Justice Scalia Fires up the Grill

Since our Villanova contingent hasn't weighed in on yesterday's Scarpa conference, I'm forced to rely on local news accounts:

Devout U.S. Catholics like himself may stand apart from much of the nation on abortion, homosexuality, and embryonic stem-cell research, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a packed audience at Villanova University yesterday, but he insisted "there is no such thing as a 'Catholic judge.' "

"The bottom line is that the Catholic faith seems to me to have little effect on my work as a judge," he declared.

Invited to speak to that very question - "the role of Catholic faith in the work of a judge" - the famously opinionated justice rendered his decision just three minutes into his keynote lecture at Villanova Law School's annual Scarpa conference on law, politics and culture.

"Just as there is no 'Catholic' way to cook a hamburger," he said to a murmur of laughter, "I am hard-pressed to tell you of a single opinion of mine that would have come out differently if I were not Catholic."

So is Justice Scalia correct?  At least when it comes to the judge's role, is MoJ's Catholic Legal Theory project akin to constructing a Catholic Meat-Grilling Theory?  (For those interested, I address Justice Scalia's past statements on this subject in an article exploring the contrasting functions of prudential judgment in the roles of lawyer and judge.)