Washington D.C., Sep 7, 2017 / 09:25 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Catholic nominee to a federal circuit court faced hostile questions about her faith from U.S. senators on Wednesday, prompting outrage from Catholic leaders.
“This smacks of the worst sort of anti-Catholic bigotry,” Dr. Chad Pecknold, a theology professor at The Catholic University of America, told CNA of questions asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) of Amy Comey Barrett, a Catholic lawyer nominated to be a federal circuit court judge.
“Senator Feinstein’s shockingly illegitimate line of questioning sends the message that Catholics need not apply as federal judges,” added Ashley McGuire, senior fellow with The Catholic Association.
WATCH: Sen. Feinstein to appeals court nominee Amy Barrett, @NotreDame law prof/#Catholic mother of 7: “The dogma lives loudly within you.” pic.twitter.com/mpDgNZGRsa
— Jason Calvi (@JasonCalvi) September 6, 2017
Barrett, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday at her confirmation hearing to be a United States Circuit Judge for the Seventh U.S. Court of Appeals.
In the past, Barrett had clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and has twice been honored as “Distinguished Professor of the Year” at Notre Dame.
However, as she appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, some of the pointed questions directed at her by Democratic senators focused on how her Catholic faith would influence her decisions as a judge on cases of abortion and same-sex marriage.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), ranking member of the committee, told Barrett outright that her Catholic beliefs were concerning, as they may influence her decisions as a judge on abortion rights.
“Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that dogma and law are two different things, and I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different,” Feinstein said.
“And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern.”
Feinstein began her round of questions by personally complimenting Barrett that she was “amazing to have seven children and do what you do,” but then called her “controversial” when she began to address Barrett’s record in law, “because you have a long history of believing that your religious beliefs should prevail” over the law.
“You’re controversial because many of us that have lived our lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems,” she said. “And Roe entered into that, obviously.”
Barrett repeatedly said that as a judge, she would uphold the law of the land and would not let her religious beliefs inappropriately alter her judicial decisions.
At the beginning of the hearing, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the committee, asked Barrett: “When is it proper for a judge to put their religious views above applying the law?”
“Never,” Barrett answered. “It’s never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge’s personal convictions, whether they derive from faith or anywhere else, on the law.”
Feinstein’s “anti-Catholic bigotry” in her questions to Barrett “is especially chilling because it defames and slanders such an accomplished woman in the legal guild,” Pecknold said.
Feinstein “reveals herself to be the sort of ideologue who never considers the substance of her interlocutor’s actual legal decisions, but rather projects false ideologies onto everyone who disagrees with her party on any point,” Pecknold charged.
In 1998, Barrett co-authored an article in the Marquette Law Review with then-Notre Dame law professor John Garvey, now the president of The Catholic University of America. The article focused on Catholic judges in death penalty cases.
Catholic judges, if their consciences oppose the administering of the death penalty, should, in accordance with federal law, recuse themselves from capital cases where a jury recommends a death sentence, Garvey and Barrett wrote. They should also recuse themselves from cases without a jury where they have the option of granting a death sentence, they wrote.
On Wednesday, Barrett was asked repeatedly about this article, published 19 years ago, and whether she still agreed with it today. Barrett answered that she was still a third-year law student during the article’s publication, and “was very much the junior partner” in writing it with her professor.
“Would I, or could I, say that sitting here today, that article in its every particular, reflects how I think about these questions today with, as you say, the benefit of 20 years of experience and also the ability to speak solely in my own voice? No, it would not,” she answered Senator Grassley’s opening question on the article.
She added that she still upholds “the core proposition of that article which is that if there is ever a conflict between a judge’s personal conviction and that judge’s duty under the rule of law, that it is never, ever permissible for that judge to follow their personal convictions in the decision of a case rather than what the law requires.”
Senator Grassley asked her later how she would recuse herself as a judge in a case, if necessary.
