Why the Fight? Supreme Court Nominations

“It’s the best real­ity show on the air.” That’s what one com­men­ta­tor called it. If we saw it our­selves, we got the impres­sion that we were watch­ing a cham­pi­onship fight. Yet it was a sim­ple pro­ce­dure in our United States Sen­ate. And this pro­ce­dure will be repeated again now.

The pro­ce­dure was the con­fir­ma­tion of a per­son nom­i­nated to be Chief Jus­tice of our Supreme Court. And the nom­i­nee was not even the one doing the ver­bal slug­ging. At first he sim­ply answered ques­tions. Then he was sim­ply watch­ing the debate, and wait­ing for the final decision.

But he will do a lot more than watch now that he is con­firmed. He will have real power, and both sides know this. They know he will be a main pro­tag­o­nist in a strug­gle that is much big­ger than him.

His name is John Roberts. The U.S. Sen­ate has just approved him as the 19th Chief Jus­tice of the Supreme Court of this country.

Almost imme­di­ately after Judge Roberts was con­firmed, the Pres­i­dent nom­i­nated another per­son to fill a sec­ond open­ing on the Supreme Court: Ms. Har­riet Miers. Let’s look at what was in play in the con­fir­ma­tion of Judge Roberts to see what may hap­pen also with Ms. Meirs.

Hope and fear

It is not yet clear exactly where he stands on many issues, but some sen­a­tors fearhim, while oth­ers have great hopes for him.

Gen­er­ally, the sen­a­tors who favor abor­tion and homo­sex­ual mar­riage, fear Judge Roberts. They believe he will over­turn deci­sions that have led to the death of mil­lions of unborn chil­dren.   The pro-​​life sen­a­tors gen­er­ally sup­port judge Roberts, hop­ing he will pro­tect human life and pro­mote solid values.

Big stakes

But this was not just a ques­tion of per­sonal pref­er­ences and intu­itions of par­tic­u­lar sen­a­tors. The media, the Church, and many oth­ers also con­firm that the stakes are high. They know that the basic moral direc­tion of our coun­try is in play here. They are right. Supreme Court judg­ments affect all Amer­i­cans, for bet­ter or for worse.

Dread­ful decision

About 150 years ago, there was a dra­matic case brought before our Supreme Court. It was about slav­ery. A black slave from the south­ern United States (where slav­ery was legal at the time) had escaped to the North, and was there­fore free. Nev­er­the­less, his for­mer owner found him, and demanded he be brought back into slav­ery. The case was brought before the Supreme Court. The slave’s name was Dred Scott. Mr. Scott lost that deci­sion. He was made a slave again, by deci­sion of the Supreme Court.

Chang­ing dread to freedom

Most Chris­tians in the North were hor­ri­fied at the deci­sion, even though the Court claimed it was done legally. These Chris­tians, mem­bers of other faiths, and even those who did not believe in God insisted more tena­ciously over the next years that the words of our Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence “…that all men are cre­ated equal…” guar­an­teed the right of Mr. Scott and all slaves to be free. They helped to elect mem­bers of the gov­ern­ment who agreed with these moral prin­ci­ples . A man named Abra­ham Lin­coln, who favored free­dom for all, was elected pres­i­dent. There was a ter­ri­ble civil war. But the result was the Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion , giv­ing free­dom to the slaves.

Pro­tect­ing basic free­doms requires moral courage . Our court sys­tem also needs peo­ple who pos­sess moral courage.

New drama

In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States made another stun­ning deci­sion. Its con­se­quences were even more dread­ful: the Court ruled that a mother has a right to kill her unborn child. This deci­sion ( Roe vs. Wade ) has deeply divided our coun­try ever since, and has been fol­lowed by a series of deci­sions that have made many Amer­i­cans and the Catholic Church extremely wor­ried about the moral direc­tion of our country.

Life, death, and bot­tle deposits?

In the debate about present moral issues such as abor­tion, homo­sex­ual mar­riage and prayer in pub­lic, both sides claim to be pro­tect­ing the basic rights of oth­ers. Some call for a mid­dle ground or a series of con­ces­sions . Yet what is in play is so rad­i­cal that a mid­dle ground is not possible.

We can use the exam­ple of abor­tion. We find that one side (the pro-​​abortion side) says that a woman always has the right to an abor­tion. The other side (the pro-​​life side) says that a baby always has a right to life.  

Other issues, like whether a state may require cash deposits on bot­tles or how high to raise gas taxes, may be nego­tiable, and can be dis­cussed in our legal sys­tem, but the life of a baby does not have a “middle-​​ground.” Once some­one decides he or she can kill, we are all in dan­ger. A soci­ety with­out basic moral val­ues is in dan­ger of killing itself.

Slo­gan slugging

We have seen a lot of slo­gans fly­ing around in these hear­ings. But slo­gans can some­times destroy seri­ous thought. One slo­gan that was often heard is “a woman’s right to choose.”

The Church sees this phrase, “a woman’s right to choose,” as a slo­gan for self­ish­ness. This is a way to say that unborn babies can be killed. No woman would really want to choose this. What would be needed is ways to help women accept their babies and be respected.

