FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (OSV News) -- At the annual Red Mass for the St. Thomas More Society of South Florida, Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz of the Florida Supreme Court said the late Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court best encapsulated the meaning and importance of the group's namesake saint.

St. Thomas More (1478-1535) was a lawyer beheaded by King Henry VIII for refusing to transfer his allegiance from the pope to the king. The Red Mass is a historic tradition within the Catholic Church dating back to the 13th century when it officially opened the term of the court for most European countries. The name of the liturgy stems from the red vestments of the presiding clergy.

"Thinking of St. Thomas More in the context of events like this inevitably calls to mind Justice Antonin Scalia's well-known ‘Two-Thomases' speech which the justice delivered dozens of times to audiences around the country beginning in the 1990s," Muñiz said.

Muñiz, appointed to the Florida Supreme Court by Gov. Ron DeSantis on Jan. 22, 2019, was the guest speaker at the Oct. 15 event during the group's 33rd annual celebration in Fort Lauderdale.

He noted that before he began studying law at Yale University, he attended a Knights of Columbus dinner at which Scalia gave his St. Thomas More speech."Justice Scalia's 'Two-Thomases' speech made a huge impression on me when I first heard it, and it has continued to have that effect each of the many times I have read it since. It was inspiring and exhilarating to hear one of my heroes, Justice Scalia, witness to our faith through a compelling and thought provoking account of another even greater hero, St. Thomas More," Muñiz said.

As a graduate of the University of Virginia, Muñiz said it was much to his chagrin that the "bad Thomas" in Scalia's legendary speech is Thomas Jefferson.

"The justice describes Jefferson's project of excising from the Gospel the elements that he found merely superstitious and fabricated, including the Virgin birth and Christ's resurrection from the dead."

"The resulting work, titled ‘The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,' portrays Our Lord as nothing more than an exemplary role model," Muñiz said.

In Scalia's words, Jefferson produced "a Gospel fit for the Age of Reason, or indeed for the wise of any age, including our own."

Enter St. Thomas More, himself a great man of his age, and a towering figure in England and throughout Renaissance Europe, Muñiz noted.

He said Scalia, an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1986 until his death in 2016, explained that Thomas More "went to his death ‘unsupported by intelligent society, by his friends and even by his own wife. More's peers felt that way because More was sacrificing his life for a principal -- papal authority over whether to bind or loose the marriage of King Henry VIII -- that they found silly, and that More's position made him a crank.'"

In historic contrast to Jefferson, St. Thomas More epitomized "an intelligent Christian appearing stupid to the world -- a fool for Christ," Muñiz noted.

"Justice Scalia praised the saint's idea of seeing not with the eyes of men, but with the eyes of faith. And the justice hoped to give his listeners -- those already wise in Christ -- the same courage."

Prior to joining the court, Muñiz served on the staff of then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as the presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed general counsel of the U.S. Department of Education. In addition to working as an attorney in the federal government and in private practice, Muñiz had an extensive career in Florida state government.

He served as the deputy attorney general and chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi; as deputy chief of staff and counsel in the Office of the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives; as general counsel of the Department of Financial Services; and as deputy general counsel to Gov. Jeb Bush.

Muñiz told the Red Mass gathering that St. Thomas More was his confirmation saint, "and I have had a devotion to him since my youth and that devotion to him has continued to grow throughout my career as a lawyer and a judge."

"I have an embarrassing number of Thomas More portraits and prints and statues and stuff in my office -- he is somebody who has been a huge spiritual guide for me over my entire life," Muñiz added.

Muñiz lives in Tallahassee with his wife, Katie Muñiz, and their three children. He grew up in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, where he attended St. James Catholic School and Bishop Ireton High School in the Arlington Diocese.

Scalia, he continued, stressed to private audiences not that reason and intellect must be laid aside where matters of religion are concerned, but to the contrary.

"Justice Scalia reminded his audience that a faith that has no rational basis is a false faith," Muñiz said. "These are all messages that one cannot hear too often. I think all of us, not just lawyers and judges, would profit from any time spent reflecting on the life and example of St. Thomas More."He added that another saintly "Thomas" bears remembrance, "one whose teachings our state and country desperately need -- as you probably guessed I am referring to St. Thomas Aquinas," Muñiz added."Scalia was famous for insisting there is no Catholic way of being a judge. I am not sure if that is right; maybe it is. But I do believe there is a Catholic way to think about the law -- a way of thinking that is exemplified in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas and that every American, Catholic or not, would do well to ponder."

Founded in 1989, the St. Thomas More Society of South Florida is a Catholic association of the region's legal community, including lawyers, judges, public officials and other law professionals dedicated to the advancement of the principles of St. Thomas More.

A Red Mass was first celebrated in Fort Lauderdale by Miami Archbishop Edward A. McCarthy Feb. 10, 1990, at St. Anthony Catholic Church.

- - - Tom Tracy writes for the Florida Catholic, news outlet of the Archdiocese of Miami. This story was originally published by the Florida Catholic and distributed through a partnership with OSV News.