C. Uhler, editor