Covenant Communities Documents

Welcome to CovComDocs!

CovComDocs is a collection of documents, articles and newspaper reports that describe the troubles Covenant Communities have experienced, from the 1970s to the present.  Sometimes additional materials are added that describe different aspects of Charismatic Renewal.  All Covenant Communities are Charismatic.  Members have received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues, or prophesy, or engage in deliverance ministries.  CovComDocs attempts to be a resource to past and present members of Covenant Communities, because leaders have never shared the problems of other communities with current members.

Covenant Community: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a public group where former members gather to recount their experiences with in Covenant Community.  Some of those experiences were good, some were bad, and some were downright ugly.  

The group is a place for former members to work through their experiences with other former members.  Occasionally, present day members of the SOS and other communities will also join this group.  Often, they try to say that the communities have changed.  In some ways the communities have changed.  But when asked to forward documentation of these changes, nothing formal has ever been produced.  In fact, most CovComs keep their teachings behind a firewall, only accessible to members.  

CovComDocs.Com

There were three major groupings of Covenant Communities in America: People of Praise, Sword of the Spirit and International Brotherhood of Covenant Communities.

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Covenant Community, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

https://www.facebook.com/groups/254976977856577/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 10/29/2020

NXIVM, Siddha Yoga, People of Praise, Golden Dawn, Greece, Legal 

Huffpost: Watching 'The Vow' Is Giving Me Flashbacks To My Time Living With A Charismatic Guru

I understand how good it feels to find a teacher who sees you.

"I'm holding back the urge to scream "Wake up!" at Alison Mack, an actor involved in NXIVM (pronounced "Nixium"), the cult depicted in HBO's documentary series "The Vow."

I grip the round seam of the sofa cushion while watching her meet her creepy guru, Keith Raniere, for the first time. She cries as he reflects back to her the way she condemns herself by limiting her feelings of bliss to art.

It's obvious to viewers that he's seducing her, but I also understand, from my psychotherapy training, that he is mirroring her, a process in which the therapist reflects something back to the client that the client hasn't been able to articulate. The stark relief of being seen is intensely powerful; it is the fulfillment of a need the client didn't know existed but had been missing all along. 

I also understand how good it feels to find a teacher who sees you. In the 1990s, I was accepted as a full-time sevite — a staff member who does selfless service — in exchange for room and board at the Siddha Yoga ashram in the Catskills."

Page Six: Actress Nicki Clyne reveals 10-year relationship with Nxivm sex-cult leader

"The Canadian starlet revealed in newly unsealed court documents that she was Nxivm leader Keith Raniere's "partner" for 10 years.

In a letter to a Brooklyn federal judge ahead of Raniere's sentencing for running a master-slave group within the upstate organization, Clyne argued that it was "absurd" to say it "was created for Keith to have sex partners" — and she should know.

"I find this idea completely absurd and even offensive — as a woman and a partner of Keith's for over a decade," Clyne wrote in a letter of support for Raniere unsealed Tuesday [10/20/2020] in Brooklyn federal court.

"I have never known Keith to want intimacy with someone who doesn't want it, and it's a ridiculous notion to think he would have gone to all that trouble for sex."

Clyne's letter was one of dozens written by former students and supporters ahead of his sentencing for sex-trafficking and other charges next week.

The 37-year-old actress has previously been identified by federal prosecutors as having been a part of Raniere's "inner circle" or "first-line masters" in the secret group, called DOS — along with her wife, former "Smallville" star Allison Mack.

Mack, purportedly Raniere's right-hand woman in DOS, has herself pleaded guilty to racketeering and conspiracy charges, including extortion and forced labor."

The Guardian: Revealed: ex-members of Amy Coney Barrett faith group tell of trauma and sexual abuse

"People of Praise hire lawyers to investigate historical sexual abuse allegations as former members speak of 'emotional torment'

Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the supreme court has prompted former members of her secretive faith group, the People of Praise, to come forward and share stories about emotional trauma and – in at least one case – sexual abuse they claim to have suffered at the hands of members of the Christian group.

