Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

What percentage of the Connecticut Congressional delegation is Catholic? Some orthodox Catholics would say zero percent. To turn a phrase, it depends on what you mean by Catholic.” Sen. Chris Dodd is a well known Catholic. At least, he was baptized into the Catholic Church. His immediate family – Sen. Tom Dodd and his mother Grace – were indisputably Catholic. We all were in the early 40s when baby Dodd was received into the Catholic communion. But there is a question mark hanging like a Damoclean sword over Chris Dodd’s head. Being Catholic is similar to but not exactly the same as being a member of the Democrat Party. Catholics have a thing called communion which, in addition to being a sacrament, also points to the unity of the church. In fact the words “unity of the church” are pronounced in the liturgy when the faithful take communion. And if you are not in doctrinal unity with the faith, you ought not to take the sacrament which, in any case, will not be efficacious. Sometimes wh...

“ Do I have a right to make prudential judgments? Yes, I do that ” -- Rosa DeLauro US Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s faith, Catholicism, is brought to center stage in today’s Hartford Courant front page story , “Rosa’s Faith.” Some Catholics may quarrel with some points in the story. Their quarrel may begin with its title, “Rosa’s Faith.” In so far as Rosa’s faith differs from the faith of her church on matters of Christian doctrine, it is not, and cannot be, Catholic faith. Prudence, valued by DeLauro, and conscience do not always march together hand in hand. Catholics must take care to conform themselves to their faith; it cannot be the other way around. The Catholic struggle is to understand the faith and to conform one’s conscience, in one’s daily life, to Catholic teaching. When one trims the faith to make it fit one’s comfortable notions, one has stepped outside the Catholic universe. This temptation is one that Catholic politician are especially prone to. It must be an informed conscience...

After much cogitation, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman issued a press release detailing his reasons for voting against Supreme Court nominee Judge Sam Alito. Neither his reasons nor his vote may placate his critics on the left, many of whom are still smarting from his announced support for President George Bush’s Iraq policy. Lieberman’s anti-Alito vote, one critic noted, is a safe political move that will not arouse antagonism within the pro-choice crowd: “Having the anti-war crowd upset is one thing but Lieberman would have set off a firestorm of anger in the state if he voted for the guy who will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.” Liberals called upon Lieberman to join in a filibuster recommended by former Vice President Al Gore, a truer test of the senator’s resolve since his vote could not block Alito’s confirmation in the senate. According to Lieberman’s press release, Alito failed to pass a four point test. Lieberman gave Alito a star on three points -- intellect and ability, experien...

The few sentences that follow below were selected almost at random from a commentary on Judge John Roberts, whose nomination to the U S Supreme Court, we are told by the commentator, “has reignited the controversy over faith and the confirmation process… From everything that has been reported so far, Roberts looks eminently qualified for the high court. His record paints a picture of a temperamentally moderate jurist who would be very unlikely to challenge precedent in the name of ideology, or to use his public position to advance his personal values. But what if there was a nominee who showed less restraint? Would that candidate's beliefs still be out of bounds for questioning as long as they were religious in nature?” Now, the first thing we should notice in this commentary is the author’s use of the devil word “ideology. Is religion an ideology? If it is an ideology, and if it is the only ideology not to be permitted to inform the decisions of Supreme Court justices, have we not...