The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Staff Reports
Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2018 03:51 PM
OPED: STARNES: President Of Notre Dame Deeply Concerned, Offended By Sen. Dianne Feinstein's Comments About Catholics
Amy Coney Barrett, a law professor at Notre Dame, was grilled by Democrats over how her Catholic beliefs might influence her decisions from the bench.
"When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for, for years in this country," Sen. Feinstein said.
Feinstein has been widely condemned for what many are calling anti-Catholic bigotry and bullying.
"It is chilling to hear from a United States Senator that this might now disqualify someone from service as a federal judge," Notre Dame President John Jenkins wrote in a public letter to the California lawmaker.
He took great exception to her remark that the "dogma lives loudly" in the professor.
"I am one in whose heart 'dogma lives loudly', as it has for centuries in the lives of many Americans, some of whom have given their lives in service to this nation," Jenkins wrote. "Indeed, it lived loudly in the hearts of those who founded our nation as one where citizens could practice their faith freely and without apology."
Barrett was also interrogated by Sen. Al Franken and Sen. Dick Durbin -- who demanded to know if the professor was an "orthodox Catholic."
"I ask you and your colleagues to respect those in whom “dogma lives loudly”—which is a condition we call faith," he wrote. "For the attempt to live such faith while one upholds the law should command respect, not evoke concern."
Progressives and secularists are waging a brutal assault on people of faith -- and we must stand together -- and renounce anti-Christian bigots and bigotry -- especially when those bigots walk the halls of Congress.