“Senator, I would fully and faithfully apply the law of recusal, including the federal recusal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 455, the canons of judicial conduct,” she replied, but added that “I can’t think of any cases or category of cases in which I would feel obliged to recuse on grounds of conscience.”
Garvey, in a Thursday op-ed in the Washington Examiner, explained the article’s conclusion in cases where judges face a conflict of interest between their own conscience and the law.
“Law professors less scrupulous than Prof. Barrett have suggested that sometimes judges should fudge or bend (just a little bit) laws that every right-thinking person would find immoral. In our article we rejected that course of action,” he said, pointing instead to the federal recusal statute.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) then grilled Barrett over her use of the term “orthodox Catholic” in the article, implying that she did not think persons who dissent from Church teaching on marriage to be real Catholics.
“I’m a product of 19 years of Catholic education. And every once in a while, Holy Mother the Church has not agreed with a vote of mine. And has let me know,” he told Barrett. “You use a term in that article – or you both use a term in that article — I’d never seen before. You refer to ‘orthodox Catholics.’ What’s an orthodox Catholic?”
Barrett pointed to a footnote in the article that admitted it was “an imperfect term,” and that the article was talking about the hypothetical case of “a judge who accepted the Church’s teaching” on the death penalty and had a “conscientious objection” to it.
“Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?” Durbin asked Barrett, who replied that “I am a faithful Catholic,” adding that “my personal Church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear in the discharge of my duties as a judge.”
Durbin then said that “there are many people who might characterize themselves ‘orthodox Catholics,’ who now question whether Pope Francis is an ‘orthodox Catholic.’ I happen to think he’s a pretty good Catholic.”
“I agree with you,” Barrett replied, to which Durbin responded, “Good. Then that’s good common ground for us to start with.”
He also asked Barrett how she would rule on a case involving a “same-sex marriage,” given the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent from the 2013 Obergefell decision that legalized same-sex marriage.
“From beginning to end, in every case, my obligation as a judge would be to apply the rule of law, and the case that you mentioned would be applying Obergefell, and I would have no problem adhering to it,” she said.
Durbin’s questions of Barrett’s faith were also disturbing, Pecknold said.
“So faithful Catholic is interchangeable with Orthodox Catholic. The fact that one definition is acceptable to Sen Durbin but one is not tells you that he thinks one can dissent from the Church’s teaching and be orthodox and faithful.”
“But why is a politician interested in that question when the only concern should be whether the nominee is a superb interpreter of the law? How has this become a religious inquisition rather than an adjudication of legal competence for the bench?” he asked.
“I submit that the real dogmatists in the room are the ones mounting an inquisition against one of the nation’s great legal scholars.”
Other Catholic leaders decried the questioning of Barrett’s faith.
“Such bigotry has no place in our politics and reeks of an unconstitutional religious test for qualification to participate in the judiciary. What these Senators did today was truly reprehensible,” said Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote.org.
“Imagine the universal outrage had a nominee of a different faith been asked the same questions; there is clearly a double standard at work,” commented Maureen Ferguson, senior policy advisor with The Catholic Association.
Garvey, in his op-ed for the Examiner, wrote that “I suspect what really troubled” Durbin and Feinstein “was that, as a Catholic, her [Barrett’s] pro-life views might extend beyond criminal defendants to the unborn.”
“If true, the focus on our law review article is all the more puzzling,” he wrote. “After all, our point was that judges should respect the law, even laws they disagree with. And if they can’t enforce them, they should recuse themselves.”
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If the Catholic Church and its agencies want to help immigrants, that’s fine. Just do it with money that belongs to the Catholic Church. Tax dollars confiscated from taxpayers to do the work of the Church should end…NOW!
Nope. No amnesty for those who entered illegally. Reagan did that with the expectation that the border would be secured. Democrats flooded the country with illegals again. They all go back. All of them.
