By John Dempsey, WLS-AM News

(CHICAGO) Catholic groups and other conservatives have criticized Illinois Democratic U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, for his questioning of a Catholic Notre Dame Law Professor, whom President Trump has nominated for a seat on the Chicago Federal Appeals court.

Durbin told “The Big John and Ramblin’ Ray Show” that there was nothing wrong about his questioning of Notre Dame professor Amy Coney Barrett, last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Durbin is a member.

The Senator, who is a practicing Catholic,  says when he asked Professor Barrett “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?”, it was because the professor had raised the issue in her own writings, and he was merely following up on the issue.

“There is no litmus test by religion”, Durbin told WLS.  “If she’d said she was orthodox Anglican, or orthodox Baptist, orthodox Jewish, whatever it might be, and had written on the subject when it came to being a judge, I think it’s fair to ask, ‘What does that mean?  What would it mean if you were to get this judgeship?'”    But I’m certainly not going to qualify or disqualify her based on her religious belief.   The constitution tells me exactly the opposite.   There is no religious litmus test for public office in America.   It’s one of the few things the constitution says unequivocally and I respect that very much.”

Barrett wrote in a 1998 law review article that Catholic judges, faithful to church teachings “are morally precluded from enforcing the death penalty.”   But the professor also wrote that if a judge could not follow the law in a capital punishment case, she should recuse herself and let another judge take over.

@ 2017 WLS-AM News,