This Latino IS Catholic

Man, you really live in a bubble, dontcha
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13 Comments to “Six Catholics on the Bench?”Cliff Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 3:16 pm
What is this, 1242 AD? Who gives a flying f--k how Catholic she is?

FlownOver Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Ooh, ooh… a religion hook! An excuse for Bible Girl to post something!
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Fail. Big fail. Paying attention to this stuff is a much bigger concern than the stuff itself.

gysgt213 Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Was this not posted about yesterday? Did someone sneak in here that cares about this?

arbitrarystring Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 3:36 pm
I think the burning question we all have about our very Catholic SC is how often they alternate between sitting, standing, and kneeling.

stuartzechman Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Amy Sullivan:
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I just dropped by your thread to mention that you're a f*cking social imbecile who apparently hasn't the courage nor intellect required to respond to commentary on your banal, perpetually self-aggrandizing meanderings, so I'll just be moving along now to other posts, in which I will engage with your betters (the other professional contributors here at Swampland who make you look like the poor blogger you are on a near-daily basis) on topics of substance.
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Thanks for reading and considering this, Amy Sullivan.

alaskanturkey Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 4:05 pm
I like trees.

kuyper47 Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I don't understand why these questions are even being asked. Article VI, cl.3 of the Constitution specifically states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Put bluntly, under our system of government Judge Sotomayor's religion -- or lack thereof -- is her own affair, not that of Congress or the White House or of anyone else. If asked about this at her confirmation hearings, she should politely refer the questioner to the plain language of the Constitution and tell him/her that it's none of their bloody damn business.

grape_crush Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 4:29 pm
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I'll see your Six Catholics on the Bench and raise you Two Mules for Sister Sara.
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Cliff Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 4:29 pm
kuyper47: Thanks for that, it hits the nail on the head.

shepherdwong Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 5:15 pm
"That's because all of the bishops' documents and papal statements on the question of high-profile Catholics are focused on holding practicing Catholics responsible for abiding by church teaching."
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Actually, when it comes to public officials, they are holding practicing Catholics responsible for enforcing church teachings on the public at large, Catholic or not.

jcapan Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Well, I see my fellow commenters have this covered. I find Amy's kaleidoscoe reading of politics incredibly superficial and banal, which is, quite simply, sad. One would assume that a "bible girl" would at least sound sensible and intelligent about her specialty. Additionally, is there any doubt that her kaleidoscope is essentially christianist? Other than the rare throwaway post about muslims etc. where is the senior ed/contributor to the Swamp representing atheists, philosophical buddhists, jews, native americans, wiccans .....

Remainders: Many rabbis Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 6:14 pm
[...] Amy Sullivan says it's more complicated than just having six Catholics on the court? [...]

larry278 Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Can you sing, "6 Catholics on the Supreme Court", when you get tired of singing, "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall"? When Catholics say the rosary, will they say, "Hail Mary full of grace, the Masons are in 2d place..."?

I would have nominated our own Friar Tuck. I think FT would have done an excellent job, plus we'd have our own man in place. If only we could get him to say what's on his mind.

Amy - Thanks for this post and others.

As a lurker, I am amazed at the a**hats who complain about the lack of interaction by contributors. Who would want to interact with some of the posters? As a long time reader, I understand that all commenter posts are insightful and inspired (!), but would humbly suggest that commenters simply ignore posts they find unhelpful.

Sigh - a high school teacher at the end of a long school year........

Andrew O'Hehir discussing Terry Eagleton's new book:
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"Among the many extraordinary positions Eagleton takes in this book, perhaps nothing is more startling than the highly original claim that the United States of America is not religious enough. All right, I am paraphrasing -- what he actually says is that our nation's nauseating, wall-to-wall public piety is strictly pro forma. It's a kind of ideological window dressing for a social and economic system based on the ruthless exploitation of human beings and natural resources, which is about as far from the teachings of that radical Jewish carpenter from Nazareth as you can possibly get.
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In one of Eagleton's most ingenious turns of phrase, he describes contemporary Christian fundamentalists as faithless, because they specifically lack the kind of performative faith mentioned above. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek has described fundamentalism as a species of neurosis, in which a person keeps demanding proof that he is loved and never finds it sufficient. In trying to shoehorn anti-scientific hokum into schoolbooks, or wasting money and time on a "creationist science" that strives to prove that the Grand Canyon is less than 6,000 years old and that Noah, for reasons unknown, kicked T. rex off the ark, fundamentalists have become the mirror image of atheists. Unsatisfied with the transcendent and unknowable nature of the Almighty, they've stuffed and jammed him into a dinosaur diorama."
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http://www.salon.com/books/review/2009/04/28/terry_eagleton/index.html
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And saygoodnight, as a proud arsehat, I admit you make a good pt. re: ignoring posts we deem of little value. But I also think if I say loudly "our nation's nauseating, wall-to-wall public piety," AS pauses in mid-sentence with a puzzled look on her face.

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Wendy goes Long:
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Unpersuaded, Wendy Long, counsel for the Judicial Confirmation Network, said Republicans would oppose Sotomayor because of statements and writings that suggest she bases her decisions at least in part on her gender, ethnicity and background.
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"Republicans actually believe the Constitution means something," Long said. "They don't believe demographics matter or gender matters; they believe the rule of law matters, and people who vote Republican actually believe in those principles."
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The last 8 years of the Cheney-puppet regime showed me that Republicans believe the Constitution makes a fine toilet paper.
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saygoodnitegrace: Enjoy your summer. I'd like to mention that a high school teacher is still a very good friend of mine. It's been almost 40 years since I first had him for a class and he inspired me to broaden my horizons. He had me from the first when he told me "These textbooks are bullsh!t. Read these instead". The year that stands out in my mind was when he assigned me to do a book report on the Bible.

