Roberts, Enmeshed

An editorial about John Roberts from Newsday:

Roberts, enmeshed
The chief justice nominee begins hearings in a town where he is deeply connected to the senators who will question him and the press will cover him

BY KIM EISLER
Kim Eisler is author of "Shark Tank: Greed, Politics, and the Collapse of Finley Kumble, One of America's Largest Law Firms." He is national editor of Washingtonian Magazine.

September 11, 2005

WASHINGTON

If there was anything surprising about the nomination of John G. Roberts to be the next chief justice of the United States, it would be that a president who claims to disdain Washington would nominate such an insider to lead the court for the next quarter-century.

***
Jane and John Roberts were married in 1996 by a doctrinally conservative Catholic priest from Washington named Peter Vaghi. A former big-firm lawyer himself, Vaghi attended law school at the University of Virginia before joining the priesthood in 1985. He was pastor at the restored downtown St. Patrick's Church when he married the Roberts. Vaghi has carefully cultivated close relationships with two other members of the U.S. Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Scalia played an influential role in persuading fellow Justice Clarence Thomas to convert to Catholicism several years ago. Thomas is a graduate of Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass. One of his classmates and best friends at Holy Cross was Peter Vaghi. With Scalia's input, Father Vaghi led Thomas to the Catholic Church.

Jane Roberts also is a graduate of Holy Cross College, serves on the school's board of trustees and frequently interacts with Thomas at alumni functions and dinners. She is a close friend of Thomas' wife, Virginia, and of Mary Ellen Bork, the onetime nun who is married to conservative lawyer and Supreme Court reject Robert Bork. Vaghi participated in the conversion of Bork to Catholicism.

Vaghi, now a monsignor and the pastor of the 1,500-member Church of the Little Flower in suburban Maryland, will soon have three justices under his influential gaze. Little Flower is the church to which the Roberts belong. With connections like that, it's no wonder Vaghi's name is repeatedly mentioned as a possible future bishop and then cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church.

***
If Roberts drifted to the left in his decisions, he wouldn't be likely to draw much fire from conservative columnist Robert Novak, either. When the once-Jewish curmudgeonly columnist was converted to Christianity, one of the priests officiating was Roberts' priest, Msgr. Vaghi. Novak is solidly in Roberts' corner.

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
Move over Dan Brown. The MSM continues to do stellar work in uncovering the Papist conspiracy to dominate the United States Supreme Court.

But the question everyone in the press and on the Senate Judiciary Committee is really dying to have answered is: Where does John Roberts fall on the Wojtyla-Ratzinger Continuum?