Traditional Catholic Teaching on Amy Barrett Being a Supreme Court Justice

[Jon Doe]

It seems a "Catholic" woman with 7 children and a husband may be nominated for the Supreme Court.

Does anyone else sense something un-Catholic about a woman and mother of 7 children devoting her life to being a full time judge and now potential Supreme Court Justice?

Is not the vocation of women to be mothers and wives? Not working long hours for the government in positions of authority deciding legal cases?

This is, of course, a verboten thought in today's Godless anti-Christ society where there is no such thing as gender and everyone is interchangeable.

But isn't there something to be said for the proposition that in any civilized and sane Catholic society women would not be and not desire to be Supreme Court Justices, but would rather strive to be the best wives, mothers, and homemakers they can?

Look at this video of her speaking about judicial issues. Isn't there something wrong here in your Traditional Catholic sense? Why did this woman feel the need to take on debt and years of study to have decades of full time and overtime jobs studying these arcane laws and knowing tons of information about jurisprudence? Her husband is a prosecutor and makes enough money for the the family. Instead of staying home and giving her 7 children a full time mother she is waxing poetic about judicial precedent she must have spent thousands of hours pouring through. If she makes it  onto the Supreme Court she will be doing nothing but deciding cases the rest of her natural life, working long full time hours while her 7 kids are raised, in large part,  by teachers, day care workers, and staff.

The Satanic lie that has been sold to these career women is that anything they do in the secular workforce can hold a candle to their value at home as a mom and wife. They have really demeaned their worth by trading this gift in for a boring, technical, masculine life reading legal treatises and giving lectures. From a Catholic point of view, what a complete sad waste. This is modern feminism and it is infected the Novus Ordo completely. It is sad and a tragedy, but yet 99% of Catholics will celebrate it as a triumph.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yjTEdZ81lI[/yt]

[Greg]

Who would you suggest instead?

Scalia was a Traditional Catholic man.  He's dead.

Civil War may be about to break out in the USA and you are worried that a woman with 7 children might be too feminist for your taste?

Try posting here www.cathinfo.com    You will like them.  They are naval gazing idealists like you.

[Greg]

Case A.  A Catholic woman with an IQ of 150 marries a supportive husband, has a live in nanny and a cleaner and raises 7 Catholic children, whilst at the same time having a legal career and ultimately becomes a supreme court judge who helps overturn abortion in the USA.  The marriage lasts.

Case B.  A Catholic woman with an IQ of 100, marries a pipe smoking, tweed wearing layabout who reads Chesterton, spouts theology and struggles to bring up 3 children and has separate beds by the age of 31 since they cannot afford a larger family.  I mean really cannot afford them, as he makes $28,000 a year, is in an out of work, and they live in a tiny rented house.  At 34 she has mental depression, the marriage is unhappy, the kids sense this, one of the 3 lapses as a result, but 2 keep going to mass.  The marriage lasts until they die but they both find living with each other a cross as a result of the poverty and depression.

Who used their talents better.  Who is God more pleased with?

I cannot say, that is God's call.  But my guess is Case A.

We all know plenty of Case B scenarios in the Trad world who pontificate about case A people.

[paul14]

Paul's corollary to Godwin's Law: is an adage asserting that "as a traditional catholic forum thread length grows, the probability of a reference to St. John Chrysostom approaches 1".

[Non Nobis]

God uses imperfect people, even non-Catholics like Trump. He can use a novus ordo Catholic woman who is not living a life that is ideal for a mother of 7.  It is good to recognize their flaws and not idealized them, so I thanked the OP. But we can't always reject them altogether in life if they are doing much good and the best we know,  so I thanked Greg.

I have a 21 year old niece who is interested in studying law, and not feeling called to marriage or motherhood. I am not going to recommend she emulate Amy Barrett.

[Greg]

She has 7 children (2 adopted).

She is hardly someone ultra focused on her career or she would have 2 children.  She is probably just bloody clever and highly motivated.

How many career women have 7 children?

[John Lamb]

Well before the modern age, it wasn't at all uncommon for women high up in society to use nannies. There may be too much pressure on women to work outside the home these days, and not enough respect given to motherhood and child rearing, but that doesn't mean that women have ever been alien to work. The whole stay at home mother, doll wife thing seems a very modern ideal (1950s), not especially traditional. Besides all that, past a certain age I really don't think children are all that needy with respect to their parents. They don't need a protective mother doting on them constantly, as long as they have a safe and humane environment. What is important is that the children get regular contact with their parents, and above all that the parents show they genuinely care about their children. Half an hour of genuine love and attention is worth a lot more than 8 hours of more or less passive neglect.

