Catholic Democrats Applauds Nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor by President Obama
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Boston, MA - Catholic Democrats applauds U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor and President Barack Obama for his nomination of her to replace Associate Justice David Souter on the United States Supreme Court. If confirmed, Judge Sotomayor would be the sixth Catholic to join the current court.
"Not since President Eisenhower picked William Brennan in 1956 has a progressive Catholic been nominated to the Supreme Court," said Dr Patrick Whelan, president of Catholic Democrats. "At a time when a conservative Catholic bloc on the Court has fought in favor of executing minors, favored indefinite imprisonment, and accommodated torture-derived evidence through military tribunals, President Obama - himself a former beneficiary of funding from the US Catholic Bishops as a community organizer - has chosen a new kind of Catholic for this first opening on the Court."
President Obama has now broken new ground with Catholics on many fronts: the most Catholics ever serving in the Cabinet (nearly 1/3), the first Catholic vice president, and now a sixth Catholic Supreme Court Justice, whose appointment as the first Latina woman to the Supreme Court is also groundbreaking.
Steve Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats, added, "When placed in the context of his Common Ground speech at the Notre Dame Commencement last week, President Obama has moved vigorously to bring the common good sensibilities of the Catholic Social Tradition front and center in American public life."
Both of Judge Sotomayor's parents were from Puerto Rico, and she graduated from a Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx. She is a jurist of academic distinction, graduating summa cum laude from Princeton, completing law studies at Yale, and subsequently teaching law at both New York University and Columbia University.
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About Catholic Democrats
Catholic Democrats is an association of state based groups representing a Catholic voice within the Democratic Party, and advancing a public understanding of the rich tradition of Catholic Social Teaching and its potential to help solve the broad range of problems confronting all Americans. For more information about Catholic Democrats please go to www.catholicdemocrats.org
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