All Rev'd Up: Amy Coney Barrett's Conservative Catholicism

Hannah Uebele is a producer for Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and previously worked as associate producer for Boston Public Radio. She graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in English and Environmental Studies. She's a proud Delawarean but has found herself saying "wicked" more and more often, so the Bostonian metamorphosis is well underway.Contact: hannah_uebele@wgbh.org

September 28, 2020

Updated August 07, 2023

President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, a federal appellate judge and Notre Dame law professor, to the Supreme Court on Saturday. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold confirmation hearings for Barrett's nomination starting Oct. 12.

Reverends Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III spoke to Boston Public Radio on Monday about the potential for Barrett's conservative Catholic faith to influence her rulings, if confirmed to the Court.

"I think one of the things important to me, as a Christian, is that we don't weaponize Christianity," Price said, adding, "So the one piece about Christianity, that I wish was the main soundbite, is that Christianity should be about love, and love of every person."

Many Democratic leaders have expressed their worry of Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade and the Affordable Care Act getting overturned if Barrett is appointed. Monroe emphasized her concern for LGBTQ rights.

"With marriage equality, [Barrett] said it should have been state by state instead of federal decision," Monroe said. "The difficulty is, How do you disentangle religion and the American identity? It is so interwoven in the fabric of who we are as a people that I think the religious right has been able to bank on that."

Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist and the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology.

Price is professor of worship, church & culture and founding executive director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Together they host the All Rev’d Up podcast, produced by GBH.