Scalia gesture not obscene, court rep says

US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made a Sicilian gesture when a reporter tried to question him as he was leaving Mass on Sunday in Boston, but the gesture was not obscene, a court spokeswoman said yesterday.

The Boston Herald reported yesterday that when its reporter asked Scalia about ''those who question his impartiality when it comes to matters of church and state," Scalia responded, ''You know what I say to those people?" and then made ''an obscene gesture."

''He did make a gesture," Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a telephone interview. ''It was a hand off the chin gesture meant to be dismissive, and not at all obscene."

The sign, made by placing the back of the fingers underneath one's chin and flicking them forward, is used by some Italians to express irritation. Scalia, 70, who is of Italian heritage, was in Boston for a Mass for politicians and lawyers at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in the South End.

The Herald reported that a photographer for The Pilot, a newspaper published by the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, took a picture of Scalia making the gesture.

CHARLES A. RADIN