In an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal today, William A. Galston joins ranks with other liberal commentators who have criticized Senator Feinstein’s questioning of Seventh Circuit nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Galston invokes “philosophical and constitutional first principles” and starts with Madison’s position that (in Galston’s summary) “the duty of faithfulness to divine command and the inner light of conscience must take precedence over the claims of civil society.” He then reviews the positions taken by various Catholic public officials, both judges and non-judges: William Brennan, Antonin Scalia, John F. Kennedy, and Mario Cuomo. He concludes (emphasis added):

None of these Catholics in public life took the position that he had the right to use his office to impose his faith on others. Ms. Barrett doesn’t either. She stated repeatedly during her Senate hearing that it is “never appropriate” to do so and that her religious affiliation and beliefs “would not bear on the discharge of my duties as a judge.”
But instead of giving priority to civil law, as Justice Brennan did, or insisting that resignation is the only way to resolve a conflict of conscience, as Justice Scalia did, her law-review article recommended something else: recusal on a case-by-case basis. This was what she and Mr. Garvey believed to be the best way of ensuring that Catholic judges neither betray their conscience nor impose its duties on fellow citizens.
Whatever its merits, this stance fits squarely within America’s judicial tradition—and it has nothing to do with dogma.