…on the majority’s religious identity:

Now, with an actual opinion on abortion from the new court in hand, the debate has moved from the theoretical to the concrete. Some legal scholars say the Catholicism of the five justices, in and of itself, means less than their conservatism. Yes, the Church hierarchy denounces legalized abortion, but many Catholics in public life, over the years, have drawn a bright line between their private beliefs and their public duties (memorably, John F. Kennedy in 1960, and Mario Cuomo in 1984).

Scholars also note that Justice William Brennan, who was carefully appointed to the “Catholic seat” by President Dwight Eisenhower, turned out to be one of the key supporters of the constitutional right to abortion. “There can be no greater proponent of a pro-choice vision of the 14th amendment than William Brennan,” said David Yalof, an associate professor of political science at the University of Connecticut and a scholar of the judicial selection process.

John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said that the existence of a Catholic majority on the court should not be minimized as a historical marker of “just how much the nation has changed over the last century.” But, he added, “When it comes to predicting what they will do, it’s important to note that this is a Republican Catholic majority.”

In fact, American Catholics are very much a two-party religion. The Catholic vote has typically split in recent presidential elections, and Catholic elected officials fill the top ranks of both parties. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Senator Patrick Leahy and the 2004 presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, are all Catholics – and Democrats who support abortion rights.

Ralph Neas, the president of People for the American Way, has been a fierce opponent of many of the Bush Administration’s judicial nominees – and is also a Catholic. “My problem with the right wing bloc on the court is their view of the Constitution, not their religion,” Mr. Neas said in an interview. “I am absolutely certain their views do not represent all American Catholics.”

In short, any discussion of the new Catholic majority on the Supreme Court only underscores the complicated, subtle role of religion in the public square – nearly 47 years after Kennedy tried to reassure an anxious country that it was safe to elect a Catholic. “I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me,” Kennedy declared in September 1960, when American Catholics were on the brink of their political ascendancy, and the questions they faced were more raw, but also more simple.