In other words, there is a fascinating conversation about god and faith going on out there in the ether, but AS, at least in her contributions here in the bog, isn't a part of it. For those seeking a genuine, engaging debate about such matters, there's simply no nourishment to be had here. Perhaps her books go deeper, but it's v. hard to imagine. I say this as an agnostic who scorns Hitchens and Falwell alike.

The Honorable Marie Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs, U.S. Representative (D-LA) from 1973 to 1991 before serving as ambassador to the Vatican, is known as Lindy, not Liddy; otherwise, nothing in this post warrants much comment.
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I'd just ignore, as saygoodnitegracie suggests, but this one's factually inaccurate.

It appears that jc has had a last nerve steped on, and I have enjoyed the response. My own thought is this and it is a true story. Several years ago I went to a late lunch at a Chineese buffet, and the only other people in the place was a group led by Madalyn Murray O'Hair, her son and some other people. I am a nonbeliever. I sat alone listening, which was unavoidable since they were so loud. They had just returned from a trip to Russia and there was big laughter about Orthodox icons, churches, and symbols. It occured to me then that fervent athieism is really a religion unto itself, and since then have declined to call myself athiest, but just a nonbeliever.
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Anyway, my thought now is what great entertainment it would have been for her to have been ambassador to the Vatican. When the recent French appointment was rejected, the Vatican claimed that they don't vet ambassadors, and the rejection of the French guy was because he was openly homo and lived with a homo lover. Madalyn could have passed that test easily. I am sorry I didn't ask for her autograph at the lunch, but she was just too obnoxious for me to approach her.

I've flirted with atheism Cliff. It was a convenient and common pose in my 20s. Few in my social milieu (humanities grad. dept. in a CA uni) were anything else. I still teeter on the edge of nihilism. But love and that rarest of entities, human goodness, keeps me from taking the plunge.
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I've always found blokes like Hitchens to be as arrogant as their foils on the right. Show me an atheist or a true-believer who will not admit to any doubts and show me a person I have no interest in speaking to. I trust scientists b/c they are frank about the limits of their knowledge, not to mention their capacity to revise theories and change their minds. This flexibility is nearly unheard of in the arenas of religion or politics.
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But those admitted limits seed my own doubts about atheism. Scientists can perfectly describe a black hole, take you right up to it, set your mind afire with dazzling formulas, tell you what it emits, and offer all manner of theories about what it's like inside, but the fact remains they have no idea or solid evidence. That has always given me pause.
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I also love Carl Sagan who walked that delicate line between faith and science as well as anyone. I always think of the excellent argument in Contact--did you love your father ... yes ... prove it. So simple yet so difficult to shake for an atheist.
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But one thing is certain, I generally loathe organized religion, including the parasitical shintoists & buddhists who have an institutional stranglehold here. That doesn't mean I don't think all the monks or priests I have known in my life are evil. Nor that individual believers aren't individually wonderful, caring etc. For instance, I have known some very fine christian socialists (in Japan) who've been able to reconcile their faith, their deeds, and their leftist beliefs in a way that amazes me.

-> "That doesn't mean I think"
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For once, it's fortunate that I'm the only person awake

You're not THAT far from the west coast, and its not that late.

Ah, in the distance, across the big pond, a light from the void.
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Yeah, you're 16 hours behind me or, discounting days, merely 8 hrs. ahead.

Ah, in the distance, across the big pond, a light from the void.
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Yeah, you're 16 hours behind me or, discounting days, merely 8 hrs. ahead.

Mind you, I was married in a shinto ceremony and I find buddhist philosophy deeply meaningful and moving (in secular terms). It's akin to my regard for many tenets of marxism. There's the theory and then there's what does/has existed heretofore. I can't speak authoritatively about buddhist practices elsewhere in Asia. Albeit relatively benign vis a vis christianity, it still has many of the trappings of org. religion. Shrines and temples are tax exempt, some are hugely profitable--and some of the funeral practices in particular are outrageous/parasitical. That said, it's fascinating from a sociological perspective. If you're interested, read Mishima's classic, Temple of the Golden Pavilion, for a wonderful exploration of Japanese buddhism.

Amy - I'm glad to have this information. Seems a sign to me that Obama takes seriously the possibility that any diplomatic seat might benefit from knowledge and competence, and also that he manages to score politically at the same time - as with Huntsman's appointment to Beijing.

@jcapan: I'm an atheist, and I consider Hitchens to be an utter fool. Please don't hold him up as an example of atheism; he's an arrogant blowhard who can and should be ignored. Really, the best articulation of atheism came from the late, great Douglas Adams.

formerlyjames: As a teenager I briefly joined O'Hair's Society of Separationists. Their newsletters were more obnoxious than informative so I quit. Evidently we weren't the only ones who thought she was obnoxious. Somebody killed her and stuffed her ass in a barrel.

I think there can be a humble atheism just as there can be humble religion. I call myself "atheist" because I have no positive religious beliefs, but I acknowledge the great mysteries of existence and the finiteness of human understanding.
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The type of atheist I can't stand is the one who sees Falwell as the epitome of the religious mindset (what about MLK?), or tries to tally up atrocities on each side. (Was the Inquisition worse than Stalin? Does it matter?)

Diaz is an Obama supporter and contributor, and thus cannot be termed a Catholic. At least not after SSPX gets through with them.

I like Art.