If the SC refuses to overturn Roe, would bishops weigh in like some have done with elected officials in the US? Hard to say. It would be a riskier move for them than pressuring elected officials. I would suspect the public backlash would be greater against the bishops than by going after elected officials. Attacking judges looks more like attacking an institution, whereas attacking specific elected officials doesn’t carry the same connotation - you can attack Sen. Kennedy without seeming to attack Congress as an institution. Harder to make that distinction with SC judges. Bishops would have to weigh how much such an attack would harm the church over the long term.

I may be naive, but I tend to believe that jurists who reach the Supreme Court have by this point in their career thought through and reconciled their personal beliefs with the need to fairly and objectively administer a complex system of justice that will occasionally yield results that run counter to their own values.

Having said that, I have noted with some concern a growing inclination on the extreme Catholic right to censure political figures for not adhering rigidly to a Vatican-prescribed program. I’m thinking of the calls for the denial of sacraments to Catholics like John Kerry and Paul Martin for failing to toe the Vatican line. The Supremes aren’t subject to the same kind of political pressure (although, of course, an elected judiciary would be) - still, it’s a bit nervous-making.