The following excerpts are from National Catholic Register:
- WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia looks around the packed room in the Catholic Information Center (CIC) as if to estimate its temper.
- He begins his address quoting a Frenchman: “‘France is a country …’” A faint anticipatory chuckle ripples over the crowd, spilling out into the doorway where the late-comers stand.
- The justice corrects himself and adopts the appropriate accent. “‘Frahhhnce eez a cohhntry with two religions and three hondred cheeses. The United States eez a country with three hondred religions and two cheeses.’” He pauses for a moment and resumes his native inflection. “I always have trouble remembering the second cheese.”
- The crowd laughs — neither for the first nor for the last time that evening.
- Justice Scalia knows how to amuse his audience, even from behind the intimidating height of the Supreme Court bench. The atmosphere at the CIC on a Wednesday night in October is more relaxed and intimate than that of the court (despite the wire-eared security terriers present for Scalia’s protection), but the subject is as serious as any the court rules on: the separation of church and state.
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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Takes Aim at the Separation of Church and State | Daily News | NCRegister.com
