The burial site remains undisclosed.
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A separate memorial service for family and friends will be held in Scalia’s honor on March 1, USA Today notes. In keeping with his wishes, there were no eulogies at Saturday’s traditional Roman Catholic funeral mass at the ornate Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
The courtliness of Washington’s bygone days met the combativeness of the social media era Saturday at the funeral of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a man who merged the two seamlessly. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden, who share Scalia’s Catholic faith, will be at the services instead.
Rev. Scalia told the mourners that once his father realized it was his son on the other side of the confessional box, he quickly departed, saying, “Like heck I’m confessing to you”.
The presidential hopeful tweeted: ‘I wonder if President Obama would have attended the funeral of Justice Scalia if it were held in a Mosque?
One of the late justice’s nine children, Paul Scalia, a Roman Catholic priest, delivered a homily to the congregation during the service.
“He wanted a simple pastoral mass. This was close to it”, said Theodore Olson, a former US solicitor general and conservative legal scholar, with a laugh.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was also there, as was Republican presidential candidate and Texas Sen. President Obama says he will nominate a new justice.
The funeral for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has ended. All the other justices of the past six decades died after leaving the bench, and presidents attended some of their funerals but skipped others. The church, dedicated to Mary, is a pilgrimage site where Pope Francis celebrated the canonization Mass for St. Junipero Serra previous year – the first-ever such Mass on American soil.
Talk has already begun on Justice Scalia’s replacement on the Supreme Court.
Justice Antonin Scalia was laid to rest Saturday (Feb. 20) in a ceremony thousands attended.
“We have to pick somebody, as the president will, who is intellectually competent, is a person of high moral character, is a person who is demonstrated to have an open mind, and is a person who doesn’t come with a specific agenda”, he said. His dad would “lead a chorus of “ummmmmmms” to spotlight this oratorical shortcoming”.
He was known as a leading proponent of conservative policies and an “originalist”, meaning that he was guided in his intepretation of the U.S. Constitution by what the country’s founders in the 18th century had in mind when they wrote the national charter. He also addressed conspiracy theories that his father did not die of natural causes, calling them a “hurtful distraction”. President Obama and Michelle Obama met privately with some members of Justice Scalia’s family while at the court Friday.
Justice Clarence Thomas plans a reading from the New Testament at the funeral Mass for his late colleague Antonin Scalia.
Scalia’s son, the Rev. Paul Scalia, officiated, offering a heartfelt homily to the man he and his eight siblings called “Dad”. Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington; Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington; and Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the papal nuncio to the United States, will attend.
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The coming partisan battle over who will fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia is certain to fuel growing public perceptions that the Supreme Court is becoming more of a political body than a neutral forum for deciding cases based on the law.
