Justice Scalia, All Is Lost?

Back in the 1980s, when my law degree was the primary credential under which I tried to serve ecclesial and civil society, I followed US Supreme Court cases with care. I read histories of the Court and biographies of the justices. I could competently discuss lines of cases in certain areas of constitutional law and had a working knowledge of what was coming before the Court and how the circuit courts below it were divided. Since earning my canon law degrees, however, and moving predominately into canonistics, the common law colors under which I sallied forth into American high court jurisprudence have slowly faded. Some friends and colleagues are, God bless them, experts on Supreme Court matters and from them I can learn who’s who and what’s what with the Supremes. But these days, I attend only to canonical and wider ecclesiastical issues that may surface at One First and Maryland.