Certainly, from a conservative perspective, recusal is a better solution than assuming that if you personally are morally opposed to something, then it must be unconstitutional.

The bigger, and legitimate question is whether Roberts recusal promise renders him an ineffective justice. If Roberts really plans to recuse himself from every death penalty and abortion case, he may not be the right guy for the job. That's a totally legitimate question, and may be asked without reference to how horrible the Catholic Church is.

On the other hand, if you argue that Roberts should not be on the court because Cardinal Law is a bad man, or because the 10 Commandments don't forbid child abuse, I think you have edged over into anti-Catholic bigotry.

Unless I"m mistaken, catholics who are baptized into the faith are *always* considered catholics, until and unless they are excommunicated by the church. From my admittedly outside-looking-in understanding, I've always heard "once a catholic, always a catholic."

I don't see how you can't comprehend the fact that each individual baptist church is a church unto itself, with all the rights and responsibilities of any *other* church. There is no central authority that sets standards that must be applied and practiced by all members. Therefore, to make the claim that the *Catholic Church* is the same as *every other church* is ludicrous on its face.

Yes, all churches have rules, but not all churches operate under the assumption that what one man in Rome says is *the word of God* IS *the word of God* applicable to all members of that faith community - many millions around the world.

That's a substantial difference.

And I did not even mention the aspect of soul competency or priesthood of all believers, a concept that is certainly different between the catholic church and protestants.

Whether you "fail to see how joining another baptist church alters the case" doesn't change the facts of the matter - not all churches operate under the centralized authority structure that the Catholic Church does. To say that "all churches" are the same and therefore Catholic dogma is not of concern is to ignore reality and theology.

2. I'm aware that generally speaking Protestant churches do not have the kind of centralized authority as the Catholic Church. But I don't see that being able to join another church--in the example you provide, under the same broad Baptist banner--alters the case. All Churches have rules, you violate some, you get thrown out of that church.

Many protestant churches do not have explicit excommunication rites and rules. For instance, one can be kicked out of a specific baptist church by the members of that church, but go and join another church down the road and still be a "baptist." As well, at least in the baptist variety, individual churches are independent of one another. There is no central rule-making authority - hence no "creeds" that baptists acknowledge in membership. Denominations make suggestions and pass resolutions that they agree upon, but none are binding upon the member churches.

I'm not so sure about other faiths - lutheran, methodist, or presbyterian - which have more formalized authority structures.

In short: it's a lot different from other churches.

Uh, this is different from most churches how? All churches have moral codes and can throw out members if they're flouted. But the Catholic Church is somehow uniquely the target here.

The main thing to keep in mind is that the kinds of conflicts that would supposedly force Roberts to recuse himself--if he did say that--are pretty rare. Meanwhile Hitchens is rather selective in his other accusations--including the fact that Schoenborn notwithstanding, the Church has hardly been a campaigner against evolution.

I don't know what the heck Cardinal Law has to do with any of this. Indict him or don't. That's not Roberts' problem or anybody else's on the Court.

Hitchens is a brilliant writer who just goes wack on religion.

For a brief summary, there is a clear difference between a judge failing to prevent others from engaging in an immoral act because he lacks the power to do so, and a judge engaging in an actual act of committing an immoral act. Justice Scalia's speech argued that, while he believes that abortion is an immoral act, he also does not believe that the Constitution speaks to the issue one way or the other. Therefore, he does not believe that he is morally bound to rule that fetuses are "persons" under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment, and thus possess the right to life and due process rights, and thus rule to outlaw abortion. Morality does not require that he exceed his lawful bounds in order to restrain the immoral actions of private actors.

However, Justice Scalia goes on to argue that when a judge, e.g., acts as part of sentencing in a trial, she engages in an act of commission by being part of the essential machinery enforcing the act, rather than simply declining to stop it. Therefore, a judge who believes consistently that, e.g., the death penalty is immoral would be unable to sentence someone to death without committing a perceived immoral act, and should thus recuse herself. Similarly, if a legislature passed a law mandating forced sterilization or forced abortions of the mentally disabled, a Catholic judge would also be forced to recuse himself rather than be issue a ruling forcing that punishment.

Justice Scalia argued that a sense of judicial restraint allows a judge to rule in most cases (outside of sentencing) without conflict with morality, by denying to judges the power to rule arbitrarily according to their moral preferences. Without such a sense, he argues that judges will rule according to their moral preferences, whether Catholic, religious, or secular. Indeed, quite a bit of the general public, though luckily not most judges, consider rulings based on whether the ruling's outcome accords with their sense of morality, rather than judicial doctrine.

Silly statement o' the day, courtesy of James Joyner over at OTB:

Another Durbin lie gone bad. The link gives you the backgroud. Apparently Hitchens doesn't read at much as he should.