Antonin Scalia

Justice Antonin Scalia: Consummate Originalist and Christian

on June 24, 2019

On June 10 the Catholic Information Center (CIC) in Washington D.C. hosted an event run by the son of Justice Antonin Scalia, Chris, and Ethics and Public Policy Center President Edward Whelan. Both co-edited the book On Faith: Lessons From An American Believer, detailing the personal and professional intersection of faith of Justice Scalia. The book was a collection of Scalia’s Supreme Court opinions on religious liberty cases, reflections by Scalia on his own faith, and lessons for American believers as to what challenges believers face in modern-day, secular America.


The book and the discussion at the CIC focused partly on the personal aspect of Scalia’s faith as a Catholic believer. Chris Scalia gave some humorous, touching, and inspiring tidbits of insight from his perspective as the Justice’s son. The younger Scalia joked that his father, ever since he was a little boy growing up in Brooklyn was never “cool,” that he was always committed to his faith, and to his academics. In a more serious tone, Chris moved on to talk about how seriously his father took Mass and how the Justice and his wife, Maureen, made sure that all nine of their kids went to Mass every Sunday no matter where they were living. Antonin Scalia wanted his children to be immersed in a traditionalist Catholic mass every Sunday. He often relayed the importance of all aspects of a traditional Catholic mass to his children. Chris noted that while the Justice was never one to preach his faith to his children or lecture them he evangelized through his example and his actions as a Catholic, a father, and a husband.

What comes as the most shocking to those who don’t know Scalia’s personal and professional career in detail is that Scalia never let his personal religious beliefs affect his professional case opinions. For example, Whelan talked about how even though Scalia was personally opposed to the Roe case as a Catholic, he opposed it on the bench from an originalist perspective as someone who believed that the decision was constitutionally flawed.

In religious liberty cases, Scalia sided with religious claimants requesting legislative accommodations based on their religious preferences. He did so because of his interpretation of the First Amendment to the Constitution (Columbo 2017, 438). His protection of these religious claimants was not because he, as a Christian, sided with the religious claimants but because of his originalist interpretation of the text. For more examples on Scalia’s originalist interpretation of the First Amendment religion clauses from an originalist not personal perspective, see cases Holt v. Hobbs (2015), Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores (2014), Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005), etc (Columbo 2017, 438). One can see that he didn’t let his personal belief in Christian traditions and ethics interfere with his work as a Supreme Court justice. In the case of Employment Division v. Smith Scalia dissented from the religious claimant seeking legislative accommodation from a law that banned the use of peyote even though Smith was using the peyote as part of a religious ritual. Because of the very reason that he is an originalist Scalia noted in a speech on page 99-101 of On Faith, that the doctrine of separation of Church and state is a Christian tradition. Unlike the Religious Left, he did not try to scrub the role of religion in the public square. He critically noted that the separation of church and state does not mean that people’s political views/policies cannot be informed by their religious views. He meant that the Government cannot compel people to worship God or establish an official religion. Historically speaking, Scalia noted, secular policies such as abolition had religious justifications.

In his book On Faith Scalia lamented the fact that the doctrine of separation of church and state has become a tool of those who want to scrub all forms of religion from the public sphere. In the chapter, A Nation Under God, in On Faith on page 167 Scalia celebrated “our traditional belief, expressed unashamedly in our national pronouncements and reflected faithfully in our public policies, that we are a nation under God,” in a speech to a group of marines at a prayer breakfast. He so eloquently on page 169-70 commented that throughout our Country’s history we as a nation have always celebrated not a particular religious sect but a belief in God starting with the Founding Fathers. In his job as a Supreme Court justice, Scalia realized the importance of the historical role of religion and belief in God in America. He evangelized, as a Catholic, through his actions but never so much so that his evangelizing detracted from his originalist interpretation of the Constitution. We as Americans could not have been luckier to have a Justice like Antonin Scalia wear a black robe in the most prestigious court in America for thirty years. It is more important now more and ever that more aspiring justices seek the jurisprudence that Scalia once made famous.

Sources-

https://www.hofstralawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/bb.1.colombo.pdf

  1. Comment by Andrew Hughes on June 24, 2019 at 10:10 am

    With respect for God comes common sense wisdom. Proverbs 1:7, “The fear, (respect) of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

  2. Comment by David on June 25, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    Originalism has its problems. One cannot say a female is a full person in light of 18th century practice. They were given the right to vote more recently, but not specifically to hold office. The right of married women to own property was not established with the constitution.

    The Constitution was vaguely written. Some say this was done on purpose to allow succeeding to interpret it in their own way.

  3. Comment by Rick Plasterer on June 25, 2019 at 1:11 pm

    David,

    Robert Bork suggested that a living constitution is no constitution at all. A constitution is a framework, and if we step outside the framework, we have no constitution.

    There is also the story of an unnamed Supreme Court justice (who by the nature of what was said was very likely Antonin Scalia) remarking that the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1920 (giving women the right to vote) would not have been needed in 1996 (when the court issued the Romer decision, finding that state prohibition of local homosexual rights ordinances was an unconstitutional denial of equality). Women’s suffrage could easily be thought of as demanded by the equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

    The constitution favored by the liberal/left is very clear. It is their own passion.

    Rick

  4. Comment by Ted R. Weiland on June 26, 2019 at 4:46 pm

    Christian!?! Hardly!

    Most people considered Justice Scalia a conservative. Hardly!

    QUESTION: What’s the true conservative position regarding in utero infanticide (wrongly termed “abortion”)?
    ANSWER: The conservative position is that it’s murder as determined by Yahweh, God of the Bible, the ONLY ONE with the authority to determine whether it’s criminal or not or deserving of capital punishment. Turning the decision over to the States to decide (which was Scalia’s position) is NOT the conservative position.

    QUESTION: Why was this Scalia’s position?
    ANSWER: Because to Scalia the Constitution was the Supreme Law of the land, not Yahweh’s immutable moral law!

    For more, Google Chapter 3 “The Preamble: We the People vs. Yahweh” of free online book “Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective.”

    See also blog article “Right, Left, and Center: Who Gets to Decide?”

  5. Comment by Chris on June 26, 2019 at 10:22 pm

    Test: Do my posts get deleted from Here ?

  6. Comment by Chris on June 26, 2019 at 10:32 pm

    Catholicism Is Not Christianity !

    If the catholicism (catho = uni or one) is Christian, how come there’s a HUGE Obelisk (phallic symbol) in the middle of the center court at The Vatican ??!

    How come The Vatican admits in their own brochures that the statue of “Peter” is really a statue of Zeus or Jupiter ???!

    How come it was catholicism, via Constantine, that brought such pagan holidays and rituals as the winter solstice celebration in worship of the sun god (a.k.a. Christmas) and Easter (Astarte, goddess of fertility) to the realm of Constantine’s rule ???!

    It was Constantine that was the first Pope in early 4th Century, NOT Peter.

    How come catholicism denies The Deity of Christ ???!!!

    So, now tell me how it’s “Christian”, if you can ! Any takers ??

  7. Comment by Lori Harris on June 29, 2019 at 4:28 pm

    Lord have mercy! Your lack of knowledge is so disheartening!

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