You might know a lot of people who are religious one day of the week. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, is not one of those people.
Kavanaugh doesn’t just attend Catholic Mass on Sunday. He regularly serves as a lector, reading scripture before the parishioners. He volunteers at Catholic Charities and tutors at a Catholic school. He also coaches two girls’ basketball teams. That’s on top of his job as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
All those religious extracurriculars will likely be a problem for liberals looking for any aspect of Kavanaugh they can spin as a negative, in hopes of derailing his confirmation.
Just look at how they’ve treated other devoted Christians.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wasn’t fond of one of Trump’s circuit judge nominees, Amy Coney Barrett. During Barrett’s confirmation hearing, Feinstein told Barrett, “When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you.”
But Barrett has gone out of her way to explain that her religion would not influence her legal rulings. “Judges cannot – nor should they try to – align our legal system with the Church’s moral teaching whenever the two diverge,” Barrett wrote in 1998 as a law clerk. In 2017, she reiterated her belief in that sentiment.
For Feinstein and others, the problem wasn’t Barrett’s Catholicism. It was her devotion to it, even if that devotion didn’t get in the way of justice.
There’s also Russ Vought. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., found a way to bring Vought’s religion into his confirmation hearing for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, a position that has no direct relation to religion.
In 2016, Vought wrote that “Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned.” That language might be more harsh than most Christians would put it, but it’s still fairly standard Christian theology: Muslims aren’t Christians, because Muslims don’t recognize Jesus Christ as God’s son.
The problem wasn’t Vought’s religious beliefs, it was how he expressed those beliefs.
With those precedents set, it seems likely Kavanaugh’s devotion to Catholicism will be raised by his critics. But when it happens, it will be a silly attack. After all, Kavanaugh is simply following Jesus Christ’s words. When Jesus was asked, “Which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind” (Matthew 22:36-37).
This respect for religious devotion is imperative for both parties. If a Democratic president nominates a Muslim, atheist, or member of any other religion to the Supreme Court, Republicans shouldn’t use devotion against them for political purposes. (Failed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore famously said Muslims shouldn’t be allowed in Congress, but no major Republicans agreed with him). The most important issue is whether a Supreme Court nominee can accurately interpret existing laws and the Constitution, and “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich,” as the oath of office for the Supreme Court says.
Supreme Court nominee or not, Kavanaugh’s devotion should be highlighted as an example for all others. If he merely went to Mass on Sunday mornings and had no Christian extracurriculars, no one would care – four of his would-be companions on the Supreme Court bench are Catholics, after all. But lectoring, volunteering, tutoring, and coaching two Catholic basketball teams are his way of loving the Lord in all aspects of life. It’s a love that transcends Sunday mornings and finds its way into every part of Kavanaugh’s life – as it should for him, as it should for all of us.
