your comment Maqmigh.

^{Bad decisions make good stories.}

being a Catholic raised through a Catholic School is if that Catholic has been taught to think critically, applying that critical thought logically and dispassionately, that's a start.

Next, of they an show that no dogmatic influence goes into the decision-making process (no religion, no papal decrees, no 'statements of belief'), only a thorough scholarly review of the Law as written, as applied, and as intended (since conditions change over time), then you might have the makings for a Justice.

hmmm....these conditions should apply for everyone, not just Catholics or Christinists (Dominionists). also hmmmm....'Domocratic' and 'Republican' also might fall under my fail-point regarding 'dogmatic influence'--showing politics has no place in Law.

Lately, far too much emphasis has been placed on one's beliefs, and what one 'should' be thinking, believing, doing with regards to Faith (capital 'F'). Perhaps Jesus's own words should be brought to bear here: "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's...render unto God what is God's"--not only for money, but in Everything...Keep God's Law for God's House...keep our Laws in our Country.

"It's no longer IOKIYAR....It's OK If You're A Republican, but IOKBYAR--It's OK BECAUSE You're a Republican." -- Me

...I have to say it's frankly offensive. "Unfit" to serve? All catholics? Really?

When someone will not or cannot give the law primacy over religious doctrine they are disqualified from service, but extending that to all catholics is lazy bullshit.

"In combat one should be very suspicious of painless moral choices. When you are confronted with a seemingly painless moral choice, the odds are that you haven't looked deeply enough." ~ Karl Marlantes

It is the training that is a problem, not the religion. The jesuitical need to "win" an argument by narrowing and narrowing further the scope of the question so that the overall construct is lost has done an enormous disservice to our jurisprudence.

We know that the highest (and particularly unchristian but very catholic) good served by Scalia, Alito, et al. is that which inures from the ownership of property, but the method of argument frequently obscures that.

The jesuits and talmudists have the technique of engaging in this trivialization of argument very much in common. I suppose the technique comes from the fact that the doctrine being parsed comes from god, not man, and so must stand for the greatest good which itself need not (and in fact cannot) be seen by us. This, I suppose, serves clerics and "scholars" of holy books but is deeply dangerous when parsing laws made by man to serve men.

Again it is not the doctrine that is the problem but rather the method of argument that "wins" by stripping context.