But Justice Scalia, Whelan added, "would dismiss the idea that he deserves any special thanks for his positions on these issues. As a matter of constitutional law, these questions were easy, he would say, and he was just doing his duty of interpreting the Constitution impartially." Whelan also recounted Scalia's bristling at being called a "Catholic Judge," quoting Scalia's assertion that "There are good judges and bad judges. The only article of faith that plays any part in my judging is the commandment, 'Thou Shalt Not Lie.'"
However, Scalia's life did bear out his Catholic witness, Whelan offered, sharing a story of the late justice nudging a young Whelan to attend Mass on a Holy Day and a speech Scalia often used at Catholic gatherings contrasting "The Two Thomases" – Thomas Jefferson and St. Thomas More.
Thomas Jefferson, Scalia would point out, created a highly edited version of the Bible, cutting out miracles and the resurrection itself as being irrational. "What is irrational, it seems to me," Scalia would say, "is to reject a priori, with no investigation, the possibility of miracles in general, and of Jesus Christ's resurrection in particular – which is, of course, precisely what the worldly wise do."
On the other hand, St. Thomas More died for a reason that was "silly" – at least in the eyes of his peers. "In what he did, More was unsupported by intelligent society, by his friends, even by his own wife," Scalia said. "But of course More was not seeing with the eyes of men, but with the eyes of faith."
Whelan quoted Scalia, saying: "For the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world for these seeming failings of ours, we lawyers and intellectuals – who do not like to be regarded as unsophisticated – can have no greater model than St. Thomas More."
Adelaide Mena was the DC Correspondent for Catholic News Agency until 2017 and is a 2012 graduate of Princeton University.