Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee, is a hero of some religious Americans, but others view her connection to a little-understood faith group with deep suspicion...
When Barrett was confirmed as a U.S. Circuit Court judge in 2017, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) angered some Catholics by bringing up Barrett’s Catholicism. “You have a long history of believing your religious beliefs should prevail,” Feinstein said to Barrett. “When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country.”
...People of Praise is focused on community. Single members might choose to live in a house with a family, or live in a house with other single members. Each member has a spiritual guide, called a “head.”
The regional female leaders were called “handmaids” before the Margaret Atwood novel and subsequent TV series made that word too charged, and are now called “women leaders,” said Craig Lent, People of Praise’s overall coordinator...
Members generally belong to their local Catholic parish and attend those services on Sunday, then meet with their local People of Praise community in the afternoon, as well as in small, single-gender groups once a week, Lent said...
Adrian Reimers, a founding member, left People of Praise and wrote a manuscript that paints the group in its early years as having a powerful — in his view, dangerous — influence over its members. The 1997 document talks about how people who leave are described as having a “quitting spirit” and how leaving the group is like committing adultery.
Coral Anika Theill told the National Catholic Reporter that her five-year stint in the group in Oregon “still traumatizes me to this day.” She said she suffered under conservative ideology, secrecy toward outsiders and strict gender-role divisions that emphasized women’s submission...
Members contribute at least 5 percent of their gross income to the community, Lent said. Their commitment also may mean choosing not to take a promotion or a job in a city that does not have a People of Praise branch.
Lent said the group is politically and theologically diverse. Asked whether members hold particular views about hot-button issues such as abortion and gender, he said they believe that life begins at conception, and that men are the leaders of the home...
...Before Antonin Scalia’s death, in fact, the entire court was made up of Catholics (six) and Jews (three). Today, it is made up of five Catholics, two Jews and one Episcopalian...
Rob's comment:
Just what we don't need, another right-wing Catholic on the Supreme Court---or even another Christian, for that matter. We need some atheists and more Jews.
After all, Christianity is essentially a cult on steroids---a cult that got a big boost with early state support from emperor Constantine.
My favorite Gore Vidal novel is Julian, about the Roman emperor who tried to stop the growth of Christianity. Alas, he failed. 
