Community: Further Questions for Supreme Court Nominee

In yesterday’s post, we continued exploring Community and the common good, asking seven searching questions about the new supreme court nominee’s religious beliefs.* We continue where we left off:

8) In 2016 you argued against filling a Supreme Court vacancy in an election time because “when the court is seen as a political tool, it loses its legitimacy to announce the laws of the land.”  Do you still believe this? 

Numerous Republican senators said something similar in 2016 and have reversed themselves in 2020.  Does that hypocrisy bother you? 

Instead of voting on your nomination now, wouldn’t it be better for the court and its legitimacy to await the judgement of the next president?  Will doing otherwise render you a hypocrite also? 

9) Saint Thomas Aquinas, doctor of the Church, says that “a mistake about creation results in a mistake about God.”  He spent his whole life bringing the best scientist of his day (Aristotle) into the Christian faith.  The church made huge mistakes condemning science in the time of Copernicus and Galileo and we were promised, 500 years later by Pope John Paul II, that it wouldn’t happen again.  Yet it has happened in the discussion of gay and lesbian rights. 

Fifty years ago, scientists informed us that any given human population will have an 8-11% gay population.  Being gay is perfectly natural for gay people and 494 other species have gay populations.  Why, then, would any thoughtful Catholic deny gay, lesbian and transgender people their rights as human beings, including the right to marry, at least civilly?

10)  Our constitution promises a separation of church and state.  Since 80% of the American population is not Catholic, you will respect religious diversity, won’t you? 

11)  You belong to a mélange of Protestant and Catholics in a small charismatic community.  It is my experience that charismatics rarely ever count the struggle for justice for the poor and oppressed as part of their religious consciousness.  Charismatic groups in South America very often embraced right wing political demagogues.

What does the canonization of Saint Oscar Romero mean to you and your community?  How does his struggle on behalf of the poor resonate with your version of Christianity? 

12)  Does the ecumenism which you practice in your small charismatic sect extend to other religions–rights of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Native Americans, Atheists, and others?

Does your ecumenism also extend to members of the Roman Catholic Church such as Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and others?  Will you come to their defense when noisy media pundits accuse Democrats of being “anti-Catholic”?

13) Do the recent revelations of how we modest citizens pay far more taxes than millionaire presidents and also how vast international corporations pay no taxes and how the 2017 tax “reform” let many billionaires reduce their taxes affect your religious sensibilities about justice and the poor? 

Does a promise that ours is a government “of the people, by the people and for the people?” correspond to the kind of economic system that is currently running our country?  How do you put into practice Pope Francis’ warnings about Wall Street and the idolatry of money? 

*In E. J. Dionne has written a thoughtful article about the nominee’s religious background in response to right wing yelling about “anti-catholicism.”  Amy Coney Barrett and the GOP’s hypocrisy about religion

See Matthew Fox, Letters to Pope Francis;

Also see Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion.

A fuller version of this Public Letter can be found in https://www.tikkun.org/a-public-letter-to-supreme-court-nominee-amy-barrett}

Banner Image: “Protest in front of the US Supreme Court, 1/30/2017” Photo by Geoff Livingston on Flickr..

Meditate on the questions above.  What do they say to you?  What other questions would you pose to this supreme court nominee?

Letters to Pope Francis

Matthew Fox challenges the new Pope to live up to the promise of his namesake St. Francis and reshape a church that has been mired in corruption and bereft of authentic spirituality and rigorous theological debate. Former Dominican priest Matthew Fox presents a series of heartfelt letters to his brother in Christ about the great challenges facing the church today, drawing from the deep spiritual and theological sources that have been suppressed since Vatican II, and implores him to restore the sensus fidelium (the sense of the faithful) and reshape a church with justice and compassion.

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register