The National Register article “In Praise of the Supremes” by George Weigel, published on June 24, 2026, asserts that the U.S. Supreme Court is the only functioning branch of American government, contrasting it with a dysfunctional Congress and a presidency reduced to the “mood of one man.” The piece lauds current justices as “among the finest public servants,” decries court reform proposals, and frames the Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade as an act of constitutional fidelity. This commentary, emerging from a nominally Catholic intellectual, epitomizes the naturalistic, modernist mentality that substitutes human legal constructs for the supernatural reign of Christ the King — a reign the article ignores entirely, revealing its profound spiritual bankruptcy.
The Idolatry of the Secular Tribunal
Weigel’s praise rests on a gross overestimation of a purely naturalistic institution. He describes the Supreme Court as “governed by reason and serious debate,” ignoring that human reason without the light of divine revelation is prone to error and sin. The Catholic faith teaches that true justice and order derive solely from God’s law, as St. Pius X articulated in *Lamentabili sane exitu*, condemning the proposition that “the entire government of public schools… may and ought to appertain to the civil power” without ecclesiastical oversight. The Supreme Court, a product of Enlightenment secularism, has consistently legislated moral abominations — from abortion “rights” to the redefinition of marriage — that directly contradict the natural law and divine positive law. To call such a tribunal “functioning properly” is to invert Catholic doctrine, which holds that any human institution that facilitates grave sin is corrupt and disordered, regardless of its procedural efficiency.
Silence on the Kingship of Christ
The most damning omission in Weigel’s commentary is its complete silence on the social kingship of Jesus Christ. Pope Pius XI’s encyclical *Quas primas* establishes that Christ’s reign extends over all nations and individuals, and that rulers have a duty to publicly honor Him and order society according to divine law. Weigel, a self-described Catholic scholar, makes no mention of this dogma, thereby reducing faith to a private matter compatible with the liberal separation of Church and State — a position condemned by Pius IX in the *Syllabus of Errors* (proposition 55: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church”). His praise for a Court that has usurped divine prerogatives in moral legislation is a practical denial of Christ’s authority. The article’s worldview is that of a Catholic Faith that has been eviscerated of its supernatural claims, functioning merely as a patina of “values” within a secular framework — precisely the modernism condemned by St. Pius X.
Defense of a Court That Legalized Child Sacrifice
Weigel mourns the reversal of *Roe v. Wade* as a loss of a “right” invented out of thin air, yet he fails to acknowledge that this decision was itself a judicial usurpation that legalized the murder of innocents — a crime against the Fifth Commandment. The article’s framing reveals a deep attachment to a “constitutional order” that has systematically attacked the natural law. By lamenting the “politicization” of the Court, Weigel defends an institution that for decades served as the engine of secular revolution, imposing moral relativism on the nation. His perspective aligns with the indifferentism condemned by the *Syllabus* (proposition 18: “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion…”), as he treats a gravely unjust legal system as a neutral arbiter rather than an instrument of divine chastisement for a nation in rebellion against God. The true Catholic position is not to praise a secular court for occasionally correcting its own errors, but to call for the complete submission of all legal systems to the Kingship of Christ and the teaching authority of His one true Church.
The Modernist Clergy and Their Naturalistic Faith
The article exemplifies the output of a post-conciliar “Catholic” intellectual class that has embraced the world. Weigel’s status as a distinguished senior fellow at a policy center and his access to Supreme Court justices illustrate the integration of nominal Catholics into the power structures of a godless regime. Such figures are part of the clerical-laity that has internalized the very errors condemned in 1907: “Contemporary Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true knowledge without transforming it into a certain dogmaless Christianity” (*Lamentabili*, proposition 65). Weigel’s commentary is a symptom of the abomination of desolation occupying the Vatican structures — a “Catholicism” that finds its heroes in secular jurists and its hope in political processes, while the true Mass, the true sacraments, and the true social reign of Christ are abandoned or betrayed. This is not a defense of civilization; it is a betrayal of the supernatural destiny of man, reducing the Mystical Body to a mere ethical society compatible with liberal democracy. The only “reform” that matters is the conversion of society to the integral Catholic faith, not the tinkering with the personnel of a godless tribunal.
Source:
In Praise of the Supremes (ncregister.com)
Date: 24.06.2026