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Let’s talk about Amy Coney Barrett, not her religion, but her pattern of saying that when personal religion and professional responsibilities collide, her religious beliefs take precedence.
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That pattern is extensive, beginning in at least 1998 with an article on Catholic judges in which she raises the very issue the GOP is complaining about. But first...
The most important thing you need to know about Barrett is that she is accepting this nomination. RBG is not even buried yet and Barrett is down for the partisan power grab. She’s confessing to partisanship and that she lacks the integrity for the job. https://twitter.com/AndrewLSeidel/status/1308061585240449024
Second, there is no anti-Catholic bigotry. That’s a manufactured media controversy deliberately intended to muzzle important questions about Barrett’s alarming record. https://religiondispatches.org/senators-can-and-must-ask-about-nominees-religious-beliefs/
She will be the 6th or 7th Catholic on high court. (Gorsuch was raised Catholic and converted, Episcopalian, and thinks 10 Commandments monuments that begin I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD, are ok on government property, but I digress.) https://twitter.com/AndrewLSeidel/status/1308500367114743811
Representation matters and that lack of diversity is disturbing. But more relevant, this shows that the desperate GOP attempt to manufacture anti-Catholic bigotry is utter garbage. As does the number of Catholic Democrats. Hell, Biden is a Catholic. https://twitter.com/hemantmehta/status/1308791527154610176
It’s not her Catholicism. It’s a pattern of action that shows Barrett believing that her religion trumps the law. The issue would be the same no matter which god she believed in. We need to know she will uphold the Constitution, not her holy book, whichever one it may be.
Senators have a duty to ask. Barrett has a duty to explain—if there’s no fire to go with this smoke, she should want to clear the air. And plenty of religious people, including Catholic scholars, agree: https://twitter.com/C_Stroop/status/1309549785934786561
Here’s another. The National Catholic Reporter ran a 2018 op-ed entitled, “Raising questions about Amy Barrett's beliefs is not an anti-popery riot.” https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/raising-questions-about-amy-barretts-beliefs-not-anti-popery-riot
It’s not a forbidden topic. Quite the opposite. And concerns about religious beliefs superseding the Constitution and law have been around for a while. Justice Brennan, a Catholic and Democrat, was asked about it in his 1957 confirmation hearing.
Brennan gave an excellent answer, the only appropriate answer:
I took my oath as unreservedly as you did … there isn’t any obligation of our faith superior to that...What shall control me is the oath that I took to support the Constitution and laws of the United States...
I took my oath as unreservedly as you did … there isn’t any obligation of our faith superior to that...What shall control me is the oath that I took to support the Constitution and laws of the United States...
That’s it. Of course one can be religious or Catholic and be a judge. But when they don that robe, they have to be a judge first. Law over dogma. The Constitution over holy writ.
Barrett disagreed. She criticized Brennan’s exemplary answer.
Barrett disagreed. She criticized Brennan’s exemplary answer.
This is the first piece of evidence in her clear pattern. In a 1998 article, Barrett and her co-author attacked this exemplary answer: “We do not defend this position as the proper response for a Catholic judge to take with respect to abortion or the death penalty.”
Instead of upholding her secular oath, when such a conflict arises Barrett recommended that judges should “conform their own behavior to the [Catholic] Church’s standard.” When invited to repudiate this statement at her confirmation hearing in 2017, Barrett declined to do so.
Barrett wrote that the law can put “Catholic judges in a bind. They are obliged by oath, professional commitment, and the demands of citizenship to enforce the death penalty. They are also obliged to adhere to their church’s teaching on moral matters.”
http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1105&context=lsfp
http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1105&context=lsfp
Barrett raised this issue first. Literally the exact same issue the GOP wants to litigate. And she would do so again. In 2015, she signed a letter from “Catholic women” to the “Synod Fathers in Christ.” https://eppc.org/synodletter/
The women “wish[ed] to express our love for Pope Francis, our fidelity to and gratitude for the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and our confidence in the Synod of Bishops as it strives to strengthen the Church’s evangelizing mission.”
The letter raised a number of topics that are likely to come before Barrett: reproductive justice, LGBTQ rights, gender issues, marriage, family.
