Red Mass Marks Start of Supreme Court Session

October 2, 2011, 7:16 pm


By WILL STOREY


In 58 years, the Red Mass, held the first Sunday of October at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington to kick off the Supreme Court session, has gone from a token ritual to a power conclave.

When the Mass started in 1953, there were no Catholic members of the Supreme Court. The service’s traditional “Catholic seat” had to be filled at the time by Justice Sherman Minton, a Protestant whose wife was Catholic. Today, there are six Catholic justices, three Jewish justices and, for the first time in history, no Protestant justices.

On Sunday, the ceremony was attended by five of the Catholic justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Anthony Kennedy — plus Justice Stephen Breyer, who is Jewish. (Justices of other faiths sometimes attend as a sign of respect.)

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the sixth and least conservative Catholic on the court, did not attend. Neither did Justice Elena Kagan, who is Jewish, or Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who came once and was so offended by the “outrageously anti-abortion” homily that she never returned.

There was also a weighty Catholic contingent from the executive branch — the White House chief of staff Bill Daley, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta — listening to Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle give a homily emphasizing a quality that bickering politicians in Washington often
lack: humility.

The archbishop did not follow in the fiery footsteps of clerics presiding in the past who took the opportunity to lecture the high-profile audience on the evils of abortion, gay marriage and humanism. He dwelt instead on “the importance of the perfection and integration which self-forgetfulness, generosity and humility bring to a life of Christian service.” The abortion issue was touched on, however, by an associate judge from Montgomery County, Md., who led the congregation in a prayer and stated, “We pray for the inevitable right to life for every human being.”

The Red Mass, a tradition that dates to Europe in the Middle Ages, usually coincides with the beginning of judicial calendars. It is designed as a blessing and a call for God to bestow wisdom upon judges and lawmakers for the coming year. It takes its name from red garments worn by attending clergymen, symbolizing the fire of the
Holy Spirit. Similar ceremonies are held in Britain, France, Italy and across the United States.

The Red Mass has managed to stay under the radar, except when it was the subject of an episode of the television show “The West Wing.” Pressed by his aide Charlie Young about the breach in the separation of church and state, President Bartlet, who was Catholic, offered a lesson in Washington pragmatism: “How isn’t it a constitutional issue? It is. But sometimes you say ‘Big deal.’ ”

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