Why did Justice Sonia Sotomayor apologize to the public?

During recent remarks at the University of Kansas School of Law, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a statement about fellow Justice Brent Kavanaugh that made headlines. In response to an opinion he wrote, she claimed that he showed himself to be out of touch with the experiences of working-class people.

Referring to the justice but not by name, she said, “This is from a man whose parents were professionals and probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour or the piece like I do.” Her words prompted a response by the Wall Street Journal editorial board titled, “Justice Sonia Sotomayor Profiles Brent Kavanaugh.”

A few days later, she issued a rare public apology for her remarks, stating: “I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.”

Her statement follows public apologies by golfers Sergio Garcia and Robert MacIntyre after their angry outbursts during the Masters made headlines. (I will say that Garcia’s statement was much more apologetic than MacIntyre’s.) Scottie Scheffler issued a similar public apology to a reporter after he called one of his questions “awful” and laughed at the interviewer during the tournament.

I understand why Justice Sotomayor and the three golfers would apologize directly to those their words and actions offended. With Garcia and MacIntyre, this would be Augusta National and the officials who maintain the course and run the tournament; with Justice Kavanaugh and Scottie Scheffler, this would be the people of and to whom they spoke directly.

Here’s my question: Why did they also feel the need to make their apologies to the public at large?

The answer is relevant not just to them but to every human soul.

Public apologies and global solidarity

With the three golfers, we could impute materialistic and selfish motives rather easily: Garcia and MacIntyre want to be invited back to play in future tournaments, while Scheffler wants to maintain positive relations with journalists (which he does almost without fail). It’s harder to find an existential motive for Justice Sotomayor’s public statement unless she has come under criticism from her fellow justices or the legal community in ways I wouldn’t know.

But the practice of issuing public apologies for personal failings extends far beyond them. Nearly every category of public figures, from presidents to celebrities to athletes to business leaders to ministers, has made them over the years.

The underlying motive, I believe, points to a reality that far transcends this issue and speaks to a truly transformative truth.

It is a fact of Scripture that we are each made by the same Father in his image and likeness. As a result, while we speak of many races in the context of ethnicity, there is truly only one race—the human race. Accordingly, we feel an innate solidarity with each other that we do not with any other species.

When people are killed, their deaths make the news; when animals and plants die, not so much.

Many of the world’s religions embrace and reflect this fact within their particular worldviews. Muslims the world over view the global Muslim community as part of the ummah, meaning “nation.” What happens to one Muslim happens to all Muslims.

This is a significant reason why many Muslim nations support the Palestinians with regard to Israel and the West—not because there are military or economic reasons to do so, but because most Palestinians are their fellow Muslims. To the degree that Israel wants better relations with its Arab neighbors, it needs better relations with the Palestinians.

The Jewish people feel and share a similar solidarity. As I wrote recently in response to Yom HaShoah, the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Jewish people see themselves as part of the same race and culture, no matter where and how they live. This solidarity helps explain their survival, perseverance, and flourishing despite horrific persecution over the centuries.

Texting in the back seat of the car

John Donne famously wrote,

No man is an island,

Entire of itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were:

As well as if a manor of thy friend’s

Or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

His words were published in 1624, but they have never been more relevant than today.

One of the crises arising from the digital revolution is the degree to which it has atomized human experience. We no longer follow the same news our neighbors follow. Instead, we read, watch, and listen to content curated by algorithms that align with our preferences, so that advertisers on these platforms can sell to us more effectively.

Many don’t even watch the same shows on television at the same time in the same room, each watching what they want on tablets with headphones. Children get in the back seat of the car and begin texting friends, oblivious to the rest of the family. I see the same at restaurants and in movie theaters.

Not to mention the partisan polarization that is dividing cities, communities, and families. It seems there has never been a time when our society was more fractured and factionalized than today.

And yet, there’s something in us that wants community, transcending all of this. There’s a reason Gen Z men are attending religious services more regularly these days. There’s a reason shopping malls are making a comeback in the US: people are looking for places to “hang out.” There’s a reason Catholicism is surging these days, as is the Orthodox Church.

As the Creator said of the first human he created, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). We are made to need our Creator and to need each other. This is not a “bug” in our “wiring” but a fixture in our nature.

Wings of the same airplane

During Tuesday of Holy Week, a “lawyer” of the Pharisees “asked [Jesus] a question to test him” (Matthew 22:35), specifically, “Which is the great commandment in the Law?” (v. 36). This was a “test” because the Jews recognize 613 different commandments. If Jesus identified one as “great,” they could accuse him of denigrating the rest.

You know his response: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment” (vv. 37–38). He then added, “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 39).

It would seem that he cited two commandments, not one. But the two are separate sides of the same coin, wings of the same airplane. To do one requires the other: we cannot truly love God unless we love everyone he loves, and he loves everyone, including our “neighbor.” Nor can we truly love our neighbor unless we love God and thus can share his love with others.

In Luke 10, Jesus gave the same answer to another “lawyer” (vv. 25–27), to which the man asked, “And who is my neighbor?” (v. 29). Our Lord responded with the famous Parable of the Good Samaritan, demonstrating that our “neighbor” is anyone who needs something we can do to serve them.

So, to apply our conversation about human solidarity and cultural community, I’ll ask you: Who is your neighbor today?