There are indications that Judge Sotomayor is more like the majority of American Catholics: those who were raised in the faith and shaped by its values, but who do not attend Mass regularly and are not particularly active in religious life. Like many Americans, Judge Sotomayor may be what religion scholars call a “cultural Catholic” ”” a category that could say something about her political and social attitudes.
Interviews with more than a dozen of Judge Sotomayor’s friends from high school, college, law school and professional life said they had never heard her talk about her faith, and had no recollection of her ever going to Mass or belonging to a parish. Her family did not return phone calls for comment.
A White House spokesman, speaking on background, put it this way: “She currently does not belong to a particular parish or church, but she attends church with family and friends for important occasions.”
I wrote about this issue [url=http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-9452-DC-Catholic-Living-Examiner~y2009m5d27-Judge-Sotomayors-cloudy-Catholic-identity]here[/url]. It is fine to acknowledge that Judge Sotomayor was raised Catholic. However, Catholicism is not an ethnicity. It is not inherited. It is a specific faith that is freely chosen and lived. If Judge Sotomayor is not participating in the sacramental life of the Church and rejects Catholic teachings, she is not Catholic.
If she was baptized Catholic and has not left the Church, she is objectively Catholic whether or not she is practicing.
We are not baptized as Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist, etc. We are baptized as Christians. That is why the Church accepts the baptisms from other Christian denominations so long as the proper form and intent were there. A sacrament cannot be undone. If Baptism made one forever Catholic, there would be no validity to excommunication. The Church makes clear what the bare minimum is to be Catholic in the [url=http://www.catholicculture.org/culture//liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=1021]Precepts of the Church[/url]. If Judge Sotomayor ever wants to return to the Church she can receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession) which includes in the act of contrition the intent to sin no more and return to full Communion with the Church. And yes I realize this means there are a lot of folks running around claiming to be Catholic who could just as easily claim to be Jedi with equal accuracy.
So, #3, you’re stating that someone who doesn’t fast on Good Friday should not be objectively called a Catholic?
If someone rejects the authority of the Magisterium, they are not part of the Roman Catholic Church. Failure to fast on Good Friday because of ignorance or simple human weakness is not a rejection of Church authority. Making the willful decision that attending Mass on Sunday, fasting on Good Friday, or any other precepts of the Church do not apply to you is a rejection of the Magisterium. Judge Sotomayor has made the decision that she is not bound by the Precepts of the Church. Therefore, she is not Catholic.
With six Roman Catholic justices and one Jewish justice does that mean that Protestants are underrepresented on the Supreme Court???
addendum to my last comment: Is it religious bigotry to even notice that????
#6 This is the first time that there had not been a protestant majority. I think it occurred when Thomas returned to the Roman Catholic church.
I remember Billy Graham saying at a crusade I attended in 1992 that being raised in a Church doesn’t make one a Christian any more than being raised in a garage would make you a car.
But there is a strong cultural/ethnic tie involved in the Church. Having been raised Roman, the only relatives who are vocal and vehement in disagreement about my being ordained in the Episcopal Church were those who themselves are not active practicioners of the Catholic Faith. They were IRISH catholics (the emphasis being on the IRISH). Others, who are very devout, shared with me their hope that I would return to the Roman Communion, but did so in a positive, hopeful way.
Ms. Sotomayor’s church behavior fits the canonical description of an “active” Episcopalian.
Others, who are very devout, shared with me their hope that I would return to the Roman Communion, but did so in a positive, hopeful way.
stjohnsrector, you just made my day; thank you.
As to whether one is a Catholic, it’s well to not get too ansy about that. A professional friend recently died of cancer; the last time we visited, so referred to herself as a “lapsed Catholic”, not an “ex-Catholic” and I doubt she went to Mass for 20-30 years. Another friend who went to a bible church, when she went to church at all, turned back to the Catholic Church in her last days.
So unless someone speaks of themselves as an “ex-Catholic”, I am loath to do so.
What I want to know is if Ms. Kaveny had permission from the PB to use the “big tent” analogy?
Maybe the solution here is CS Lewis’ suggestion to not distinguish between Catholic and non-Catholic, but good Catholic and bad Catholic.
#10 She is replacing an Episcopalian so maybe this is what Obama had in mind.
People who do not honestly attempt to follow the teachings of the Church may think of themselves as Catholics, they may attend mass occasionally, they may now and then illicitly receive Communion (illicit because they really should repent, go to confession, and do a small penance before receiving Communion), but it is at best intellectually dishonest for them to claim to hold Catholic faith. Catholic faith is believing and professing all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God. Catholicism is not a cafeteria religion. There are no shades of gray. One either bows to the Magisterium as the final and irrevocable authority on questions of faith and morals, or one rejects that authority. To reject the Church’s authority is to reject Roman Catholic faith, regardless of how one labels oneself.
It is somewhat akin to someone claiming to be a Christian and yet believing that the Incarnation is a fairy tale instead of a real and unrepeatable historical event.
Obviously, there are many prominent public figures, politicians, mainly, but also movie stars and others, who claim to be Catholic but who seem to have no intention of subordinating themselves and their actions to the teachings of the Church. Faithful Catholics find this scandalizing. Having America’s premier Catholic University award an honorary degree to President Obama provoked feelings similar to what a Protestant Christian might experience upon learning that the pastor of his church had left his wife and children and run off with a stripper. We can only blush and shake our heads.
New Pilgrim (#6-7),
There are TWO Jews on the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer (both liberals), and only ONE lonely Protestant, the elderly John Paul Stevens (also a liberal). If he were to die in his sleep tonight, there’d be NO Protestants at all on the High Court.
So YES, I’d say that Protestants were definitely under-represented on the Court.
On the other hand, as the article points out, all four of the solid conservative votes on the Suipreme Court are practicing Roman Catholics (Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, who used to attend Truro in Fairfax before going back to Rome, Samuel Alito, and my personal favorite, Antonin Scalia). So frankly, I wish there were more of them.
And no, it’s certainly not “bigotry” to notice things like that.
David Handy+
P.S., while my sympathies are wholly on the side of DJH (#1, 3, 5) versus Charles (#2, 4) on what makes someone a Catholic (or a Christian at all), I would also have to say that in the end I’d prefer to say, along with Jeffersonian (#13, who cites C. S. Lewis) that the wisest thing might be to say that Sotomayor is not just a “cultural Catholic” but a bad Catholic, whereas Roberts, Thomas, Alito and Scalia are good Catholics, and perhaps Kennedy is too, although I know less about him.
But I firmly believe what Tertullain wrote about 1800 years ago (in his First Apology, chapter 18), “Christians are made, not born.” Still, the distinction between lapsed Christians and ex-Christians is an important one. To be “lapsed” or have drifted away from Christ and the Church is very different from being “apostate,” that is, to have renounced and rejected the Christian faith and way of life. Words Matter (#11) is quite right to insist upon the importance of that distinction.
David Handy+
(BTW, FWIW, this is my 3,000th post at SF and T19 put together)