I hadn’t realized it, but the Supreme Court might soon have a Catholic majority in Justices Thomas, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, and Alito. Christianity Today has an article discussing reactions to the Catholic majority. Some of the reaction is the predictable cry that this is a violation of the “separation of church and state” or that all religions aren’t adequately represented. But more interesting is the charge that evangelicals are using Catholic intellectual heft to mask their own judicial activism.

Anti-Catholicism is a farce, William Saletan wrote in Slate. “This is the GOP’s new victim shtick: Nominate pro-lifers to the courts, brag that they’re simply upholding abortion laws favored by a majority of voters, and when liberals complain, accuse them of attacking a religious minority.”

That’s why you’re most likely to hear cries of anti-Catholicism coming from evangelical Protestant groups—which not too long ago might have been the ones decrying a Catholic majority on the Court, wrote Saletan.

Welcome to “the reality of social conservatism: Evangelicals supply the political energy, Catholics the intellectual heft,” Franklin Foer wrote in The New Republic. “Evangelicals didn’t just need Catholic bodies; they needed Catholic minds to supply them with rhetoric that relied more heavily on morality than biblical quotation.”

Apparently the argument is that evangelicals (or conservative Christians in general) are too uneducated or too wild-eyed to fill as exalted a position as justice of the Supreme Court.
Richard John Neuhaus (the Catholic side of Evangelicals and Catholics Together), described the argument:

“At one level, Mr. Foer’s argument is a repeat of the notorious Washington Post claim of several years ago that evangelicals are poor, uneducated, and easily led. And, of course, we crafty Catholics are doing the leading,” Neuhaus responded on the First Things website. Evangelicals, he said, still have “formidable minds” and the legacy of politician/preacher Abraham Kuyper.

CT adds to Neuhaus’s argument, and also argues that since activism is a key part of evangelicalism, evangelicals are better suited for political roles.

When it comes to government, evangelical energies seem drawn to positions where Christian beliefs are part of decision-making. It’s easy to list conservative Protestants in the legislative and executive branches. But judges? … Activism is usually mentioned as one core distinctive of being an evangelical, but we oppose it on the bench. Is this why there are so few top-level evangelical judges? If so, thank God for conservative Catholics.

I would like to suggest my own alternate explanation. All the evangelical / fundamentalist Supreme Court justices of the future are in law school at Duke or Notre Dame. Just give them time.