WASHINGTON — Justice Antonin Scalia used to say he was better at responding to criticism than to praise. But praise will be the order of the day at a funeral Mass for him here on Saturday as the nation’s capital pauses to mourn the passing of a jurist who left an indelible mark on the laws of his country.
Justices, judges, congressional leaders, cabinet secretaries, the vice president and at least one presidential candidate planned to gather at the nation’s largest Roman Catholic church to pay tribute to Justice Scalia. The longest-serving member of the current Supreme Court, he died at age 79 last weekend at a Texas ranch after nearly 30 years on the highest bench in the land.
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The funeral is expected to be one of those ritual Washington moments when the perpetual struggle at the intersection of law and politics is briefly suspended to honor one of the capital’s most celebrated and cheerfully controversial gladiators. Justice Scalia, who relished a vigorous debate, would hardly be surprised by the fierce battle that has erupted over his now-vacant seat, but his admirers hoped to focus for a few hours at least on the powerful legacy he left.
The funeral will be the first for a sitting member of the court since Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died in 2005 and only the second since Justice Robert H. Jackson died in 1954. Justice Scalia’s body lay in repose on Friday in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court, where President Obama and the eight other justices paid their respects along with the justice’s widow, Maureen, and their nine children.
Mr. Obama will not attend the funeral on Saturday, leaving it to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to represent the administration. The decision generated sharp criticism from some, including former Obama advisers, who called it a missed opportunity for the president to rise above the partisan fray that has erupted after Justice Scalia’s death. But others close to Justice Scalia and his family said it was more appropriate for the president to pay respects at the Supreme Court as he did on Friday.
The White House said the president and Michelle Obama had met privately with some members of Justice Scalia’s family while at the court. “The president and Mrs. Obama extended their personal condolences on behalf of the nation and expressed gratitude for Justice Scalia’s decades of public service,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said in a statement.
The monumental struggle set off by Justice Scalia’s death will be reflected at the service. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican presidential candidate who has vowed to make the election a referendum on the court and block any Obama nominee, rearranged his schedule to attend Saturday’s funeral even as voting opens in South Carolina’s crucial Republican primary. Mr. Biden, who as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of Justice Scalia’s confirmation in 1986, has publicly argued for Mr. Obama’s prerogative to nominate a replacement.
The Mass will include a homily from one of the justice’s sons, the Rev. Paul D. Scalia, the episcopal vicar for clergy in the Diocese of Arlington, Va. Four other sons will serve as pallbearers. Leaders of the Catholic Church will be on hand, including Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, who will offer opening remarks, and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the papal nuncio to the United States. Justice Clarence Thomas, who was Justice Scalia’s closest ally on the court for years, will read Romans 5:5-11.
The burial will follow the Mass and will be private. But the family announced that a memorial program for Justice Scalia will be held at 11 a.m. on March 1 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.
The son of an Italian immigrant father, Justice Scalia was born in Trenton, spent part of his childhood in New York City, finished first in his class at Georgetown University and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. After a stint in private practice, he went on to teach at the University of Virginia, served in the Nixon and Ford administrations and returned to academia at the University of Chicago.
President Ronald Reagan named him to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1982 and four years later made him the first Italian-American to serve on the Supreme Court. Once a lonely exponent of originalism, the notion that the Constitution should be interpreted based on the original intent of its authors, Justice Scalia through sheer force of will helped push the philosophy into the mainstream legal debate.
He was often in dissent, resisting in typically scathing terms what he considered the judicial activism of rulings like last year’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage. “The wins,” he once told his biographer, Joan Biskupic. “The wins. Damn few.”
But his wins came more readily in recent years with the addition of fellow conservatives, particularly in decisions like District of Columbia v. Heller, which he wrote for the court, recognizing for the first time a Second Amendment right for individuals to own guns.
Justice Scalia will be remembered for more than his legal philosophy, though. An enthusiastic fan of opera, hunting and the New York Yankees, he lived large in a judicial monastery where his colleagues sometimes seemed bland by comparison. He did not mind mixing it up with his fellow justices at oral arguments or in their briefs, even as he maintained a close friendship across ideological lines with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
A deeply religious Catholic, Justice Scalia was married for more than 55 years and became the father of nine children and the grandfather of 36, a family life that will be on display at Saturday’s funeral at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Sunday, 21 February 2016
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