Contrary to reports, Harriet Miers was not raised as a Catholic

Catholic News Service
Oct. 22, 2005

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Harriet Miers was not raised as a Catholic.

Catholic Church records and the White House both refute what has become a boilerplate part of discussions about Miers, the White House general counsel and nominee for the Supreme Court.

News stories, commentaries and editorials nationwide have repeated the description that Miers was brought up Catholic but now attends an evangelical Protestant church.

However, according to White House spokeswoman Maria Tamburri, "Harriet Miers did not grow up Catholic."

When news reports first quoted the nominee's acquaintances as saying she had been raised a Catholic before joining an evangelical Protestant church in 1979, the editor of the Texas Catholic, newspaper of the Dallas Diocese, began checking records of baptisms and other sacraments.

"The Diocese of Dallas has no record of Harriet Miers or her immediate family ever having been a member of the Catholic Church," said Deacon Bronson Havard, spokesman for the Diocese of Dallas and editor of the newspaper. "We have checked all known sacramental records."

Miers' longtime friend, Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, has been variously quoted as saying Miers was "raised Catholic," or that her family attended both Catholic and Protestant churches or that she "had a Catholic upbringing."

Since her nomination was announced Oct. 3, those comments have evolved into the widespread assumption that Miers was a baptized Catholic who left the church as a young adult to join Valley View Christian Church with a full-immersion baptism. Several local and syndicated newspaper columnists have raised theological concerns about the favorable spin some evangelicals have given to the idea that Miers' left the Catholic Church to "find Christ" as an evangelical Protestant.

Miers might well have occasionally attended Catholic churches as a child or young adult, but there is no evidence that she ever considered herself a Catholic.

Deacon Havard also said as an active Catholic and journalist for 35 years in Dallas he has never heard anyone refer to Miers as a Catholic or former Catholic until the current set of rumors.

He noted that a local Episcopal church has pews dedicated to her parents and that she worshipped there with her family on a recent trip to Dallas. Deacon Havard also said it was reported locally that Miers on the same Sunday attended a worship service by a group that split from Valley View Christian Church, which she and Hecht, among others, recently left.