Justice Scalia, a "Catholic" judge . . .

. . . whether he likes it or not.  Thanks to Rob for the link to the news account of Justice Scalia's talk at Villanova.  As I see it, when Justice Scalia says "there is no such thing as a 'Catholic judge'" and "the Catholic faith seems to me to have little effect on my work as a judge", what he means to say is that his faith does not supply the substantive content of the opinions he writes and the decisions he reaches.  He is, I think, pushing back on the idea -- which seemed to be widespread during the Alito and Roberts confirmations -- that a "Catholic" judge would be one who handed down "Catholic" decisions, i.e., decisions that, in their policy dimensions, somehow reflect or map onto Catholic Social Teaching.  Understood in this way, I think Justice Scalia is entirely right. 

That said, it is unfortunate that he insists on putting the matter this way, because he is way too smart not to know that his statements will be, and are, taken to mean that, as a judge, he "puts aside" his faith (JFK-style).  But, I am confident this is not what he means.  The point is not that "I am not a 'Catholic' judge because I put aside my faith when I judge, and operate only in slimmed-down-identity mode."  To be a Catholic judge -- and Justice Scalia is, whether he likes it or not, a "Catholic judge" in this sense -- is to be a judge in the way a Catholic, like everyone else, should be a judge:  To take seriously one's obligation to decide impartially, to submit to the rule of law, rather than one's own preferences, and to have an appropriate humility about the task one is charged to perform.  Obviously, this is not a distinctively Catholic way of judging -- I'm not even saying that Catholics are more likely to judge in this way than others are -- but it is, I think, the way a Catholic should judge.  It's also the way Justice Scalia thinks he should judge and, I'm confident, he thinks this way (at least in part) because he is a Catholic.