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Grand Inquisitor Scalia?


Updated Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2002, at 11:39 AM ET

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Reader Comment From The Fray:

Scalia is certainly doing a selective reading of the Bible and Church tradition to muster support for his position in favor of capital punishment. In the chapter before Scalia's quote, Paul says "recompense no man evil for evil" and quotes the scriptural passage indicating that vengeance rests with the Lord, not man. Also, while there have been cases where the Church over the years permitted and even implemented the death penalty, the current opposition is not an entirely new phenomenon. Part of the dispute between Thomas a Becket and Henry II was over the use of capital punishment.

The real irony of Scalia's originalist view of Christianity is that Christ Himself was hardly an originalist. He opposed (or at least reinterpreted) Mosaic law about stoning adulteresses, performed miracles on the Sabbath and committed other acts that ran afoul of tradition. Why, He was practically the Earl Warren of 1st century Palestine. I suspect that if Justice Scalia were there at the time, he would have sided with the Pharisees.

--Neal

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(2/27)

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