Catholic judges and the requirements of the church

In what may have been a radical break, the pope instructed judges as well as legislators when he spoke to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, warns Douglas Kmiec, chair and professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University.

Writing in Time magazine, he said:

As written, the Pope's statement has the potential, at least theoretically, to empty the U.S. Supreme Court of all five of its Catholic jurists and perhaps all other Catholics who sit on the bench in the lower federal and state courts.

It is of course possible someone in the Vatican was careless in preparing the statement. If so, its sweeping inclusivity may have been unintentional.

But the statement about the pope's meeting with Pelosi nonetheless said:

His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.

Note the word "jurists," and bear in mind how in that context it can be seen as a moral instruction that judges must use their offices to undo the law's protection for abortion.

Then you can see the core of Kmiec's disturbing scholarly analysis. The pope's plain words may be seen as having put the requirements of faith in conflict with those of the oath taken by federal judges to uphold U.S. law.