[Vision2020] Sotomayor: US Supreme Court's Sixth Catholic?

[Ted Moffett]

On 6/5/09, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:


> I used to speculate wildly about whether or not our former President was
> really a believer or if he was blatantly manipulating the religious
> right through their own predilictions (or both).  What it comes down to
> is this: we can't look into their hearts.  Sotomayor may be the most
> devout Catholic evar, but doesn't outwardly show it on a day-to-day
> basis.  For all I know, she goes to church three times a week just to
> get away from her family.  We just can't know.



Why do you state "we just can't know" about Sotomayor's regularity of church
attendance?

Given that attending church is a public event, unless someone is taking
measures to hide their identity, if Sotomayer attends a church three times a
week, this could easily be known by those in that church, and known by
others as well.  I suppose someone could attend different churches on
different days so that their frequency of church attendance would be more
difficult to notice.  But the article I referenced earlier in this
thread, apparently referencing investigations into her life, which of course
have been ongoing given her nomination to the SCOTUS, suggested Sotomayor
does not attend church regularly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/us/politics/31catholics.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

>From article above:

 ...Sotomayor is more like the majority of American Catholics: those who
were raised in the faith and shaped by its values, but who do not attend
Mass regularly and are not particularly active in religious life. Like many
Americans, Judge Sotomayor may be what religion scholars call a “cultural
Catholic” — a category that could say something about her political and
social attitudes.

Interviews with more than a dozen of Judge Sotomayor’s friends from high
school, college, law school and professional life said they had never heard
her talk about her faith, and had no recollection of her ever going to Mass
or belonging to a parish. Her family did not return phone calls for comment.

A White House spokesman, speaking on background, put it this way: “She
currently does not belong to a particular parish or church, but she attends
church with family and friends for important occasions.”

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Also, from the same article above:

At Princeton, where Judge Sotomayor belonged to a Puerto Rican student
group, a group of Latino students attended Mass every week, but she was not
among them, a former classmate recalled.
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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