Some of the justices of the Supreme Court have become quite defensive lately, angered by application to them of epithets like “party hack.” They should not complain to those who call them “party hacks,” but to Mitch McConnell and other Republicans who selected them and, in some cases, forced their nominations through the Senate. Justice Barrett has declared that “judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties,” but they become so if political parties select judges based on their “judicial philosophies.”

Also, I wonder at the presence of six Roman Catholics on the Court. The Founders would have apoplexy if they could see this. But of course, Catholics come in several varieties, and I do not think we should lump Justice Sottomayor with the rest of the Catholics. But we can say at least that there are five right-wing Catholics on the Court. Is this simply a coincidence?

J. Edgar Hoover recruited Catholics for his F.B.I. Those Catholics were uniformly anti-Communist and so fit neatly into Hoover’s program. They were part of an authoritarian institution, and were pre-programed to avoid overmuch thinking and to obey unquestioningly.

I do not think the five reactionary Cathlolic justices of the current Supreme Court were appointed solely because they are Catholic, but their Catholicism, and their type of Catholicism, must have seemed to those who selected them to be an additional guarantee that they think our way and would “do the right thing” about Roe v. Wade.

Are these justices “political hacks”? We don’t have to be so coarse in describing them. “Politico-judicial ideologues” sounds much more classy and means the same thing.