IMO, the presence of so many Catholics on the SCOTUS has less to do with any sort of Catholic legal tradition or philosophy and more to do with the fact that over the past 60 years or so, Catholic education K-12 has done a better job than the teachers’ union-controlled public school system in developing students with the liberal-arts background and critical-reasoning skills useful in catapulting to the top of the legal profession. I believe that 6 of the 9 are products of Catholic education K-12: the GOP appointees (minus Alito) plus Sotomayor.
No it’s because traditionally Protestants didn’t ignore the religious and foundational dimensions of Western law either. That’s changed. The average Evangelical has zero clue what role even the Protestant Reformation had in shaping the ongoing legal tradition already at work in the Western world.
I think it has to do more with Catholicism being biggest on the upper east coast and in Mexican areas. Most of the Supremes come from the cloistered east coast and the Ivy League self-licking ice cream cone.
Ergo, we wind up with a lot of Catholics on the court. Same with Jews in America.
The Religious minorities of America dominating the courts has more to do with the upper east coast culture having an outsized footprint on America.
Catholic grammar schools place an emphasis on grammar and diagramming sentences. I went to grammar school, not elementary school. I know the difference between the indicative and the subjunctive. That makes a difference in a contract. I wish somebody would tell Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Chris Wallace to stop saying “If he was” instead of “If he were”. I don’t understand why those sub literates are paid so much money.