Had the bishops in his home state of Georgia taken a stronger stand against racism when 19-year-old Clarence Thomas attended seminary in the late ’60s, he says he might be a priest today, not a U.S. Supreme Court justice, but he was so disheartened to see bigotry at the seminary go unchecked that he dropped out of the Church altogether for 25 years. It wasn’t until shortly after he joined the nation’s highest court, following an infamously difficult confirmation hearing, that Thomas returned to the faith of his formative years, inspired by memories of the religious sisters at his all-Black Catholic grammar school who taught him that every child of God, no matter their race or background, is made in his image and likeness.
