Faith, Family And The Law: Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett Opens Up In New Memoir
NEW YORK — Amy Coney Barrett is no stranger to controversy.
It’s what to be expected of anyone who serves on the Supreme Court during a time marked by intense political polarization and ongoing culture wars.
“We need to learn to compromise and talk to one another,” Barrett said on Thursday night in an interview with Bari Weiss, hosted by The Free Press at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, to promote her new book, “Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.”
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Barrett, 53, was born in New Orleans and grew up in a practicing Catholic family. She later attended Notre Dame Law School and her early career included a prestigious clerkship for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, whose textualist and originalist philosophy still strongly influences Barrett today. Scalia was also a practicing Catholic.
Barrett said the country is currently divided by what she called “passionate disagreement” on a host of political and social issues – but added that this has happened before throughout American history. Her current tour, however, isn’t just about selling books, but also rebuilding public trust in an institution that has approval ratings reach historic lows.
The Supreme Court, Barrett insisted, “does operate with integrity.”
Barrett said what motivated her to write the book, scheduled to be released Sept. 9, is to shed a light on the Supreme Court’s inner workings and offer a behind-the-scenes look at what the justices do. She added that while the Supreme Court may not always “get it right” in every case, she does “think Americans should trust that the court is trying to get it right.”
This process, Barrett added during the 90-minute event, is trying to get people to understand that justices aren’t political.
“Thinking in those categories of left and right, it’s just the wrong way to think about the law,” she explained before a packed theater.
In fact, Barrett’s much-anticipated memoir offers personal insight into her life as a justice — balancing motherhood (she has seven children), public scrutiny and daily judicial routines — while demystifying how the Court operates and how she interprets the law.
On the bench, Barrett espouses an originalist philosophy regarding constitutional matters. Nonetheless, it’s Barrett’s Catholicism that has both defined her background and become a point of intense scrutiny. During her Senate confirmation hearings, when asked how her faith would affect judicial decisions, Varrett firmly replied, “Never. It's never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge's personal convictions … on the law.”
During her onstage interview with Weiss, Barrett talked about topics often tabu for Supreme Court justices, who rarely make public appearances. One of them was addressing the sexual misconduct allegations made against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a fellow Catholic and part of the Court’s conservative bloc, during his 2018 confirmation hearings.
“Brett Kavanaugh is a friend and a good man,” she said. “And I watched what he was going through — and it was extremely painful.”
Amy Coney Barrett is part of a 6-3 conservative majority that makes up the Supreme Court. (Wikipedia Commons photo)
Although appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020 — a move that solidified a conservative majority — Barrett has occasionally broken from that group, particularly on emergency docket cases. This nuanced record, her supporters say, reflects a justice guided more by legal principles and texts than ideology.
Most notably, Barrett’s memoir includes her first public explanation of her vote in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 decision that overturned abortion. Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, was rooted in the right to privacy guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
But Barrett argued that the original ruling lacked historical grounding and that the Court should respect democratic processes by returning authority on abortion to the states. While most Americans support abortion, Barrett said the Court’s job is to apply the law — not gauge whether the public is for or against it.
“I do think it’s pretty risky to take into account public opinion when deciding cases,” she said.
Beyond abortion, Barrett also waded into Trump’s second term. Asked whether the country is going through a constitutional crisis as the president, according to his critics, attempts to reshape the government through executive orders and his administration’s frequently fights with lower-court judges, Barrett replied, “I think the Constitution is alive and well.”
Barrett, who said she’s not on social media, conceded that being a Supreme Court justice hasn’t won her any popularity contests.
Weiss also asked Barrett about recent criticism she has received from Trump supporters who have slammed her decision to side in several cases with the court’s liberal justices.
“To be in this job, you have to not care,” she said, referring to those critics. “You have to have a thick skin.”
Nonetheless, during tough times, Barrett said she has her Catholic faith and the people around her rely upon.
“I’m very fortunate,” she said. “I have a wonderful family.”
But Barret said she isn’t above getting spicy in some of her opinions.
“I’m from New Orleans,” she said, “and I know everyone likes a little Tabasco once in a while.”
Clemente Lisi serves as executive editor at Religion Unplugged.