[John Lamb]

Case A.  A Catholic woman with an IQ of 150 marries a supportive husband, has a live in nanny and a cleaner and raises 7 Catholic children, whilst at the same time having a legal career and ultimately becomes a supreme court judge who helps overturn abortion in the USA.  The marriage lasts.

Case B.  A Catholic woman with an IQ of 100, marries a pipe smoking, tweed wearing layabout who reads Chesterton, spouts theology and struggles to bring up 3 children and has separate beds by the age of 31 since they cannot afford a larger family.  I mean really cannot afford them, as he makes $28,000 a year, is in an out of work, and they live in a tiny rented house.  At 34 she has mental depression, the marriage is unhappy, the kids sense this, one of the 3 lapses as a result, but 2 keep going to mass.  The marriage lasts until they die but they both find living with each other a cross as a result of the poverty and depression.

Who used their talents better.  Who is God more pleased with?

I cannot say, that is God's call.  But my guess is Case A.

We all know plenty of Case B scenarios in the Trad world who pontificate about case A people.

In terms of merit, A and B seem roughly equal. It's impossible to distinguish them really. If I was forced to guess which one is more likely to go to heaven, I'd have to choose B purely based on what Jesus says about the poor being blessed and the rich finding it difficult to enter heaven. But again, in terms of merit I can't see that there's anything between them.

[Greg]

Not the willfully poor.

That is called sloth.  Burying your talents.

I know Traditionalists with 3 children on welfare who have not held down a full time job in the last 20 years.  It is fairly common in the UK and Europe.  Perhaps less so in the USA.

A person who works their butt off, goes to lawschool, holds down a law career and has 7 children 2 adopted just for extra work, is superior to a back-peddling Trad.

[The Theosist]

The OP is the trad-Cat version of this meme.

[John Lamb]

A person who works their butt off, goes to lawschool, holds down a law career and has 7 children 2 adopted just for extra work, is superior to a back-peddling Trad.

Sure they're superior in the sense of being more worldly wise. But in terms of merit and in the eyes of God, the money and social standing the rich person earns is worth exactly the same as the lazy person's collection of internet points won from beating others in pointless arguments, i.e. zero. They're both wasting their efforts, and in a way that's really more similar than dissimilar. If the rich person tries to offer their career and their children to God at their judgement, God will toss them aside as having no worth unless they were opportunities for the person to show charity. Exactly the same with the Internet spats the lazy person got himself involved in.

St Therese expressed this well when a nun answered the bell with promptness and detachment, and Therese said that she'd performed a more meritorious act than if a high ranking prelate had convinced the French government to subsidise all the monasteries in France. An old Buddhist sage said something similar. The Chinese Emperor had built countless monasteries and had countless copies of their scriptures made, and when he asked how much merit all this was worth, the sage (Bodidharma) said "no merit".

[Greg]

Well, if she rids the US of Abortion, or makes it a bit harder, and saves a few thousand babies a year, it will be more than all of us put together have ever done.

She could not have been in that position, without being a successful lawyer first.

[Bernadette]

No, I don't see anything unCatholic about this.

[Vetus Ordo]

The Satanic lie that has been sold to these career women is that anything they do in the secular workforce can hold a candle to their value at home as a mom and wife. They have really demeaned their worth by trading this gift in for a boring, technical, masculine life reading legal treatises and giving lectures. From a Catholic point of view, what a complete sad waste. This is modern feminism and it is infected the Novus Ordo completely. It is sad and a tragedy, but yet 99% of Catholics will celebrate it as a triumph.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yjTEdZ81lI[/yt]

If Professor Amy Barrett is nominated to the Supreme Court, this is objectively good news.

You need to understand the context and the nuances of real life. Is any traditional Catholic even in a position to be nominated to the Supreme Court? No. She is, though. While women are to be primarily valued as mothers and wives, they can lawfully assume other roles in the public domain if needed. Thank God for her presumable nomination in these dark times, instead of whining about it.

[Elizabeth.2]

I am rooting for Barbara Lagoa.  She clerked for Justice Thomas.
She proved her mettle with the Elian Gonzales affair.  She understands commies.