In the wake of the allegations, the Guardian has learned that the charismatic Christian organization, which is based in Indiana, has hired the law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to conduct an "independent investigation" into sexual abuse claims on behalf of People of Praise.

The historic sexual abuse allegations and claims of emotional trauma do not pertain specifically to Barrett, who has been a lifelong member of the charismatic group, or her family."

The Guardian: The women who brought down Greece's Golden Dawn

" ... Legal experts note role female lawyers took in confronting far-right party's violent tactics

The dark episode of Golden Dawn – its meteoric rise from being a fringe movement 40 years ago to Greece's third-biggest party on the back of protest votes over EU-dictated austerity – has raised disquieting questions.

When historians look back they will also see a nation whose political class was inexcusably slow in dealing with the rightwing menace and a society whose silence was deafening. A police force whose complicity enabled the extremists to act with impunity – until their murder of a popular anti-fascist Greek hip-hop artist, Pavlos Fyssas, provoked a backlash that was impossible to ignore – has already been illuminated by the trial. Officers who sympathised with the group, covering up attacks on leftists, migrants and refugees and the LGBTQ community, were among the hearing's 68 defendants.

Instead, it took the justice system, viewed as one of the country's few meritocratic institutions, to confront the party's violent tactics and thuggish behaviour."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

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Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.

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CultNEWS101 Articles: 10/7/2020

Shambhala International, Troubled Teen Industry, People of Praise, The Charismatic Movement, Exclusive Brethren

The Walrus: Survivors of an International Buddhist Cult Share Their Stories

An investigation into decades of abuse at Shambhala International

"ON APRIL 4, 1987, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche lay dying in the old Halifax Infirmary. He was forty-seven. To the medical staff, Trungpa likely resembled any other patient admitted for palliative care. But, to the inner circle gathered around his bed and for tens of thousands of followers, he was a brilliant philosopher-king fading into sainthood. They believed that, through his reconstruction of "Shambhala"—the mythical Tibetan kingdom on which he'd modelled his New Age community, creating one of the most influential Buddhist organizations in the West—he had innovated a spiritual cure for a postmodern age, a series of precepts to help Westerners meditate their way out of apathy and egotism.

Standing by Trungpa's deathbed was Thomas Rich, his spiritual successor. Rich was joined by Diana Mukpo (formerly Diana Pybus), who had married Trungpa in 1970, a few months after she turned sixteen. Also present was Trungpa's twenty-four-year-old son, Mipham Rinpoche. While the cohort chanted and prayed, twenty-five-year-old Leslie Hays listened from outside the door. Trungpa had taken her as one of his seven spiritual wives two years earlier. After being called in to say a brief goodbye, Hays walked out into the evening, secretly relieved Trungpa was dying. She would no longer be serving his sexual demands; enduring his pinches, punches, and kicks; or listening to him drunkenly recount hallucinated conversations with the long-dead sages of medieval Tibet."

The Salt Lake Tribune: Transforming Transparency in Utah's Troubled Teen Industry

"A podcast on AnchorThe "Toughlove" based 'Troubled Teen Industry' was spawned by "America's Most Dangerous Cult", Synanon, and funded by the US Govt. WHICH has been simultaneously funding unethical and involuntary social psychology experiments on children while publicly decrying their tactics as "brainwashing" and 'torture'."

Christianity Today: The People of Praise, Charismatic Catholics, and Fringe Religious Groups

"People of Praise.

You may never have heard of it before the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett––who is said to be a part of the group––to the Supreme Court.

You will probably hear that they are a far-right fringe group, but they are actually part of the charismatic movement, and a bit of history may help us to understand them better.

The Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements

Charles Parham founded the tiny Bethel Bible School in the heartland of Topeka, Kansas, in 1900. While he invited "all Christians and ministers who were willing to forsake all, sell what they had, give it away, and enter the school for study and prayer," he surely had no idea that 120 years later to the month of its founding, the Pentecostal / charismatic / spirit-filled movement would have 600 million adherents and be arguably the strongest global expression of Christianity across the twentieth century.

