More than two centuries of Protestant domination on the Supreme Court will end if Samuel Alito is confirmed as its next justice. For the first time in the nation's history, five Roman Catholics — a majority — would be on the high court.
Yet news that the son of an Italian immigrant father, someone who grew up in a suburban New Jersey parish where he served as a lector and later married, doesn't carry quite the power it might have in the days when Kennedys ran for the White House.
Catholics have become part of the nation's political mainstream — far removed from the blatant anti-Catholic prejudice that once permeated American culture. They are as divided as other Americans on abortion and other social issues that will be a focus of Alito's confirmation hearings — making an outpouring of religious pride for the conservative jurist less likely....