TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Brittany Sims on Oct 8, 2014

Six U.S. Supreme Court justices on Sunday attended the Roman Catholic Red Mass in Washington, D.C., an annual ritual that heralds the new judicial season that begins on the first Monday in October. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan were in the front pews of the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle to watch the spectacle, replete with incense, bishops and priests in scarlet vestments and soaring choir music. Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas are Catholic; Breyer and Kagan, who are Jewish, have become regular attendees. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, also Jewish, stopped attending earlier in her tenure after one mass in which the sermon was “outrageously anti-abortion,” as she later described it. Justices Samuel Alito Jr. and Sonia Sotomayor are also Catholic, although they were absent Sunday. The National Law Journal has more (Subscription required.)