When pro­tect­ing moral val­ues, a soci­ety has to look to some­thing other than self­ish­ness. It has to look deeper. Self­ish­ness made abor­tion possible.  

For those who go deeper than slo­gans, it is clear that the con­flict between the cul­ture of life and the cul­ture of death is in play in our Supreme Court. As con­fus­ing as the debate may some­times become, it must be clear to us that, in basic moral issues, there is a right and wrong.

Catholics need not apply

Mr. Roberts is a Catholic. Ms. Miers is a Protes­tant Chris­t­ian. The Catholic Church has clearly and always stood in favor of life-​​-​​not just now, but through­out history.

Many of the dra­matic issues that the Supreme Court faces (abor­tion, euthana­sia, pro­tec­tion of mar­riage) were things Chris­tians faced 2,000 years ago. Lit­tle by lit­tle, and in spite of per­se­cu­tions, Chris­tians were able to change bad prac­tices in soci­ety and help oth­ers see the value of solid moral prin­ci­ples. They even­tu­ally con­vinced their lead­ers to cre­ate laws that pro­tected solid moral prin­ci­ples.   As a result, soci­ety became more humane.

Today there are loud voices in the Sen­ate and in our cul­ture that claim a Catholic or Protes­tant Chris­t­ian who defends moral prin­ci­ples has no right to be a judge, because he or she will “impose their beliefs” on oth­ers. But the Catholic argu­ment is sim­ple. It is not a mat­ter of mak­ing some­one believe in the spe­cific things of our reli­gion. For exam­ple, we are not try­ing to make non-​​Catholics believe that Jesus in really present in the sacra­ment of the Eucharist. It is sim­ply a mat­ter of fun­da­men­tal val­ues, which all peo­ple of good will can appreciate.

We do not know if Judge Roberts will defend these moral prin­ci­ples by the means allowed to him as Chief Jus­tice. Nor do we know what Ms. Miers will do if she too is con­firmed. But we can hope and pray that they will do this. If they do, we can also make their work eas­ier by increas­ing pub­lic aware­ness of the fun­da­men­tal val­ues that make our soci­ety stand firm.

Not there yet

Mr. Roberts has just been approved, in spite of this very dra­matic debate.

If Judge Roberts does favor life in his deci­sions, there are still two more rounds to win, and round two has already begun.

The sec­ond nom­i­nee, Ms. Meirs, could be even more cru­cial in swing­ing the Court in favor of life. So far there is even less known about her stand on these issues. If Judge Roberts and Ms. Miers do hold that a child’s right to life is pro­tected in our found­ing doc­u­ments, a third pro-​​life judge would still be needed to over­turn the 1973 abor­tion decision.

Jesus once said that “the chil­dren of dark­ness are more astute than the chil­dren of light.” He meant that the lazi­ness and apa­thy of Chris­tians can be the rea­son evil grows in the world. We must work peace­fully but tena­ciously to cre­ate a cul­ture of life in our gov­ern­ment and in our soci­ety. Many peo­ple are doing this. Will you join in?

Bible Blurbs

“Then the Lord asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He answered, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” The Lord then said: “What have you done! Lis­ten: your brother’s blood cries out to me from the soil!” Gen­e­sis 4:9-10

“…and from man in regard to his fel­low man I will demand an account­ing for human life.” Gen­e­sis 9:5

“There was a judge in a cer­tain town who nei­ther feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Ren­der a just deci­sion for me against my adver­sary.’ For a long time the judge was unwill­ing, but even­tu­ally he thought, ‘While it is true that I nei­ther fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps both­er­ing me I shall deliver a just deci­sion for her…” Luke 8: 2-​​5

Pope Quotes

“…with­out an objec­tive moral ground­ing not even democ­racy is capa­ble of ensur­ing a sta­ble peace, espe­cially since peace which is not built upon the val­ues of the dig­nity of every individual… frequently proves to be illu­sory…”
(Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life, no. 70)
“ … we are fac­ing an enor­mous and dra­matic clash between good and evil, death and life, the “cul­ture of death” and the “cul­ture of life”. ..we are all involved and we all share in it, with the inescapable respon­si­bil­ity of choos­ing to be uncon­di­tion­ally pro­life.
(Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life, no. 27)

Other Church Teaching:

“Those who would view the moral duty of Chris­tians as some­thing that dis­qual­i­fies them from polit­i­cal life … would be guilty of a form of intol­er­ant sec­u­lar­ism.”
(Con­gre­ga­tion for the Doc­trine of the Faith, The Gift of Life, no. 7)