Barrett and other signers “enthusiastically commit our distinctive insights and gifts, and our fervent prayers, in service to the Church’s evangelizing mission.” And what about when the Church’s mission conflicts with the Constitution?
There’s more. In 2006, Barrett told law students that her “legal career is but a means to an end … and that end is building the Kingdom of God.” This wasn’t an off-the-cuff remark, she said it LINK at the Notre Dame Law school commencement in 2006. https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=commencement_programs
This was the message she wanted new lawyers to carry into the profession—use your position to create a Kingdom of God.
She began by telling the students that their Catholic mission made them different: “So what then, does it mean to be a different kind of lawyer? The implications of our Catholic mission for your legal education are many...”
She didn’t want to explore all those implications, just one.
Some have said Kingdom is not meant to be literal, including people I respect. But I’m skeptical.
Here’s why. Barrett also belongs to a Charismatic Catholic group called People of Praise.
Here’s why. Barrett also belongs to a Charismatic Catholic group called People of Praise.
Former members call it “a cult.” https://www.democracynow.org/2020/9/23/coral_anika_theill_people_of_praise
People of Praise “teaches that men have authority over their wives. Members swear a lifelong oath of loyalty to one another and are expected to donate at least 5 percent of their earnings to the group.” https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-people-praise-group-inspired-handmaids-tale-1533293?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1600703902
More alarmingly, the group seems to require loyalty oaths LINK of its members, which could conflict with her oath of office. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-favorite-judge-amy-coney-barrett-faces/story?id=73206743
And for all the kerfuffle over the Handmaid’s Tale, in 2005, People of Praise’s official magazine, described Barrett’s own mother, Linda, as a “handmaid.” https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-favorite-judge-amy-coney-barrett-faces/story?id=73206743
That People of Praise magazine also talks about Kingdom of God pretty regularly. The group removed all the PDFs from the website earlier this week, but I had already saved a few talking about Barrett’s Kingdom of God.
While some commentators have said “Kingdom of God” doesn’t really mean a religious takeover, People of Praise, says differently. It ran an excerpt from a talk at the National Catholic Charismatic Renewal Conference at Notre Dame is pretty clear:
The speech was from 1982, but it ran in the "Late Spring 2017" magazine. Barrett was nominated for the 7th Cir. at the same time, in May 2017.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190107071327/https://peopleofpraise.org/media/pdf/V&B%20Late%20Spring%202017%20web%202_ZXr0eZb.pdf#page=13
https://web.archive.org/web/20190107071327/https://peopleofpraise.org/media/pdf/V&B%20Late%20Spring%202017%20web%202_ZXr0eZb.pdf#page=13
That's remarkably clear: "God is really interested not just in men’s souls but also in their whole life, work and enterprise. He wants all of it transformed into his kingdom...criminal justice and the courts...all are meant to be transformed into the kingdom of God in the earth.
The 2015 letter, the 1998 law review article, the 2006 commencement speech, and her membership in a Handmaid’s Tale-type order are a clear pattern that point to a clear belief that Catholic lawyers are on a religious mission above all else.
That belief conflicts with the oath Supreme Court justices must take to uphold the Constitution. Senators also take an oath and it is their duty to get Barrett on the record and under oath about this possible conflict.
Finally, this pattern is not in a vacuum. Christian Nationalists like Trump, Pence, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett have been working to weaponize religious freedom. To rewrite the First Amendment to privilege conservative Christians. https://twitter.com/andrewlseidel/status/1088221981097578496
Barrett’s pattern speaks to that modern attempt to weaponize religious liberty. And there is no doubt at all that she will absolutely come down on the wrong side of history there.
And no, this is not a religious test for office. https://religiondispatches.org/senators-can-and-must-ask-about-nominees-religious-beliefs/
And no, still not a religious test for public office: https://religiondispatches.org/senators-can-and-must-ask-about-nominees-religious-beliefs/
The problem is not that the nominee is religious or of a particular faith, but that she has stated a willingness to act in defiance of her sworn duties based on those beliefs. And the problem does not go away simply because the source of the conflicting belief is religion.
Perhaps you disagree with my interpretation of Barrett’s words. Fine. I think she was pretty damn clear. But at the very least, this shows that there’s ambiguity. That means there’s a need to hear from her. We need to know. She needs to answer. And senators need to ask.
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