Scalia: Man of Faith (Part II of II)
In the previous article, we introduced the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, offering an overview of his life, and examining his contribution to the Court. But just as Scalia took his family, the law, and friendship seriously, he also took his faith seriously. He was a man of deep and enduring faith. As Edward Whelan puts it, it “sustained” him.[i] Or as John L. Allen Jr. remarks, his faith was “a defining element of his life.”[ii]
From a young age, Scalia was influenced by the faith. He attended a Catholic (Jesuit) high school and college. He met and married a Catholic girl, and he raised a Catholic family. When asked by 60 Minutes why they had so many children, he responded with a twinkle, “Well, we didn’t set out to have nine children. We’re just old-fashioned Catholics, you know.”[iii] Or as he told his biographer, “Being a devout Catholic means you have children when God gives them to you, and you raise them.”[iv]
So important was the faith to the Scalia family that their son Paul became a priest. He described his father this way in his eulogy: “God blessed Dad with a deep Catholic faith: The conviction that Christ’s presence and power continue in the world today through His body, the Church.”[v] Despite important differences between Catholics and Protestants, Scalia can teach us much. Evidence of his faith took on many forms.
“We are fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Cor. 4:10)
On April 9, 1996 for example, he spoke to a group of Christian lawyers and law students at First Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi. He encouraged them not to lose heart when the world ridicules them for their beliefs. “God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools,” he declared, “and He has not been disappointed. Devout Christians are destined to be regarded as fools in modern society. We are fools for Christ’s sake.” He then exhorted them to prayer: “We must pray for courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world. If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.”[vi]
A second example appears in a letter he wrote to James C. Goodloe IV. Goodloe had preached a funeral service Scalia attended, and Scalia was impressed with his message.
Even in Christian services conducted for deceased Christians, I am surprised at how often eulogy is the centerpiece of the service, rather than (as it was in your church) the Resurrection of Christ, and the eternal life which follows from that. . . . Perhaps the clergymen who conduct relatively secular services are moved by a desire not to offend the nonbelievers in attendance—whose numbers tend to increase in proportion to the prominence of the deceased. What a great mistake. Weddings and funerals (but especially funerals) are the principal occasions left in modern America when you can preach the Good News not just to the faithful, but to those who have never really heard it.[vii]
Here Scalia offers perceptive insight about the integrity of the funeral service. For Scalia, a funeral service is not primarily about not offending nonbelievers, or even about the deceased, but about the proclamation of Christ’s resurrection, and eternal life unto those who would believe.
As a third example, Scalia spoke just as pointedly to unbelievers as he did believers, even in the face of incredulity. When an interviewer asked, “Isn’t it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil?” Scalia exclaimed:
You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.[viii]
A committed and traditional Catholic, Scalia believed in heaven and hell, God and the devil, prayer and the sacraments, and the resurrection of the dead. And whether he was addressing a group of Christian lawyers and law students, writing a preacher, or giving an interview to an unbeliever, Scalia was a fool for Christ’s sake, unashamed of his faith and the supernatural, committed to the centrality of Christ’s resurrection for life and godliness, and willing to suffer the contempt of an unbelieving world. He encourages us to have that same Christian courage and integrity, come what may.
Faith and Law, Capitalism and Patriotism
Many have asked what role his faith played in his position as judge, as well as his beliefs about the function of government, the economy, and the nation. Regarding his role as a Justice of the Court, Scalia explained, “The only article in faith that plays any part in my judging is the commandment, Thou Shalt Not Lie.”[ix] This position is consistent with his belief in originalism and textualism: that the judge’s role is to apply the law he has to the facts he has.
Scalia’s position is also consistent with his belief about the role of government. “The test of good government,” he believed, “is assuredly not whether it helps you save your soul. Government is not meant for saving souls, but for protecting life and property and assuring the conditions for physical prosperity. Its responsibility is the here, not the hereafter.”[x]
At the same time, Scalia believed it the prerogative of a democratic majority to pass laws that best reflect their morality. The institutional separation of church and state is not a separation of morals from the public square. Of course one’s beliefs inform what he or she believes makes best law and policy.
In fact, when asked, “What stands out in your mind as one of the greatest miscarriages of constitutional justice you have seen during your tenure?” he answered, “The most disreputable area of our law is the Establishment Clause. . . . It’s the clause that’s always invoked when people want to tear down a cross that’s been put up on public land or remove a crèche that’s in the city square or whatever, or take down the Ten Commandments.”[xi]
He believed such cases were “silly” and regrettable. And he illustrated the absurdity of these cases by pointing out that we never had “these cases until the middle of the twentieth century.”[xii] So while the government’s role is not to save souls, that doesn’t mean one’s faith has no place. To a certain extent, all legislature is based on some morality or another.