Saints and Heroes

A Lawyer Mar­tyr

ANACLETO GONZALEZ FLORES:
Ana­cleto was a lawyer and a father. He was born in Mex­ico in 1888. He was the son of poor farm­ers who had a strong faith, and he worked his way through law school As an edu­cated Catholic, he saw the need to help evan­ge­lize his fel­low Catholics bet­ter and have them teach the faith to oth­ers. For this rea­son he founded the Pop­u­lar Union, a move­ment of laborers, women, and farm­ers. As head of Pop­u­lar Union, he acti­vated these lay Catholics to be teach­ers of the faith. In the sec­u­lar scene he helped to orga­nize very large pub­lic gath­er­ings which pro­moted faith and fam­ily val­ues and protested against gov­ern­ment abuses. From 1918 and dur­ing the 1920’s the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment orga­nized a fierce per­se­cu­tion of the Catholic faith. Ana­cleto repeat­edly insisted that his orga­ni­za­tion and all fel­low Catholics not use vio­lence. Still, he was a marked man. On April 1, 1927 he was vis­it­ing two of his cousins. Gov­ern­ment police erupted into the home and demanded to know where the arch­bishop of Guadala­jara was hid­ing. (Ana­cleto and his cousins were good friends with the arch­bishop.) The three refused to col­lab­o­rate. They were arrested and tor­tured, but they would not dis­close the archbishop’s where­abouts. At the end, they were lined up at a wall and shot. Anacleto’s last words were, “I die. But God does not die! Long live Christ the King!” This Novem­ber he will be offi­cially declared “Blessed” by the Church in an Mass in Guadalajara, Mexico.

A Pro­tec­tress of Faith and Rights

QUEEN ISABEL “THE CATHOLIC” OF SPAIN:
Born in 1451, Isabel was pro­claimed queen of Castile in 1474. Along with her hus­band, King Fer­di­nand, she fought ardently to keep her courts and her coun­try faith­ful to the faith. Like any polit­i­cal fi gure, some of her deci­sions were and are con­tro­ver­sial, but she strove ardently to inform her­self and do the right thing. She is called the “Evan­ge­lizer of the New World” because she strongly pro­moted and inspired many mis­sion­ar­ies to bring Chris­tian­ity to the newly dis­cov­ered Amer­i­cas. Dur­ing this time of the dis­cov­ery of the Amer­i­cas she was also con­fronted with the desire of the adven­tur­ers (“con­quis­ta­dores”) to make the Indi­ans their ser­vants and slaves. She strictly for­bade the enslave­ment of the Indi­ans. When Colum­bus him­self gave an Indian as a per­sonal ser­vant to each of his men, Isabel inter­vened: “Who autho­rized my admi­ral to dis­pose of my sub­jects in this man­ner?” and she sent them all back home to Amer­ica. She also pro­moted the legal doc­u­ment that rec­og­nized the rights of the Indi­ans. Even though her indi­ca­tions were often ignored by the adven­tur­ers, she con­tin­ued to do all in her power to defend the native Amer­i­cans from exploitation.

Vocab­u­lary

PROTAGONIST: Some­one who is an active, important player in an event or com­pe­ti­tion
HOPE: look­ing for­ward to some­thing good. Anticipation of some­thing desir­able.
MORAL DIRECTION: Way in which a soci­ety is headed in rela­tion to right and wrong.
BELIEVE: Hold fast. Trust in some­thing or some­one.
TENACIOUSLY: Hold­ing fast in spite of great diffi cul­ties.
MORAL PRINCIPLES: basic right and wrong. Usu­ally the Ten Com­mand­ments is the best exam­ple of moral prin­ci­ples.
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION: Legal decree made by Pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lin­coln which gave free­dom to all slaves in the United States.
MORAL COURAGE: Brav­ery in liv­ing and defend­ing good val­ues.
RADICAL: Basic; at the very start­ing point; dramatic; no room for con­fu­sion
CONCESSION: Giv­ing in
SELFISHNESS: Keep­ing things for your­self.
ASTUTE: Clever, smart
LAZINESS: Sick­ness that all teenagers have (accord­ing to their par­ents). Symp­toms tend to become par­tic­u­larly acute when they have to clean up their room or do home­work.
APATHY: Lack of inter­est; boredom

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Why is the nom­i­na­tion of new jus­tices now so hotly con­tested in the U.S. Sen­ate and in our coun­try? What “hot top­ics” does the Supreme Court have to deal with today? Why are some of these so divi­sive for the coun­try? Are some of these issues worth fight­ing for? Which ones? Why?
2. Are the rea­sons that the Catholic Church opposes abor­tion merely reli­gious rea­sons? What are some of those rea­sons? Can peo­ple who are not Catholic also under­stand them?
3. One exam­ple of the dif­fer­ence between a specif­i­cally Catholic teach­ing and a teach­ing about basic right and wrong was men­tioned. Do you remem­ber what it was? Can you give other exam­ples of some spe­cific teach­ings that the Catholic Church does not demand that oth­ers follow?
4. What is the dif­fer­ence between propos­ing and impos­ing? Do Catholics and the Catholic Church impose its val­ues on society?

Resources:

Power of the Pres­i­dent to appoint Supreme Court Justices

The Judi­ciary: Arti­cle III of the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion

U.S. Con­fer­ence of Catholic Bish­ops Doc­u­ment high­light­ing the duties of Catholics in Polit­i­cal Life, June 2004

Con­gre­ga­tion for the Doc­trine of the Faith: Doc­tri­nal Note on some ques­tions regard­ing the Par­tic­i­pa­tion in Polit­i­cal Life, Novem­ber 2002

Pod­cast of Supreme Court Nom­i­na­tion hearings