Judge Amy Coney Barrett
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Cardinal Timothy Dolan, head of the Archdiocese of New York, said that Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is “the best candidate around,” but added that being a woman, a mother, and a Catholic stand in the way of her confirmation by the Senate.
On his Wednesday SiriusXM radio show, “Conversation with Cardinal Dolan,” Dolan expressed hope that Barrett was nominated for SCOTUS, not because she is a devout Catholic, but because she’s the most qualified for the job:
“She takes her Catholic faith seriously, but that is not why she was nominated as a justice to the Supreme Court, is it? I think she is nominated because she is the best candidate around. I hope so. And, from what I hear, she is. So, let’s hope for the best.”Co-host Fr. Dave Dwyer recalled how Democrats have previously made Barrett’s Catholic faith an issue:
“I remember, it was probably about a year or more ago, that there was big controversy in the news that the Judiciary Committee was kind of grilling her about, you know, is she too religious? Or, is her religion too important to her? And I remember that conversation on a broader level, like, since when did that become a bad thing?”
“Yeah, I don’t get that either Father Dave, but you’re right,” Dolan replied. “There were some real, I’m going to call them nasty, comments: ‘We hear you take your faith seriously. We hear you really believe.’”
Cardinal Dolan then noted the hypocrisy of the attacks made against Barrett by the Judiciary Committee and Democrats, given how they treated the subject of former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Jewish faith:
“What I admired in the accolades to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, there were a lot of articles about her deep Jewish faith and how she was not afraid to say that the values of her Jewish faith animated how she lived, and how she judged. Nobody found that controversial.
“There was a great article in there recently, I forget, either The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal that said she always said she faced three biases; a woman, a mother, and a Jew. Well is seems like Judge Barrett is facing: woman, mother and Catholic.”
Judge Amy Coney Barrett came under attack by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee when she was nominated for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. During Barrett’s confirmation hearing, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D.Calif.) asked, “Why is it that so many of us on this side (the Democrat Judiciary Caucus) have this very uncomfortable feeling that, you know, dogma and law are two different things?”
And, unlike Democrats’ praise of Ginsberg’s faith, Sen. Feinstein said Barrett’s Catholic faith should be a “concern” for senators considering her confirmation:
“And I think that whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think, in your case professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that, the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern when it comes to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for for years in this country.”
