That time Catholic Scalia was asked “Isn’t it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil?”

That time Catholic Scalia was asked “Isn’t it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil?” February 13, 2016

The Gospel Coalition had a great post about Antonin Scalia, which contained this jewel:

Scalia was a devout traditionalist Roman Catholic (one of his sons is a Roman Catholic priest). In an interview in 2013, the New Yorker asked him, “Isn’t it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil?” Scalia replied,

You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.

His critics frequently claimed that as a Catholic justice he was letting his faith influence his rulings. He responded by saying, “There is no such thing as a Catholic judge,” just as there is no such thing as “a Catholic way to cook a hamburger.” He later admitted there were only two teachings of his faith that affect his judicial work: “Be thou perfect as thy heavenly Father is perfect” and “Thou shalt not lie.”  

Read it all here.

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