Many Catholic lawyers belong to an organization called the "Thomas More Society", named for their patron saint. Each year, the Society sponsors the "Red Mass" (see photos) at the opening of the Supreme Court sessions in both the U.S. and Canada. Is this ominous ritual compatible with the separation of Church and State?"If Judge Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, she will be the sixth Roman Catholic of the nine justices... Two other justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer — are Jewish. When Justice David Souter, an Episcopalian, soon retires, Justice John Paul Stevens will be the lone Protestant." -- AP News
"St. Thomas More, counsellor and advocate, learned in the law, chancellor of charity and jurist of justice, merry martyr, scholar and canonized saint, may the Lord of all law and of all lawyers make me at your request a little more like you today than I was yesterday." -- Prayer to St. Thomas MoreOne of "saint" Thomas More's famous persecutions was that of William Tyndale, the Protestant hero (and ex-Catholic) who produced and distributed the first English translations of the Bible in defiance of the papacy. Thomas More, to whom these Catholic lawyers pray for guidance, and the Bishop of London arranged to have Tyndale burned alive as a "heretic" for his defence of religious freedom and his criticism of the corrupt Roman Church.
"Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered." -- Luke 11:52
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