The Catholic Church applauded and abetted the entry into the United States of people who knowingly broke the law by how they arrived. The Catholic Church even profitted greatly in their act. Now our bishops want to say, “Well, since they’re already here, why not let them stay.” But arriving here as a lawbreaker is not the way to start life in a new country. Rather, I’d propose that anyone here illegally and who has committed no other crimes since arriving, should be asked to voluntarily leave the country. They can be fingerprinted on the way out or use that photo ID system that we citizens are subjected to when we leave or re-enter the USA. They will be repatriated to their country of origin where they can re-apply for residency on an expedited basis. Their entry, then, into the USA can be normalized and they can once again resume life in a country where laws mean something. Acting on emotions is never a way to apply the law.
How about: if you have been deported for illegally and grossly overstaying a Visa or illegally entering, then you do not get to enter legally. If you deport yourself, there’ll be no record of deportation, and you can go through the normal process. (Possibly I’m making incorrect assumptions about illegal immigration processes) Exceptions for those under 18. I don’t see a reason to deport children who’ve been here most of their lives.
If potential immigrants get bonus points for speaking English and knowing the American way of life, self-deported illegals should have a leg up on the rest of the applicants, assuming they tried to integrate while they were here.
Let’s remember some salient facts:
1. There are millions of illegal aliens in this country.
2. They are earning incomes off-the-books
3. They are not paying taxes
4. The rest of the hard-working American citizens are paying more than their fair share for services that taxes provide
5. In effect, this entire Illegal Immigration Industry (that the Catholic Church receives remuneration for) is STEALING FROM THEIR NEIGHBORS. Where’s the charity in that, you bishops?
It seems the Archbishop is saying , while we should secure our borders, at the same time we should normalize those who are here as undocumented IF they are living as productive law abiding people. They would then become contributing taxpayers. Judging the number of “Help Wanted” signs in every town, I would conclude that they are very much needed. If we expelled them who would pick our crops? I’m in no way suggesting that we take advantage of them and keep them permanently in a lower class, but rather that they are welcomed and allowed every opportunity to better themselves and advance their social standing. Over several centuries every wave of immigrants has started at the bottom and worked their way up. Orderly paths to citizenship should be provided. This is the American way. They wouldn’t be here in the first place if we had secure boarders. Since they are here we should allow them to legally integrate.
They entered illegally. They committed a crime. They should return.
The Vatican recently increased penalties on illegals going into Vatican City. What does the Archbishop think of that?
He should have stopped at paragraph seven.
“If President Trump is able to shut down the border successfully, making illegal entry into our country virtually impossible, does it not make more sense to create a pathway for the undocumented to be able to earn legal status?”
Honestly, no. This “pathway to citizenship” narrative is inappropriate and unacceptable. There is already a formal process for immigrants to become citizens. That process must be honored, and it must apply equally to everyone. No amnesty, no work visas, no exceptions.
I voted for J.D. Vance. I never voted for any bishop to weigh in on immigration policy. That is left for laypersons in the Church to deliberate about. Bishops should stay in their own lane.
Bishops are the Church’s official teachers on faith and morals, and government policy is partly applied morality. They have reason to weigh in. But they should be careful not to speak beyond their knowledge, as we all should.
The Church does have “an obligation to care for every person with respect and love, no matter their citizenship status.”
That includes the children of American citizens whose parents are both working, one of them working two jobs, just to be able to provide their children with the basic essentials, and still can’t do that without slowly drowning in credit card debt.
Such children don’t get to spend anywhere near enough time with their parents. They are basically being raised by the secular school system, which in many cases indoctrinates them with values contrary to the Christianity of their parents.
Why are such families in this dire situation? Because massive, out of control, unregulated immigration (open borders) has driven down wages that far.
The Church’s approach to immigration hasn’t been treating such families with “respect and love.” It has instead coldly abandoned them, leaving their vulnerable children in a terrible situation.
