{"id":416,"date":"2013-10-06T20:28:08","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T02:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frmichaelduffy\/?p=416"},"modified":"2014-12-23T12:00:57","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T19:00:57","slug":"antonin-scalia-catholic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frmichaelduffy\/2013\/10\/antonin-scalia-catholic\/","title":{"rendered":"Antonin Scalia, Catholic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Justice Antonin Scalia sat for an interview with nymag.com. \u00a0The result is some of the most entertaining reading I\u2019ve done in a long time. \u00a0Justice Scalia, whose son is a Priest speaks at length about his Catholic faith.\u00a0 He speaks in a delightful tone and with remarkable clarity on the faith. \u00a0see below the excerpts of the portions of the interview dealing with the Church:<\/p>\n

What do you make of the new pope?<\/strong>
\nHe\u2019s the Vicar of Christ. He\u2019s the chief. I don\u2019t run down the pope.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not inviting you to run down the pope. But what do you think of his recent comments, that the church ought to focus less on divisive issues and more on helping the poor?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nI think he\u2019s absolutely right. I think the church ought to be more evangelistic.<\/p>\n

But he also wanted to steer its emphasis away from homosexuality and abortion.<\/strong>
\nYeah. But he hasn\u2019t backed off the view of the church on those issues. He\u2019s just saying, \u201cDon\u2019t spend all our time talking about that stuff. Talk about Jesus Christ and evangelize.\u201d I think there\u2019s no indication whatever that he\u2019s changing doctrinally.<\/p>\n

I spent my junior year in Switzerland. On the way back home, I spent some time in England, and I remember going to Hyde Park Corner. And there was a Roman Catholic priest in his collar, standing on a soapbox, preaching the Catholic faith and being heckled by a group. And I thought,My goodness.<\/em>\u00a0I thought that was admirable. I have often bemoaned the fact that the Catholic church has sort of lost that evangelistic spirit. And if this pope brings it back, all the better.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

You believe in heaven and hell?<\/strong>
\nOh, of course I do. Don\u2019t you believe in heaven and hell?<\/p>\n

No.<\/strong>
\nOh, my.<\/p>\n

Does that mean I\u2019m not going?<\/strong>
\n[Laughing.<\/em>] Unfortunately not!<\/p>\n

Wait, to heaven or hell?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nIt doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not going to hell, just because you don\u2019t believe in it. That\u2019s Catholic doctrine! Everyone is going one place or the other.<\/p>\n

But you don\u2019t have to be a Catholic to get into heaven? Or believe in it?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nOf course not!<\/p>\n

Oh. So you don\u2019t know where I\u2019m going. Thank God.<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know where you\u2019re going. I don\u2019t even know whether Judas Iscariot is in hell. I mean, that\u2019s what the pope meant when he said, \u201cWho am I to judge?\u201d He may have recanted and had severe penance just before he died. Who knows?<\/p>\n

Can we talk about your drafting process\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Leans in, stage-whispers.<\/em>] I even believe in the Devil.<\/p>\n

You do?<\/strong>
\nOf course! Yeah, he\u2019s a real person. Hey, c\u2019mon, that\u2019s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that.<\/p>\n

Every<\/em>\u00a0Catholic believes this? There\u2019s a wide variety of Catholics out there \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you are faithful to Catholic dogma, that is certainly a large part of it.<\/p>\n

Have you seen evidence of the Devil lately?<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He\u2019s making pigs run off cliffs, he\u2019s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn\u2019t happen very much anymore.<\/p>\n

No.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s because he\u2019s smart.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s he doing now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What he\u2019s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He\u2019s much more successful that way.<\/p>\n

That has really painful implications for atheists. Are you sure that\u2019s the \u00adDevil\u2019s work?<\/strong>
\nI didn\u2019t say atheists are the Devil\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Well, you\u2019re saying the Devil is \u00adpersuading people to not believe in God. Couldn\u2019t there be other reasons to not believe?<\/strong>
\nWell, there certainly can be other reasons. But it certainly favors the Devil\u2019s desires. I mean, c\u2019mon, that\u2019s the explanation for why there\u2019s not demonic possession all over the place. That always puzzled me. What happened to the Devil, you know? He used to be all over the place. He used to be all over the New Testament.<\/p>\n

Right.<\/strong>
\nWhat happened to him?<\/p>\n

He just got wilier.<\/strong>
\nHe got wilier.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil?<\/strong>
\nYou\u2019re looking at me as though I\u2019m 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\u2019s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so,\u00a0so<\/em>\u00a0removed 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The whole interview is wonderful. \u00a0Make sure to go read the entire thing.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Justice Antonin Scalia sat for an interview with nymag.com. \u00a0The result is some of the most entertaining reading I\u2019ve done in a long time. \u00a0Justice Scalia, whose son is a Priest speaks at length about his Catholic faith.\u00a0 He speaks in a delightful tone and with remarkable clarity on the faith. \u00a0see below the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAntonin Scalia, Catholic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  Justice Antonin Scalia sat for an interview with nymag.com. \u00a0The result is some of the most entertaining reading I've done in a long time. \u00a0Justice\" \/>\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\/frmichaelduffy\/2013\/10\/antonin-scalia-catholic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Antonin Scalia, Catholic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  Justice Antonin Scalia sat for an interview with nymag.com. \u00a0The result is some of the most entertaining reading I've done in a long time. \u00a0Justice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frmichaelduffy\/2013\/10\/antonin-scalia-catholic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. 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