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# NYT on the C5
- URL: https://thedailyeudemon.com/2890/
- Published: 2005-11-01T12:58:32.000Z
- Updated: 2005-11-01T12:58:32.000Z
- Author: Eric Scheske
- Tags: Politics, Religion, #wpChunk

> A Catholic majority on the nine-member court would be a significant historical shift. Until 1988, there had been no more than two Catholic justices at once. And for most of the court's history, there was typically only a single Catholic.

> "This would add a whole new meaning to the Catholic rite of confirmation," said Barbara A. Perry, a Supreme Court expert at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. "This would mean that the religion factor no longer matters."

[*NYT* Link](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01religion.html?ref=thedailyeudemon.com).

The religious factor shouldn't matter. The secularists, however, shouldn't believe that religion won't influence how a person thinks, even though JFK implied that such a mental bifurcation is possible.

The "theological-political" problem goes back to the collapse of the Roman Empire and a single mantra--"Separation of church and state"--isn't going to resolve it. Indeed, all such simplistic efforts to address a delicate and complex problem are objectionable. As Theodore Dalrymple observes in *The Mandarins and the Masses*: Philosophical fundamentalism is as objectionable as theological fundamentalism.