Growing out of the larger eighteenth-century holiness tradition, that obscure beginning––including a watch night service December 31, 1900, where Agnes Ozman reportedly began speaking in Chinese–– was soon followed by manifestations in Houston, Texas, and the more publicized Azusa Street Revival in southern California. William Seymour and Azusa rightly are seen as the key gathering point and accelerator of the movement.

Soon, the movement spread across the nation and overseas. Denominations were formed (or reformed) over the decades: Church of God, Assemblies of God, Apostolic Faith, Church of God of Prophecy, and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. (Interestingly, the Church of God Cleveland predates Azusa and would later become a more traditional Pentecostal denomination.)

And, as will become important later, these Pentecostals were also evangelicals. In 1943, American Pentecostal churches were accepted as members of the National Association of Evangelicals.

The Charismatic Movement

In the mid-twentieth century a new movement arose called the charismatic movement. In this movement, such Pentecostal practices as speaking in tongues and the baptism of the Holy Spirit spread into mainline and other established but not-previously Pentecostal traditions.

I wrote a series explaining the rise of the charismatic movement, explaining:

Dennis Bennett had been considering spiritual growth with a small group of Saint Mark's Episcopal Church in Van Nuys, CA. Some were unsure of the direction that Bennett was leading. Tensions grew volatile in his large church in Van Nuys, CA, when he declared to the congregation on Easter Sunday of 1960 that he had received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

The news was not well received by all and Bennett later resigned. Both Time and Newsweek ran articles on Bennett and the church later that year, and the story appeared on local and national television. In a sense, Pentecostalism was entering the mainline (the Episcopal Church, no less) and this was news. This began the mainstreaming of continualist practices (like speaking in tounges, praying for healing, etc.) that were primarily found in Pentecostal churches that, up until now, were often on the fringe of Protestantism.

It is in this movement—the charismatic movement of the Episcopal church—that I heard the gospel and became a Christ follower. In my prior article, I did not spend much time on the charismatic Catholic movement, but you cannot understand People of Praise without understanding the charismatic Catholic movement."

Lolly's True Crime World: Lost Lives of Dedicated Exclusive Brethren Family

"Roger Panes was a member of The Exclusive Brethren aka The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church before he brutally murdered his wife and their 3 children with an axe, then hung himself with a length of electrical cable.

Why on earth would a loving Christian family man, who was happily married, absolutely dedicated to his faith and loved his church kill his entire family and then himself? Well, I am trying hard to understand that question and I will try to unravel it here.

In November of 1973, Roger Panes was 'shut-up' by the church for a minor misdemeanour of shunning another member, which he admitted to being wrong in doing. For those of you not familiar with the practices of The Exclusive Brethren, being 'shut-up' means to be shunned by all other members of the church, isolated from them and personal family."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultEducationEvents.com

CultMediation.com   

Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.

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Please forward articles that you think we should add to CultNEWS101.com.

CultNEWS101 Articles: 10/3-4/2020

Conspiracy, QAnon, NXIVM, People of Praise, LGBTQ

Jezebel: Eat, Pray, Conspiracy: How the Wellness World Embraced QAnon

"The first sign for Hala Khouri that something dangerous, if not exactly new, was spreading in her world of health practitioners was Plandemic, a viral video filled with misinformation and conspiracy theories about the spread of covid-19. Friends and acquaintances, all people that Khouri, a yoga instructor and founder of the activist collective Off the Mat Into the World, described as fellow spiritual travelers, shared the viral 26-minute video with her and urged her to watch. They believed that Plandemic was full of revealing truths.
The slickly produced, sombre-toned "documentary," is largely a lengthy interview with the discredited scientist and medical conspiracist Dr. Judy Mikovits, who's portrayed as a stern-faced Cassandra. "[I]f we don't stop this now, we can not only forget our republic and our freedom, we can forget our humanity because we'll be killed by this agenda," Mikovits warns at the beginning.
But Khouri found it eye-opening for a different reason. She was alarmed by its wildly outlandish claims, including that masks "activate" the novel coronavirus and that any future covid-19 vaccine will "kill millions." When she questioned the documentary in comments on Facebook, Khouri said that she got 'slammed.'"

