Sotomayor would be 6th Catholic on Supreme Court
NEW YORK-If Judge Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed to the U.S Supreme Court, she will be the sixth Roman Catholic of the nine justices. On the high court, Sotomayor would join a group of regular Mass attendees: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Justice Anthony Kennedy regularly attends the annual Red Mass, a worship service for Catholics in the legal field, in the Archdiocese of Washington. Two other justices--Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer--are Jewish. When Justice David Souter, an Episcopalian, soon retires, Justice John Paul Stevens will be the lone Protestant.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_rel_sotomayor_catholics
A little known period of mid-19th century American history concerns the "Know Nothing" movement, or American Party, which popularized the notion of a Roman Catholic or Vatican conspiracy directed against WASP America. Samuel Morse (1791-1872), the inventor of the single-wire telegraph and Morse code, even wrote a book called: "Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States", describing the plot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing_Party
Indeed, the composition of SCOTUS is not representative of the identity politics of population (should it be? and how would we enforce that?), but I doubt a Papist conspiracy. The unifying perspective here is abortion: presidents fear losing the "pro-life" vote so they appoint a Catholic. Then when the justice rules counter to the "pro-life" dogma, the ire of the Catholic vote shifts from the elected official to the unelected official (about whom they can do nothing). More troubling is the number of justices from Harvard. -- MR in IN
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