The Red Mass Reception
Last night, the Diocese of Trenton held its annual “Red” Mass. In case you do not know what a Red Mass is, it is a Mass that prays for lawyers, judges, and those who work in public service (i.e., politicians). The Red Mass is sponsored by the St. Thomas More Society; an organization of Catholic lawyers, judges, and public servants. Since the Mass was held at 4 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, I could not attend the Mass. You see, this year’s honoree is a native son of the parish at which I am currently assigned. He was born here in Trenton, attended Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows (before the merger with St. Anthony’s), and was married here. His mother, a wonderful 91 year-old lady, still is a faithful parishioner, although the honoree has since located out of State. Of course I am speaking about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. 
I had never met Justice Alito before, and only had a chance to speak with him briefly. He struck me as a very humble and sincere man. I know that he is very committed to his family. He frequently returns to Hamilton to visit his mother, and there is a rather persistent rumor that he does her grocery shopping at a local supermarket. He also looks in regularly on his aunt, his mother’s older sister, who has no other family besides her nephew and niece.
Justice Alito spoke at the dinner after the Mass (which I was able to attend) without notes. And while my poor memory will not allow me to give a detailed summary of his talk, the key point, IMHO, stemmed from two jokes that he told. First he spoke about a doctor, a lawyer and a teacher all arriving in heaven at the same time, and each were assigned their residence. The doctor got a nice house, the teacher a modest cabin, while the lawyer got a palatial mansion. When the doctor and teacher asked why the lawyer got such a palatial mansion, St. Peter replied, “Well, we have never had a lawyer in heaven before.” The second joke was about a lawyer who did not care for his residence in heaven, and being a lawyer, he filed an appeal with God. St. Peter told him it would take at least 3 years before his appeal would be heard. Later Satan came to the lawyer and said, “if you would like to file a change in venue to hell we can have your appeal heard right away.” The lawyer asked why, and Satan said that since all the judges are in hell the docket was very short.
While of course everyone laughed at these jokes, Justice Alito asked if it wasn’t a shame. Why has the legal profession gotten to be the punchline in so many jokes, and a reputation of being amoral at best, and immoral at worse. He pondered what would St. Thomas More, who of course was a lawyer and statesman as well as a devout Catholic, think he came to visit us today. While he was certain that St. Thomas More would applaud our religious tolerance, and independent judiciary, he feared that St. Thomas would be sadden by the lack of moral conviction in many in the legal profession and public service. In this country, while we have much religous liberty, it seems to be a liberty that we are only allowed to exercise privately and not express publically. Justice Alito thought that a key component in what he sees as a decline in the legal profession is that there is a move away for it being a profession, and being more of a business. He noted that while not that long ago most lawyers were generalists and most law professors had been practictioners, today most lawyers seem to want to specialize in a narrow area of the law, and in many law schools legal practitioners are looked down upon with near contempt.
I am not a lawyer, so I will leave it to those who are to comment on whether Justice Alito’s observations of the current trends in law are correct, but I was very impressed that he seems to genuinely reflect on how to integrate his faith into his professional life. He quoted from Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason), from memory mind you. He also related much of what he said to the life of St. Thomas More, clearly someone he tries to emulate. It was a good evening.
