Six of the nine current Supreme Court justices are Catholic: Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. That is two-thirds of the bench, drawn from a faith held by roughly 20 percent of American adults.1Pew Research Center. 10 Facts About U.S. Catholics
The Six Catholic Justices
Clarence Thomas has the longest tenure of the group. Nominated by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, he was raised Catholic, left the Church for more than two decades, and later returned, citing in part the example of the nuns who taught him in segregated Savannah, Georgia.2Gallup. The Religion of the Supreme Court Justices
Chief Justice John Roberts was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005 to succeed William Rehnquist.
Samuel Alito joined the following year, also a George W. Bush nominee, completing a group of three Catholic justices appointed by Republican presidents before the Obama administration.2Gallup. The Religion of the Supreme Court Justices
Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice, was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009. She was raised in the faith but has described herself as “maybe not traditionally religious.”
Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed in 2018 after President Donald Trump nominated him to replace the retiring Anthony Kennedy.
Amy Coney Barrett, also a Trump nominee, joined in 2020 and is perhaps the most publicly devout of the six. She is a member of People of Praise, a small charismatic Christian community whose members are predominantly Catholic.2Gallup. The Religion of the Supreme Court Justices
What About Neil Gorsuch?
Justice Neil Gorsuch is sometimes counted as a seventh Catholic. He was raised in the faith, but he now attends an Episcopal church with his family, which makes him Protestant by current affiliation. The National Constitution Center has noted that he “is sometimes considered a sixth Catholic justice having been raised as a Catholic, but reportedly now attending Episcopal services.”3National Constitution Center. The Justices Faith and Their Religion Clause Decisions For purposes of the Court’s current religious composition, most observers place him among the Protestants.
The Rest of the Bench
Elena Kagan, appointed by President Obama in 2010, is the Court’s only Jewish member. Ketanji Brown Jackson, confirmed in 2022 to replace the retiring Stephen Breyer, has described herself as a nondenominational Protestant. That makes the full breakdown six Catholics, two Protestants (Gorsuch and Jackson), and one Jewish justice.2Gallup. The Religion of the Supreme Court Justices
How This Compares to the Country
The imbalance is striking. About 20 percent of American adults identify as Catholic, yet Catholics hold 67 percent of the seats on the Court.1Pew Research Center. 10 Facts About U.S. Catholics No other religious group on the Court is anywhere near as overrepresented relative to its share of the general population. Whether that composition affects case outcomes is a separate and contested question, but the raw numbers draw steady public attention.
Is a Catholic Majority Unusual Historically?
Yes. For most of American history, a single Catholic on the Court was considered remarkable. Roger Taney became the first Catholic justice in 1836, appointed by President Andrew Jackson as Chief Justice, and no second Catholic joined him during his tenure.4Oyez. Roger B. Taney Three decades passed after his death in 1864 before another Catholic reached the bench. From the late nineteenth century through the twentieth, an informal tradition of maintaining a single “Catholic seat” generally held, with figures such as Edward White, Pierce Butler, Frank Murphy, William Brennan, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy filling it one at a time.
The current cluster of six Catholic justices has no precedent in the Court’s history. It was built gradually, through appointments by presidents of both parties over roughly three decades.