When I reflect on Justice Scalia’s faith, I re-live the justice’s funeral Mass. Thousands silently gathered. Each moment was deliberate, measured, unhurried. There were the sounds of Gregorian chant, the smell of incense, a respectable amount of Latin, and no eulogy—precisely as the justice would have expected. And though there were two bishops and dozens more perfectly ordered priests in attendance, it was the justice’s son who celebrated the Mass. During his homily, Father Scalia remarked that “every funeral reminds us of just how thin the veil is between this world and the next, between time and eternity, between the opportunity for conversion and the moment of judgment. So we cannot depart here unchanged.”
The justice had passed away a week before. A bitter pill that no one had expected. I happened to be serving as one of his four law clerks at the time.
Months earlier, I also happened to meet the justice’s son, Father Scalia, at the invitation of a dear friend. We began meeting regularly to talk about Catholicism and occasionally succumbed to a pastry or two at the Heidelberg Bakery. These meetings marked the final chapter in my repeatedly derailed journey to join the Catholic Church.
Justice Scalia never mentioned these meetings; likewise, I rarely talked about my day job with Father Scalia. That’s not to say that the justice had no role in my becoming Catholic. The opposite—he was central to it.
He did not evangelize in chambers. Nor did he leave his Catholic faith for Sundays alone. There was the picture of St. Thomas More. Letters written and speeches given. Trips to Mass on holy days of obligation. And that uncompromising abidance by his oath, sworn before God, to faithfully and impartially discharge his duties and to protect the Constitution.
Of course, the most visible sign of the justice’s faith was his marriage to Maureen and their nine children. And it was that most visible sign that turned me toward the Church (at long last). I am most grateful that one of those nine children grew up to be a priest with the patience and fortitude to lead me to the Church. And I am similarly grateful for the image of the justice’s family at the funeral Mass. It is what I remember most about that day—the battalion of Scalias processing through the Basilica. Together, they were strong and resolute, each of them cared for by their mother, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews. They embodied the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage and children—a teaching that had long been a sticking point in my conversion and one that, in that moment, I finally understood.
As Father Scalia said that day, “We cannot depart here unchanged.” I did not. Four months later, I joined the Church in another Mass celebrated by the justice’s son.
In both life and death, Justice Scalia taught me much about Catholic life—to be unwavering at times, to live honestly and humbly, and to “be home for dinner!” (a regular admonition of his). I never sensed that the justice perceived himself as anything but an imperfect Catholic. But he was devoted. And that is what made him admirable, commendable, and dearly missed.
Taylor Meehan clerked for Justice Scalia during the Court’s October 2015 term. She practices law in Chicago.