When 48-year-old Notre Dame Law School professor Amy Coney Barrett was vetted for her appointment to the Chicago-based 7th Court of Appeals Nov. 2, 2017, she didn’t disclose her involvement in South Bend, Ind.-based Charismatic Catholic group People of Praise. Why Barrett failed to disclose her participation in the group is anyone’s guess, but it now looks like it’s a kind of religious cult. Barrett’s involvement was by no means peripheral with now deleted Web pages showing she was designated as a “handmaid,” a term designating high leadership by a female member. As Barrett’s confirmation hearing draws near Monday, Oct. 12, Democrats members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will no doubt want to hear more about Barrett’s involvement in the group. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) drew criticism in 2017 suggesting that “dogma” lives within Barrett.
Feinstein’s GOP critics said she questioned Barrett’s Catholic faith but Feinstein wanted to know more about her religious involvements. No one on the Judiciary Committee in 2017 questioned Barrett about her involvement in People of Praise, largely because she didn’t disclose it. It becomes a bigger deal now because every Democrat on the Committee wants to disqualify Barrett for any reason, focusing on her views on abortion and the Affordable Care Act AKA Obamacare. Whatever Barrett’s conservative views, Democrats in her confirmation hearing should focus on why she didn’t disclose in her Court of Appeals or Supreme Court applications her long-standing membership and involvement in People of Praise. Web pages from People of Praise South Bend chapter removed Barrett’s role as a “handmaid,” a designation as a church elder in commune-like group..
Handmaids were a reference to Mary, Jesus’ mother, whose church depictions show her ministering to the needs of the son of God. Handmaids in People of Praise sometimes offer weekly prayer groups or provide meals to members unable to provide for themselves. Handmaids, unlike the group’s male “heads,” cannot provide pastoral supervision to male members. People of Praise emphasizes the personal spiritual relationship with Jesus, includes baptism in the Holy Spirit involving speaking in tongues to receive divine prophecies. Founded in 1971 in South Bend, the group has some 20 branches and 1,800 members, spanning the United States and Caribbean Islands, possibly Jamaica where Barrett adopted two children. Members of the Judiciary Committee should be interested in whether or not Barrett speaks in tongues as part of her religious practice in People of Praise.
Finding pages removed the People of Praise Web site suggests that Barrett thought her active involvement would look unfavorable to the Judiciary Committee commissioned with the unenviable task of vetting her for Associate Supreme Court Justice. Reports by the Associate Press indicate that People of Praise online magazine “Vine and Branches” deleted reference to Barrett attending a national meeting for senior leaders of the group. Deleting back copies of pages from 2017, it’s clear that someone wanted Barrett’s family, including her father’s name removed from any reference to heading up the New Orleans chapter of People of Praise. Concerted attempts by Barrett to remove her or her family’s names from active involvement in People of Praise suggest at the very least that it could be used against her in confirmation hearings in the Circuit Court of Appeals and Supreme Court.
Republicans rushing to confirm Barrett must come to grips with Barrett’s deep, longstanding involvement in what looks like a religious cult. It’s not inappropriate for a Judiciary Committee member to ask Barrett whether she speaks in tongues, if, for no other reasons, to confirm her deep religious convictions in her Catholic Pentecostal religious faith. Failure to disclose her long-standing involvement and removing pages from the group’s magazine because it might reflect unfavorably on her confirmation process indicates that Barrett has something to hide. It’s not enough to say that the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty extends to quasi-religious cults without some degree of scrutiny. Focusing in her confirmation hearing only on her views on Roe v. Wade or Obamacare does not answer why she instructed members of People of Praise to delete her references in Web pages.
Members of the Senate Judiciary need to look at a concerted attempt by People of Praise to erase Barrett’s involvement in the group. People of the Praise is not a Roman Catholic, Vatican-approved religious group but rather a derivative of the Charismatic Pentaconstal Church, where religious conversion, healing with hands, baptisms in the holy spirit, religious prophecy and speaking in tongues are parts of the religious ritual. Judiciary Committee members on both sides of the aisle need to decide whether those kind of religious practices befit a Supreme Court Associate Justice, regardless of how they say they can keep their religious beliefs separate from their work on the bench. All is not lost whether or not Barrett’s nomination gets withdrawn. While it looks like a strict party line vote confirming Barrett, Republicans too should look carefully at why People of Praise went to great lengths to conceal her involvement.
