Today, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with U.S. Senators Arlen Specter, Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr, will join together to demonstrate support for Fourth Circuit Court nominee, Judge Robert Conrad.
Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), will join the Senators and other concerned organizations and professional associates.
Last July, President Bush nominated federal district Judge Robert J. Conrad to a North Carolina seat on the Fourth Circuit. The ABA judicial-evaluations committee unanimously gave Conrad its highest rating of “well qualified,” and Conrad has the strong support of both North Carolina senators. But nearly nine months after Conrad’s nomination, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Pat Leahy has refused to afford Conrad a hearing because the Catholic judge is…well…anti-Catholic.
Conrad, a Catholic, had in 1999 criticized a nun for “the near total contempt [she] displayed for the Roman Catholic Church.” Conrad was actually defending the Catholic church from the anti-Catholic comments he believed the nun to have made. It’s simply further evidence that Leahy will do anything to obstruct judicial nominees -especially conservative ones.
Specifically, in a February 1999 letter to Catholic Dossier, Conrad wrote to criticize the writings of Sister Helen Prejean in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book Dead Man Walking. Like many Catholics who disagreed with Sr. Prejean, Conrad was critical of her smug contempt for the Catholic Church, particularly a Catholic chaplain whom she denigrates for his traditionalism.
In her book, Sr. Prejean ridiculed the priest as a ‘strictly old-school, pre-Vatican II Catholic’ and criticized him for saying his prayers in Latin and receiving Communion on the tongue.
Whoever believes Leahy is actually defending the Church please stand up for a vicoferous mocking. Because the real reason Leahy opposes Conrad’s nomination is Conrad’s criticism of Planned Parenthood. In April 2005, Leahy lambasted Conrad for his article entitled, “Planned Parenthood, A Radical, Pro-Abortion Fringe Group.”
Leahy, himself a Catholic (hahaha), defended the abortion giant, saying Planned Parenthood “work[s] hard to reduce crisis pregnancies.” Yeah. That’s how they make their millions -reducing pregnancies.
So, in actuality, Leahy isn’t attacking Conrad for being anti-Catholic. He’s attacking him for being a good Catholic. Surprise. Surprise.
June 20, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Sister Helen Prejean’s two books were excellent in exploring the full impact of capital punishment in our country. The hopefully guilty party is killed, yes, but the act also has an irreversible effect on everyone else involved: the prison guards, the executioner, the administration, the reporters, and all of their families, as well as the families of the victims. Sister Prejean in her role as spiritual advisor to condemned men was acting as Jesus directed us to do in Matthew 25. In exposing the inhumanity of capital punishment she joined Pope John Paul II in his unequivocal condemnation of this act. (To be sure, the Church leaves open the possibility that this may be justified to prevent future atrocities, but realistically in this country that possibility is non-existant.)
Conrad’s outspoken and apparently unprovoked criticism of a consecrated religious Sister ministering in Jesus’ name appears to have been rather ill-advised, no? He should’ve stuck to condemning Planned Parenthood and left it at that.
June 20, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Judge Conrad’s criticism of Prejean is measured and right on the money. She is a dissenter pure and simple.
June 20, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Well, Leahy’s idea of a good Catholic probably comes in part from his attendance at the Jesuit-run Holy Trinity parish in DC, which is also home to the Georgetown Center for Liturgy (http://centerforliturgy.georgetown.edu/). The site basically speaks for itself.
June 22, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Wow, an Anonymous dissenter on the CMR blog! They must be getting deparate to be heard as more and more faithful are tiring of their useless prattle. Maybe the Obama campaign will distract them for awhile.
Sancta Maria, spes nostra, sedes sapientiae, ora pro nobis!