Personally he opposed abortion and same-sex marriage, and favored the death penalty, gun rights, religious liberty, and states’ rights. At the same time, he would uphold a democratic majority’s right to pass a bad law with which he personally disagreed, so long as it did not otherwise violate a constitutional right.
With respect to government’s role to encourage prosperity and protect property, Scalia believed that capitalism, rather than socialism best protects these goals. He also believed that capitalism was more conducive to Christian virtue. As a negative example, he pointed out that the “governmentalization of charity” has produced “donors without love and recipients without gratitude.” Instead, “the most religious country in the West by all standards—belief in God, church membership, church attendance—is that bastion of capitalism least diluted by socialism, the United States.”[xiii]
Indeed, Scalia loved his faith, and he loved his country. His son Paul, again in his eulogy, remarked:
God blessed Dad, as is well known, with a love for his country. He knew well what a close-run thing the founding of our nation was. And he saw in that founding, as did the founders themselves, a blessing, a blessing quickly lost when faith is banned from the public square, or when we refuse to bring it there. So he understood that there is no conflict between loving God and loving one’s country, between one’s faith and one’s public service. Dad understood that the deeper he went in his Catholic faith, the better a citizen and public servant he became. God blessed him with the desire to be the country’s good servant because he was God’s first.[xiv]
Scalia offers us encouragement. As one writer stated, he “boldly professed things that many of his secular, liberal academic colleagues thought simpleminded and naïve—originalism, patriotism, faith in God.”[xv] His example reminds us that we need not separate our beliefs from our public lives. We can at once respect the institutional separation of church and state, and uphold the religious liberty of all persons freely to believe and practice their faith, not simply in the privacy of their homes, but in the public square, voting booth, and workplace.
Conclusion
Scalia offers to teach us much. He reminds us to stand firmly in our faith, even in the face of ridicule. He shows us that faith in the public square is important—vital. And he illustrates that old-fashioned qualities like love of country and patriotism are not embarrassing, but ennobling. To conclude, I invite you to consider what others have said about his legacy.
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[i] Edward Whelan; quoted in “Antonin Scalia—A Justice in Full.”
[ii] John L. Allen, Jr., “Scalia’s Faith a Defining Element of His Life,” Crux, February 13, 2016, April 5, 2016, http://www.cruxnow.com/life/2016/02/13/scalias-faith-was-a-defining-element-of-his-life/; see also Tom Gjelten, “Scalia Expressed His Faith with the Same Fervor as His Court Opinions,” NPR, February 14, 2016, accessed April 5, 2016, http://www.npr.org/2016/02/14/466722712/scalia-expressed-his-faith-with-the-same-fervor-as-his-court-opinions.
[iii] CBS News, “Justice Scalia on 60 Minutes, part 2,” April 27, 2008, accessed April 5, 2016, http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/justice-scalia-on-60-minutes-part-2/.
[iv] Joan Biskupic, American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (New York: Sarah Crichton Books; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009), 31.
[v] Paul Scalia, “Transcript: Rev. Paul Scalia’s Eulogy for His Father, Justice Antonin Scalia,” USA Today, February 20, 2016, April 5, 2016, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/20/transcript-rev-paul-scalias-eulogy-his-father-justice-antonin-scalia/80667122/.
[vi] Antonin Scalia; quoted in Andrew Geisler, “Justice Scalia: The Tom Wolfe of Law,” The Federalist, February 18, 2016, accessed April 5, 2016, http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/18/justice-scalia-the-tom-wolfe-of-law/; see also Michael Stokes Paulsen and Steffen N. Johnson, Scalia’s Sermonette, 72 Notre Dame Law Review 863 (1997), http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1838&context=ndlr.
[vii] Antonin Scalia, Letter to James. C. Goodloe IV, September 1, 1998; quoted in Timothy George, “Justice Scalia on Funeral Sermons,” First Things, February 22, 2016, accessed April 5, 2016, http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/02/justice-scalia-on-funeral-sermons.
[viii] Antonin Scalia, Interview with Jennifer Senior, “In Conversation: Antonin Scalia,” New York Magazine, October 6, 2013, accessed April 5, 2016, http://nymag.com/news/features/antonin-scalia-2013-10/index3.html#print.
[ix] David Gibson, “Justice Scalia: ‘No Such Thing as a Catholic Judge,’” dotCommonweal, April 5, 2016, November 4, 2010, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/justice-scalia-no-such-thing-catholic-judge.
[x] “Is Capitalism or Socialism More Conducive to Christian Virtue,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjTw7mepBhk.
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] Ibid.
[xiii] Ibid.
[xiv] Paul Scalia.
[xv] Sherif Girgis; quoted in Robert P. George, “Antonin Scalia: An American Originalist,” Public Discourse, February 16, 2016, accessed April 5, 2016, http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/02/16478/?utm_source=The+Witherspoon+Institute&utm_campaign=e0693832a5-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_15ce6af37b-e0693832a5-84171605.
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