Robin Abcarian: We’re not as pious as we used to be, and this terrifies Justice Alito

Call it the Alito Fallacy.

Earlier this month, Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was in Rome, where he delivered a keynote speech at Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Summit.

Among the anecdotes he shared: Some years ago, at a museum in Berlin, he saw a little boy point to a wooden crucifix and ask his mother, “Who is that man?”

He did not report what the mother told her son, but he was apparently taken aback enough to read something ominous into the child’s innocent question.

“That memory has stuck in my mind as a harbinger