And then there were five. Samuel Alito will not glide on to the Supreme Court as gracefully as John Roberts. But glide he will. The Democrats don't have enough votes to block him in the full Senate (they have already lost a party-line vote in the Judiciary Committee). And they don't have the political capital to mount a filibuster. The result: the Supreme Court will soon have a Catholic majority for the first time in American history. This is a remarkable historical turnaround. Arthur Schle-singer senior once remarked that prejudice against the Catholic church was "the deepest bias in the history of the American people". The Protestant majority denounced Catholics as minions of the anti-Christ and servants of a foreign power, marginalised Catholic schools, demonised Catholic pastimes, particularly drinking, and tried to keep them out of high political offices. It is not so long since presidents observed an unwritten convention against having more than one papist on the court.
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