Wiriting the New York Times, Samuel G. Freedman, a Jewish journalism professor at Columbia University, calls attention to two Supreme Court 5-4 decisions involving supposed religious liberties: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Greece v. Galloway. In both cases, the five Justices in the majority were the five male Catholic Justices on the Supreme Court. These two cases raise the disturbing possibility that they are theocons.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) July 13, 2014: The recent Supreme Court ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby has understandably generated a lot of discussion involving different angles on the ruling.

Samuel G. Freedman, a Jewish journalism professor at ColumbiaUniversity, published the op-ed commentary "Among Justices, Considering a Divide Not of Gender or Politics, but of Beliefs" in the New York Times dated July 12, 2014 (but dated July 11, 2014 on the newspaper's website).

Freedman's angle for discussing the ruling involves the religious divide among the Justices: three are Jewish, but six are Roman Catholics. (Disclosure: I come from a Roman Catholic background. However, for many years now, I have not been a practicing Catholic. Today I would describe myself as a theistic humanist, as distinct from a secular humanist.)

The ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby involved a 5-4 divide among the nine Justices. In this case, and in another case that Freedman discusses, Greece v. Galloway (about public prayer at a government meeting), the five male Justices in the majority were all Roman Catholics. Because the two cases that Freedman focuses on involved the practice of religion, he reasonably suggests that we Americans should consider the religious divide of the nine Justices now serving on the Supreme Court.

In the spirit of considering the religious divide, Freedman makes the following statements:

"For Jews [in the United States], said the political scientist Kenneth D. Wald of the University of Florida, a secular state became synonymous with their comfort and accomplishment in the United States. 'Defending and extending the secular definition of the American state,' he has written, 'became the (often unstated) core political priority of America's organized Jewish community.'"

For the sake of discussion, let's say that Wald's characterizations of American Jews are basically accurate. In addition, let's allow that his characterizations may help us understand the three Jewish Justices.

Now, Damon Linker has published the book The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege (2006).

On the front cover of the dust jacket, we read the following statement: "For the past three decades, a few determined men have worked to inject their radical religious ideas into the nation's politics. This is the story of how they succeeded."

Linker focuses primarily on certain Roman Catholics. But are the six Roman Catholic Justices similar to the theocons in the sense of seeing themselves as waging war on secular America, or at least on "the secular definition of the American state" that Wald describes in the above quote?

I hope that they are not. But the theocons discussed by Linker are not exactly a novelty among Roman Catholics. Why not? Let me explain.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, Roman Catholic popes have inveighed against modernity. Secularism is presumably a byproduct of modernity. So they are also against secularism. But we may wonder if the papal denunciations of modernity and secularism have trickled down to ordinary Catholics such as the six Justices.

Philip Gleason, a historian at the University of Notre Dame, has published the book titled Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, 1995). As the title of his book clearly indicates, the papal inveighing against modernity and secularism trickled down to Roman Catholic institutions of higher education in the United States in the 20th century.

For relevant critiques of modernity and secularism involving now-emeritus Pope Benedict XVI (also known earlier as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger), see the following four books: (1) Values in a Time of Upheaval (2006), (2) Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures (2006), (3) The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion (2006), and (4) Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam (2006).

In short, we can assume that the six Catholic Justices did not escape from the papal critiques of modernity and secularism as part of their Catholic cultural conditioning.

Now, Linker accurately characterizes the theocons he discusses as holding radical religious views.

But we would be well advised to think of the views of American Catholics as falling somewhere on a spectrum -- with the radical religious views of the theocons at the right end of the spectrum.

So the six Catholic Justices may not all fall at the radical right end of the spectrum, even if they did not escape from the influence of papal critiques of modernity and secularism as part of their Catholic cultural conditioning.

Next, I want to discuss my favorite scholar, Walter J. Ong, S.J. (1912-2003). His entire formal education was in Roman Catholic educational institutions up to the time when he proceeded to undertake doctoral studies in English at HarvardUniversity. So there is no conceivable way that he could possibly have escaped the influence of papal critiques of modernity and secularism.

But surprise, surprise, he did not subscribe to the papal critiques of modernity and secularism. (He has more than 400 publications of different sorts to his credit, including a number in which he explicitly discusses religious themes.)

However, I am sorry to say that Ong's work has not had much influence on his fellow American Catholics, probably because they are under the influence of papal critiques of modernity and secularism that he does not subscribe to the papal critiques of modernity and secularism.

Nevertheless, his example shows that not all American Catholics are under the influence of papal critiques of modernity and secularism, as the theocons discussed by Linker are.

In conclusion, let us hope that one or two of the six Catholic Justices are not under the influence of papal critiques of modernity and secularism to the degree that theocons discussed by Linker are. But if five of them are under the influence of papal critiques of modernity and secularism, then we are probably going to see more ruling similar to those in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Greece v. Galloway in future cases involving supposed religious liberties.

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview