One last question for John Roberts

Tim Rutten’s passionate argument that John Roberts’ Roman Catholicism is irrelevant to the question of his confirmation as a chief justice of the United States [“Roberts’ Faith Is Not the Issue,” Aug. 20] might be more persuasive if then-Cardinal Ratzinger and some Catholic bishops had not inserted themselves and Catholic doctrine into the last election, particularly with threats to deny communion to John Kerry and other public officials who made a distinction between their private beliefs and their public responsibilities.

How would prospective Justice Roberts deal with a threat of excommunication? It is too late to put the question to Justices Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas but, given the Church’s newly aggressive political stance, the right time to put it to Roberts.

EDGAR SCHELL

Irvine