WASHINGTON (DC)
Whispers in the Loggia
For the 61st time, this Sunday brought one of the great meetings of church and state as a majority of the Supreme Court again led the congregation at Washington’s St Matthew’s Cathedral for the capital’s annual Red Mass.
Organized as ever by DC’s John Carroll Society, the liturgy invoking the Holy Spirit on judges and lawyers – its roots dating to the 1300s – is held on the eve of the new SCOTUS term, which begins tomorrow, and takes place in many other locales over these weeks. This time around, the high court delegation was topped by Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. (Wuerl and Roberts are shown left at the foot of the cathedral steps, with the CJ’s wife, Jane, escorted by the capital’s retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick; the other justices follow behind.)
Kagan and Breyer being Jewish, only half of the Supremes’ six-justice Catholic superbloc were present. The Court’s third Jewish member, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, attended the liturgy earlier in her 20 years on the bench, but boycotted the rites after she deemed one Red Mass’ homily as excessively anti-abortion while the issue lay before the Court. (This first Sunday of October likewise marks the annual Respect Life Sunday in the US church.)
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.