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Notes -
SCOTUS: Catholics for Mass Immigration
As a gambit, Trump and Miller’s was always an extremely long shot, but it acts as an illustration of the seriousness of the national issue, and of the pernicious role of intellectual catholicism on the American right. This has less to do with lay Catholics, who are sometimes reactionary and sometimes liberal, or with very online rightist Catholics, whose devotion is questionable but who largely find the maximalist aesthetic interesting or more defensible than megachurch Christianity, which I sympathize with, or who find inspiration in its (arguable, the reality is rather mixed) historical antisemitism for their own LARPing.
One thing Roberts, Kavanaugh and ACB have in common is that they are all the court’s Catholic Intellectuals as an ideological grouping. This separates them from the other Catholics on the Supreme Court - Thomas left Catholicism and then came back to it but his conservatism is not distinctly Catholic (we can argue about this but it isn’t the thrust of my argument) and largely appears to view himself a jurist in both a conservative and a black conservative tradition that is not Catholic; his mentor and inspiration Sowell is (surprised to be writing is here - he’s 96 and still kicking) an atheist by all accounts. Alito is more devout but invented his own complex rationale for abandoning any form of integralism and essentially adopting WASPlite Conservatism With Ellis Islander Characteristics. Gorsuch rejected Catholicism. Sotomayor is nominally Catholic but openly lapsed as per her writings, so there is no need to even get into ideology with her.
Roberts, ACB and Kavanaugh are all much more products of the institutional Catholic Church. They continue to have senior roles in ‘official’ or semi official church organizations from which it would be extremely humiliating to be removed and where they ultimately, beyond many abstract layers of theological management, answer to the Pope, who is basically Zohran Mamdani if he was a little uncomfortable around abortion. If Thomas was denied communion on account of his politics I imagine he would laugh or ignore it; if ACB was I think she’d be very, very upset indeed, and it is laughable to think this isn’t the kind of motivator these people (who have spent most of their lives in this Catholic intellectual bubble surrounded by other Catholics) care about.
Catholicism is essentially a third-worldist institution - the largest, best funded, and most successful on earth - and has been for many decades. Third worldism as envisioned by its proponents was always more about the ‘south’ versus the ‘north’ (meaning countries with demographically european majorities, plus maybe japan) than it was about achieving socialism, which was really a second-tier target. Third worldism’s central organizing objective is ameliorating this supposed imbalance, this terrible and - in the eyes of the Church and its intellectual adherents - un-Christian state of affairs. Mass immigration is the central tool in this toolkit, since with enough of it (due to the vast majority of the world’s population being in the “global south”) the global north simply ceases to exist and one has won by Largely Peaceful™️ (and therefore very Christian) default. Catholicism is a global, transnational, extremely well functioning institution able to deploy tens of billions of (often tax) dollars towards this ideological aim; even more importantly, it has an entire ecosystem of forums, think tanks, colleges (including those on whose board the Roberts’ sit and with whom ACB has her central academic affiliation) and lobbying groups that exist to convince other ‘conservative’ Catholics (in the sense that they support some semblance of traditional marriages restriction of abortion etc) that mass immigration is actually lindy, wholesome chungus, and holy and you will go to hell if you fight it just as if you were a rapist, a murderer, or got ten abortions.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (the closest the US Church has to a governing body) is staunchly pro-life but staunchly pro-immigration. So is the (American) Pope. Conservatism for me and my issues, but not for thee and yours, you might say. By some estimates, USCCB affiliates have settled more than 30% of all refugees to the United States since 1980, almost all from the third world. Expecting this to have no impact on the court’s conservative justices, 5/6 of whom are somewhat Catholic and 3/6 (the aforementioned) are closely tied to the modern Catholic intellectual tradition was delusional. The Catholic Church is almost definitionally, as a transnational organization, less concerned with national borders. Far more of its adherents are would-be migrants and refugees than the people who would suffer in rich countries by their presence. Over the last two progressive papacies, by far the majority of the Catholic Church’s opprobrium for the United States has been about mass, and especially illegal, immigration. Of course, statistically, most Central and South American and Haitian illegal migrants - who are the migrants actually affected by the birthright citizenship debate since they can’t naturalize themselves - are literally Catholic.
This is part of the problem of talking about ‘social conservatism’ versus ‘economic conservatism’ or liberalism. If you hate abortion and have a kind of condescending pity for homosexuals but support the third-worldification of America, you are still a tradcon and the right will cheer as you’re appointed to the Supreme Court. Amy Coney Barrett has Haitian children. There are hundreds of thousands of Haitians illegally resident in the US, who have kids who look just like her kids but who weren’t lucky enough to be adopted by a rich American family. She was never going to vote to repeal birthright citizenship which, for all the legalistic arguments, is an inherently nativist-sympathetic move (just as it was when England repealed it in 1981, and when Australia did 5 years later), even if its proponents profess to and indeed do support mass immigration in general. Is your country for the world or is it, at least, for you and the people you choose to let in?
In America, our Catholic rulers have decided it is for the world.
I see what you're doing here.
Normally, I don't love this kind of thing and I'd even chide you for not "speaking clearly," but I have to admit this is well done. I am not even certain you aren't sincere.
I believe she's sincere. 2rafa's view generally is very strongly opposed to immigration and she's even made commentary in the past about how Catholic and German immigration into the United States fundamentally changed the nature of the country. I also believe she lives in the UK (London?) now because she believes the US is a lost cause due to immigration.
I admit it's very interesting for a Jewish lady to have such a strong attachment to Anglo-Saxons (of course if we go too deep on this we'll get down our own "migration into the country fundamentally changed the nature of society" story) that she'd go to bat for them against the Germans or the Italians, but nevertheless hers is a unique stance and I find it interesting even when I think she's wrong.
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