{"id":297520,"date":"2019-04-15T06:49:08","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T10:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?p=297520"},"modified":"2019-04-15T06:49:34","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T10:49:34","slug":"clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Clarence Thomas on Religious Tests for Judges and His Return to the Catholic Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

From The Daily Caller:\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a friendly audience in California that religious belief does not compromise the work of the courts, and he expressed regret that religion featured prominently in a 2017 judicial confirmation.<\/p>\n

Speaking on April 4 at Pepperdine University School of Law\u2019s annual banquet, Thomas was asked whether it is ever legitimate to consider a candidate\u2019s religious views during the confirmation process. The question was asked with specific reference to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who\u00a0suggested that Judge Amy Coney Barrett was too dogmatic<\/a>\u00a0for the federal bench in September 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we got away from religious tests,\u201d Thomas said. Article VI of the Constitution provides that \u201cno religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I know a single judge who has allowed religion to interfere with their jobs,\u201d the justice added.<\/p>\n

Thomas is himself a Catholic who entered the seminary and studied for the cloth. He left the Catholic Church in 1968, having judged its efforts to fight racism insufficient. He returned to Catholicism in 1993 and told attendees that he goes to morning Mass before beginning his work at the high court.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if you start the day on your knees you approach your job differently from when you start thinking that someone anointed you to impose your will on others,\u201d Thomas said, emphasizing the importance of humility for judges.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read on<\/a>.<\/strong> And watch the video of the discussion below.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?time_continue=268&v=KdouoCzXX8U<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From The Daily Caller:\u00a0 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a friendly audience in California that religious belief does not compromise the work of the courts, and he expressed regret that religion featured prominently in a 2017 judicial confirmation. Speaking on April 4 at Pepperdine University School of Law\u2019s annual banquet, Thomas was asked whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":297529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,45,1],"tags":[1267,1027],"class_list":["post-297520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","category-uncategorized","tag-clarence-thomas","tag-scotus"],"yoast_head":"\nClarence Thomas on Religious Tests for Judges and His Return to the Catholic Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From The Daily Caller:\u00a0 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a friendly audience in California that religious belief does not compromise the work of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Clarence Thomas on Religious Tests for Judges and His Return to the Catholic Church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From The Daily Caller:\u00a0 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a friendly audience in California that religious belief does not compromise the work of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-04-15T10:49:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-04-15T10:49:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/56\/2019\/04\/436px-Clarence_Thomas_official_SCOTUS_portrait.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"436\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/\",\"name\":\"Clarence Thomas on Religious Tests for Judges and His Return to the Catholic Church\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-15T10:49:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-04-15T10:49:34+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/7466606aa54639bf56a17705dcfc0970\"},\"description\":\"From The Daily Caller:\u00a0 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a friendly audience in California that religious belief does not compromise the work of\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Clarence Thomas on Religious Tests for Judges and His Return to the Catholic Church\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/\",\"name\":\"The Deacon's Bench\",\"description\":\"Where a Roman Catholic deacon ponders the world\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/7466606aa54639bf56a17705dcfc0970\",\"name\":\"Deacon Greg Kandra\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7332f32e3041fc2061e292186274b171?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7332f32e3041fc2061e292186274b171?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Deacon Greg Kandra\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Clarence Thomas on Religious Tests for Judges and His Return to the Catholic Church","description":"From The Daily Caller:\u00a0 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a friendly audience in California that religious belief does not compromise the work of","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Clarence Thomas on Religious Tests for Judges and His Return to the Catholic Church","og_description":"From The Daily Caller:\u00a0 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a friendly audience in California that religious belief does not compromise the work of","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2019-04-15T10:49:08+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-04-15T10:49:34+00:00","og_image":[{"width":436,"height":600,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/56\/2019\/04\/436px-Clarence_Thomas_official_SCOTUS_portrait.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Deacon Greg Kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Deacon Greg Kandra","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/","name":"Clarence Thomas on Religious Tests for Judges and His Return to the Catholic Church","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-04-15T10:49:08+00:00","dateModified":"2019-04-15T10:49:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/7466606aa54639bf56a17705dcfc0970"},"description":"From The Daily Caller:\u00a0 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a friendly audience in California that religious belief does not compromise the work of","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/04\/clarence-thomas-on-religious-tests-for-judges-and-his-own-return-to-the-catholic-church\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Clarence Thomas on Religious Tests for Judges and His Return to the Catholic Church"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic deacon ponders the world","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/7466606aa54639bf56a17705dcfc0970","name":"Deacon Greg Kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7332f32e3041fc2061e292186274b171?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7332f32e3041fc2061e292186274b171?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Deacon Greg Kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}