“As he put it later, ‘Like heck if I’m confessing to you, ‘ ” Paul Scalia said Saturday at his father’s funeral in Washington’s Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
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Father Scalia, one of the justices nine children, added humor to the somber ceremony telling a story of the time his father came to church for confession only to learn his son was the priest on duty.
“God blessed dad with a deep Catholic faith”, he said, and a love of country – a blessing that’s lost “when faith is banned from the public square”.
Mourners filled the capitol’s grandest Catholic Church on Saturday to pay their respects to the late justice Antonin Scalia.
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan (L) leaves the the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception after attending fellow Associate Justice Antonin Scalia’s funeral February 20, 2016 in Washington, DC.
Scalia’s casket arrived at the basilica after laying in repose at the Supreme Court, where President Obama was among the 6,000 people who paid tribute to Scalia on Friday.
Father Paul Scalia, the justice’s son, presided over the mass and delivered the homily.
It’s standard at Catholic funerals to omit a eulogy, but Fther Scalia offered a homily.
The front of the U.S. Supreme Court is seen early Friday, Feb. 19, 2016 in Washington.
After the Mass, family pallbearers carried his casket along a cordon of priests and saluting Supreme Court police officers, back to a hearse for a private burial.
By not attending Scalia’s funeral, the president is snubbing the justice’s family and giving ammunition to the Republican Party, which viewed Scalia as its patron saint of conservativism.
GOP presidential hopeful Ted Cruz planned to interrupt his campaign ahead of Saturday’s SC primary to attend the Mass. The Texas senator has been among those urging the Senate not to consider replacing Scalia until after the November election.
His death plunged the Supreme Court into uncertainty, leaving what had been a conservative-dominated body evenly divided in a year of blockbuster cases – on abortion, affirmative action, immigration and President Barack Obama’s health care law. Justice Clarence Thomas a close friend of Scalia and a longtime conservative ally on the bench, participated in the service, reading from the book of Romans. “I would wait until the nominee is made before I would make any decision”, said Iowa Republican Sen. “He lived life to the fullest”, said Dirk Kempthorne, who was sworn in by Scalia as secretary of the Interior in 2006. It was the first funeral for a sitting member of the United States high court since 2005, when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died.
Scheduled to give opening remarks at the Mass was Washington Archbishop Donald Cardinal Wuerl.
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Scalia’s son said he was a practicing Catholic “in the sense that he had not perfected it yet”. Scalia’s casket was placed upon the same catafalque used for President Abraham Lincoln.
