A sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court?

Sonia Sotomayor was raised Catholic and went to parochial grammar school and the diocesan Cardinal Spellman H.S. in the Bronx. Does that make her the 6th Catholic on the Supreme Court?

Justice Antonin Scalia, who went to Xavier H.S. in Manhattan (when they still wore military tunics), attends a Latin mass every Sunday. He may not be impressed with Sotomayor's Christmas and Easter cultural Catholic presentation.

Manya Brachear - the Chicago Tribune religion reporter - discussed it on her blog with Notre Dame lawprof Cathleen Kaveny:

A sixth Catholic with views like Sotomayor’s also would put the American church’s diversity on display.“My guess is she’s very much operating in accordance with the commitments of the Catholic social justice tradition which is emphasizing … inclusion, solidarity, justice to those least among us,” Kaveny said. “It’s a strand of American Catholic teaching that is somewhat distinct from other Catholic teaching but not incompatible. People emphasize different aspects.” “‘Different gifts from the same spirit’ to quote St. Paul,” Kaveny added.

Antonin Scalia asserts that as a textualist his Catholicism does not affect his judgecraft. Maybe. But his conception of what his faith and tradition require seems to be worn on his sleeve - particularly in his harsh attack on the majority opinion in the VMI case which compelled an end to single-sex education at the Virginia state military university. See Michael Frost’s Justice Scalia's Rhetoric of Dissent: A Greco-Roman Analysis of Scalia's Advocacy in the VMI Case, 91 Kentucky Law Journal 167 (2002)

Villanova law prof Robert Miller discussses and presents Scalia's 2007 Villanova address on the role of a Catholic judge at First Things blog.

For myself - Vatican II Catholicism affects my teaching and my lawyering: my adherence to the civil rights agenda, to John Courtney Murray's views on religious freedom, to the value of trade unions, opposition to the death penalty, and support of the peace movement agenda on nuclear arms.