Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

A Man of Good Humor and Good Will: Scalia Speaks, Ginsburg praises

Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived was released from Crown Forum today. The late justice's son, Christopher Scalia, co-edits the volume, alongside former Scalia clerk and EPPC president (and my boss), Ed Whelan.

It is a remarkably funny collection of speeches, culled by the editors for a lay audience. Ever intelligent and witty, Justice Scalia's levity enchants almost every page (granted, I haven't yet read the chapter on the Holocaust). The speech "Games and Sports" begins: "I have been asked many, many times to what do I attribute my well-known athletic prowess." His response unfolds as an amusing narrative of the neighborhood pastimes of his youth, from marbles to roller skating to Ringalevio (about the last, he writes: "I don't know how to spell it; I actually don't think it has ever been written down.") In his deeply moving introduction to the book, Christopher quips that his father wasn't all that sure how to pronounce his own name either...

Justice Ginsburg writes the foreword to the book, sharing her gratitude for their mutual friendship over the decades they served on the bench together. Yesterday, CBS News released an interview of Justice Ginsburg together with the late justice's widow, Maureen Scalia. The two recounted how important the justices' friendship was, as puzzling as it may have seemed to the wider world. They lamented the loss of the time when "across the aisle" friendships were more common. In a tribute to Ginsburg included in the book, Justice Scalia refers to the working relationship they developed as a "mutual improvement society," admiring Ginsburg's propensity to want to improve rather than correct. ('Not, 'this is wrong, Nino,' but 'the point would be even stronger if.'")

Both justices are celebrated as icons by opposing camps in the legal world today. The sharp vision of each seemed to have been honed by the other. Would that younger generations of Americans would learn the lessons of this remarkable friendship. 

All Catholic lawyers will want to read Scalia Speaks for its substance alone. Chapters include "Catholic Higher Education; Church and State; Faith and Judging; Nature Law; and Judges as Mullahs." But all of us would benefit from spending more time with this great man, whose good will - and great humor - ingratiated him to one of his greatest adversaries on the Court, and to untold audiences over the course of his lifetime. 

 

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