Religion & Law

So far, the most controversial revelation regarding the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor is her comment in a 2001 speech at Berkeley which included the following statement:

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn?t lived that life."

Although the statement may raise legitimate political and jurisprudential questions related to her confirmation, it could be construed as consistent with the Catholic principle of the preferential option for the poor.  Both Sotomayor's statement and the preferential option imply that privilege can result in lacunae requiring a "view from below" in order to identify injustice.  The preferential option as a principle of Catholic social thought has its origin in the work of liberation theologians such as Gustavo Gutierrez.  In a 1980 sermon, Pope John Paul II articulated it as...

"a call to a special solidarity with the humble and the weak, those who are suffering and weeping, who are humiliated and left on the fringes of life and society, in order to help them to realize ever more fully their own dignity as human persons and children of God."