How to Vote Catholic
Judicial Issues
"Some there must be who devote themselves to the work of the commonwealth, who make the laws or administer justice, or whose advice and authority govern the nation in times of peace, and defend it in war. Such men clearly occupy the foremost place in the State, and should be held in highest estimation, for their work concerns most nearly and effectively the general interests of the community" (Rerum Novarum, 34).
Judges are either elected directly by the people or nominated and approved by our elected leaders (i.e., the president and the U.S. Senate). In recent years, prolonged political battles have been waged over presidential nominations to federal courts of appeals. Future U.S. Supreme Court nominees will likely face fierce scrutiny and political battering, even to a greater extent than the tumultuous nominees of the past.
The issue that often has driven the debate is abortion, now followed closely by homosexual marriage. Since these are the current flashpoints in the battle over judicial nominations, it's not surprising that the religious commitments of court nominees have been so closely scrutinized. Given that evangelicals and faithful Catholics are united in defending unborn life and marriage between a man and woman, the judges from those faith traditions have been attacked.
The role of a judge is to interpret law, not create it. The separation of powers in the Constitution gives Congress the power to make laws, giving courts only the limited power to interpret them. Judges are expected to overlook their personal beliefs and base their decisions on the law alone.
It's especially unfortunate when Catholic politicians lead the fight against those justices who have demonstrated strong commitments to Catholic teaching. Public officials who treat a judicial nominee's Catholic faith as an obstacle to serving as a judge not only demonstrate a bias against religious beliefs but also reveal a misunderstanding about Catholic teaching on judicial responsibility itself.
In fact, faithful Catholics, who are grounded in the concepts of following rules and exhibiting humility, should be especially well-suited for judicial service because they would naturally eschew the qualities that lead a judge to being an activist.
The most serious problem in the judiciary is the presence of activist judges who use every opportunity to misconstrue, contort, and stretch the law to create the maximum amount of legal justification for abortion, euthanasia, and homosexual marriage. Those who nominate and confirm judicial activists try to shape the courts because they cannot get what they want in the political process. Activist judges disenfranchise voters of faith.
Catholics both within government and without must be on guard against an attitude that holds law to be whatever the legislator says it is. This reduction of law can endanger democracy and morality by removing the objective foundation of morals and law as given by nature and recognized by reason.
Eternal laws are the government of all things by God and form the basis of the social moral order. Their assimilation to human society through reason gives the immediate basis of political morality; natural law is the foundation of a sound political vision. Human laws that contradict the natural law—for example, American laws legalizing abortion—have no authority for Catholics. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted St. Thomas Aquinas on this point in his influential "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."
What does this mean in our system of democratic government? First, our elected officials must make laws that respect natural law. Second, individuals who use the judiciary to create rights or obligations that have no basis in our Constitution are acting improperly.
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