The difference between Archbishop Naumann’s pleas for reasonable accommodation marks the spiritual heart of a man of God, a man committed to his brother as well as faith in Christ – from the many who continue to show no compassion whatsoever in their commitment to civil law. Whereas Naumann, a staunch traditional Catholic, is not a legalist when there’s room for charity.
Idiot compassion is not genuine compassion. Render to Ceasar the things that are Ceasar’s. We are a nation of laws. Illegal aliens do not deserve compassion; they are technically criminals, so the appropriate response is deportation.
At judgment do you believe Christ will consider the difference as just or unjust?
I seem to recall a bible passage where Jesus asked His disciples to pay their tax with a coin found in the mouth of a fish. I have no recollection of Him advising civil unrest, which his disciples had initially hoped for. And I recall Him saying “render to Caesar”. Jesus never advocated breaking the civil law ( something his followers believed the Messiah would apparently do.) . I dont recall him making an allowance for illegal aliens either, some of whom commit violent crimes like rape and murder. Breaking into another nation is a crime.
Too many churchmen mistake Christianity for socialism or communism. It is not. Nor is it a sin to be a successful person or nation. Which means no one has a right to TAKE what belongs from you without your consent. The US donates foreign aid in numbers much larger than the next few nations combined. WE dont owe anyone anything. I dont recall Christianity EVER teaching that one has an obligation to stand by and be the punching bag of those with less means.
STEALING what you want is a great deal different than asking for help.
Charity belongs to God.
Illegal immigrants do not deserve compassion??
I’m all for law & order. A secure border protects everyone’s safety but I have a great deal of compassion for people brought here as children through no fault of their own. Even Gov. Rick Perry said we can be law abiding & still have a heart. We’re Catholics. We’re not 100% on one political team or the other. We can consider humane exceptions.
Whew! Good to hear your voice mrscracker. For awhile I thought compassion, even limited to hard cases had died among the faithful.
Amen, well said. I would hope that there is room for courteous and fruitful dialogue between men who are both reasonable and devout, which certainly includes both the Archbishop and the Vice-President. There is room for discussion about nuance and prudential judgements between such men, sorely lacking in, say, the endless simplistic pronouncements of the talking heads of CNN and Fox.
I don’t think disagreement on what is a reasonable way to approach illegal immigrants is necessarily evidence of legalism or a lack of compassion.
Possibly people are aware that there are only so many immigration officials, and the backlog in legal immigration applicants is years-long, sometimes over a decade. Giving illegals amnesty is not without cost to potential legal immigrants.
Fr. Morello, as multiple outlets have now reported, the USCCB has been operating a large contract for immigration-related services valued at over 100 millions dollars, which seems to include transferring federal funds to individual dioceses. Evidence is that they have been filing expenses and being reimbursed on a monthly basus. That is not “charity,” that is a contractual relationship to provide services for the federal government. There are charitable motivations behind it, and no doubt the individuals providing the services truly want to help others. But they are being paid for services, and only a minuscule fraction of their funding comes from charitable donations.
Whatever the relationship between the USCCB and the federal government has been in the past, the organization is now a major federal contractor by any reasonable standard.
So until more bishops, priests and Church employees connected to these contracts & grants are willing to openly discuss the ramifications and possible consequences of their heavy reliance on federal funding to perform essential missions of the Church, the appeals to “charity” will ring hollow. They are talking like people in denial of the basic circumstances in which they’re operating, and expecting others, especially laypeple, to tacitly go along with their delusions. I’m sorry to find that I have yet to find one bishop or priest who is being candid about this. Therefore now, I can’t fully trust what any of them say on the subject of relief for migrants and immigrants. But I will keep looking for one.
The good Archbishop, along with many other bishops, asserts that the church
does not have the authority or responsibility to determine the legal status of
migrants. But there is a profound difference between legal and illegal immigration –
and that is the crux of the problem. Many Americans support legal
immigration, not illegal immigration. Ignoring this difference is naive and irresponsible.
