Diane Feinstein to Catholic Judge Nominee: ‘The Dogma Lives Loudly Within You’

Catholic Culture, Phil Lawler: Because some senators didn’t like [Amy] Barrett’s religious views. “The dogma lives loudly within you,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein evidently meant for that sentence to sound sinister. I can only say that I wish people would say the same thing about me. And as Ross Douthat of the New York Times has pointed out, it’s not only the dogma that has lived loudly within Barrett; a faithful Catholic, she is the mother of seven children.

But Feinstein’s blatantly anti-Catholic swipe at Barrett was not, actually, the most troublesome moment of the hearing. Nor was it the most flagrant violation of the constitutional ban on a religious test. For that we must turn to Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, a self-described Catholic. Durbin took Barrett to task for her use of the term “orthodox” to describe Catholics who uphold Church teaching. Some Catholics who use that label have criticized Pope Francis, Durbin said. He relented only when Barrett said that she would prefer to describe herself as a “faithful” Catholic, and that she admires the Pope. So a “faithful” Catholic who supports the Pope could be an acceptable candidate for a federal judiciary seat, but an “orthodox” Catholic who criticizes the Pope could not? Isn’t that clearly a religious test? Full article is here.