The hand gesture

United Press International

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia startled reporters in Boston just minutes after attending a Mass [March 26]by making a hand gesture some consider obscene.

A Boston Herald reporter asked the 70-year-old conservative Roman Catholic if he faces much questioning over impartiality when it comes to issues separating church and state.

"You know what I say to those people?" Scalia replied, making the gesture and explaining "That's Sicilian." The 20-year veteran of the high court was caught making the gesture by a photographer with The Pilot, the Archdiocese of Boston's newspaper.

"Don't publish that," Scalia told the photographer, the Herald said.

He was attending a special Mass for lawyers and politicians at Cathedral of the Holy Cross and afterward was the keynote speaker at the Catholic Lawyers' Guild luncheon.