The church should encourage all people to obey the law.The church itself has
rules and laws – canon Law. Lawless behavior does not promote the common good which the church is always preaching.
And the Vatican itself does not permit the uncontrolled influx of migrants
into its territory.
So it’s looking like the Catholic dioceses throughout the United States have gotten themselves into a bad position by tacitly accepting responsibility for taking care of the unprecedented floods of would-be immigrants during the past 3-4 years because of the Biden administration’s lax enforcement of border security and immigration laws. Catholic Charities organizations seem to have unquestionably accepted the additional funding offered by the previous administration, as well as the administration’s approach, and now they are stuck dealing with the aftermath. They must have counted on Joe or Kamala Harris winning the election and continuing to throw more money at the various “refugee” assistance and othe4 programs.
Worst of al, the bishops seem to have fully embraced the Biden-era blurring of distinctions between “refugees” (a limited group) and the much larger group of people seeking to emigrate for economic reasons (who do not qualify as refugees). Now they are stuck trying to care for whatever percentage of the 5-million-plus people they are contractually obligated to assist. And it is Annual Appeal season. No wonder we are seeing multiple bishops coming forth with statements that are basically variations on the same set of messages. They want to keep the Biden-era levels of funding going.
I have a couple of comments.
The USCCB and individual bishops often call for immigration reform for our broken system, without saying what reform they want. Archbishop Naumann at least states what he wants – to make legal the illegals, or at a minimum to give them work permits. He proposes a fine, but they are economic immigrants and have very little money. What has been broken about our immigration system is a failure to enforce our immigration laws.
The bishop states, “It is inconceivable that our previous administration either did not know or care about the location or the circumstances of approximately 300,000 children and youth who entered the United States during the past four years.”
I find it inconceivable that the bishops did not know about the 300,000 children since it had been in the news for a long time.
Alhough it is not in this article, the bishops often say that we should welcome the stranger. We do welcome the stranger about one million times a year with legal immigrants. If the bishops do not think that this is an adequate number, they should tell us why, and what the correct number should be in their opinion.
In general the bishops try to conceal that they want legalization of illegals, by not using that language in their 2025 voting guide, but rather saying that, “We must stand with newcomers, authorized and unauthorized.”
Vatican threatens illegal immigrants who may dare enter the Vatican grounds:
“Vatican Promises Stiff Penalties for Illegal Aliens Crossing its Border”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/01/16/vatican-promises-stiff-penalties-for-illegal-aliens-crossing-its-border/
I did a quick search on top salaries at Catholic Relief Services. I’m removing the names because I haven’t verified the following:
President: $596,5512
Executive VP of Strategy, Technology & Communications: $356,3882
Executive VP of Overseas Operations: $352,028
Apparently, charity pays very well, especially when using other people’s money.
The average VP salary in the US for a charity is $157,532; in California it’s 203,000. For a CEO, the average is 865,000. However, the average charity is nowhere near as large as CRS is, and one can expect above-average salary for above-average work.
Charitable officials, like government officials, may well be in it more for the spending power than for their personal salary. Motivations are typically impossible to observe, and trying tends toward rash judgement, which is why we judge by the fruits, and by adherence to other Catholic moral teachings (like contraception).
“Sadly, our population is declining in the United States because of abortion, many adults choosing not to marry, and married couples having fewer children. Our birth rate is below replacement level. Without immigrants, our population decline would be even more severe.”
When was the last time the USCCB issued a statement regarding the need for Americans to marry, refrain from contraception, and have children?
There has been success in raising birth rates when Catholic and Orthodox bishops in a few other countries have promised to be godparent to those in their diocese who request it, or for the third child of those in their diocese who request it. This is something a single bishop could have a direct impact on.
When was the last time the USCCB issued a statement regarding the need for Americans to marry, refrain from contraception, and have children?’
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Good point.
The problem is the more liberal bishops and priests are controlling the issue in the United States.