Meaww: 'The Vow' Episode 6: Bronfman sisters got Dalai Lama to endorse Keith Raniere and NXIVM amid allegations

"In HBO's miniseries 'The Vow', viewers get in-depth retellings from former members of NXIVM (pronounced Nex-e-um) that dominated the news a few years ago when it was revealed that a secret society within the cult was operating as a sex trafficking front. Both the founder, Keith Raniere, and actress Allison Mack — a prominent member of the group — were arrested on trafficking charges among others in 2018."

American Magazine: Explainer: Amy Coney Barrett's relationship with People of Praise

" ... People of Praise is not a church, so its members tend to believe what their own churches teach. Since 90 percent of the people who belong to People of Praise are Catholics, that means they follow the teachings of the Catholic Church. The organization places an emphasis on family life, traditional gender roles and a deep prayer life. It also operates three high schools, publishes a newsletter and provides support to food pantries, child care for working mothers and assistance to pro-life organizations.

The group also tends to skew conservative, at least politically. An article from 1988 in The South Bend Tribune notes support for the organization from a bishop in Grenada, who thanked its missionaries for helping to fight Marxist ideology."

National Review: Get Ready to Hear A Lot about People of Praise

" ... People of Praise, which is part of the Charismatic Renewal movement within the church that started in the 1970s, after Vatican II. The movement emphasizes personal conversion and bringing forward Christ's teachings in the world. There are tens of millions of members throughout the world, and about 1,700 members of People of Praise in more than 20 cities in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. . . .

People of Praise has been accused of being a right-wing sect. It answers that it has politically liberal and conservative members. They don't appear to be obsessed with traditionalism or orthodoxy and are ecumenical: Members include Protestants as well as Catholics. They have joined together intentionally, in community, to pray together, perform service, and run schools. They're Christians living in the world.

If they are right-wing religious extremists, someone had better tell Pope Francis, who appointed a member of People of Praise's South Bend community as auxilliary bishop of Portland, Ore. . . .

Joannah Clark, a local leader of People of Praise in Portland and the head of Trinity Academy, a People of Praise school, also appears to be failing at submissiveness. "I consider myself a strong, well-educated, happy, intelligent, free, independent woman," she laughs. She has a doctorate from Georgetown. Trinity's culture is "distinctly Christian" but "purposely ecumenical." The emphasis is on reading, writing and Socratic inquiry. 'Our three pillars are the humanities, modern math and science, and the arts—music, drama.'"

Salt Lake Tribune: Matthew Gong, gay Mormon, reflects on his journey from inner war to inner peace

"Matthew Gong is a minority three times over — in his own words — "Chinese American, Mormon and queer."

All three parts of Gong's identity have shaped him, including heroic tales of service and sacrifice, and are worth celebrating.

Still, they often have warred within the psyche of this 29-year-old, leaving wounds that have taken years to heal.

His mother, an avid gardener, once explained the difference between flowers and weeds.

"Weeds," she told him, "were plants growing where they weren't wanted."

His queerness, the opposite of his religious ethnicity, "was something I was born with but not into," Gong says in an LGBTQ Affirmation conference speech, "I had to discover it, like a secret birthright."

And thus he came to see his gay self as a "weed" in the Latter-day Saint garden.

Gong is hardly alone in such a feeling of being misplaced, of course, but his experience is unusual. He is the son of Gerrit W. Gong, an apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultEducationEvents.com

CultMediation.com   

Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources.

Facebook

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Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics.

Selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view in order to promote dialogue.

Please forward articles that you think we should add to CultNEWS101.com.

Get Ready to Hear A Lot about People of Praise

ALEXANDRA DESANCTIS
National Review
September 25, 2020

As Ramesh Ponnuru noted on the Corner earlier this week, some media coverage of Judge Amy Coney Barrett — the leading candidate to replace late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — has zeroed in on Barrett’s purported membership in a mostly Catholic group called People of Praise.

Ramesh’s post chronicles how one such story, from Reuters, has undergone several iterations (mostly achieved via stealth-editing), after starting out as an under-reported and overwrought attempt to portray People of Praise as an ultraconservative and abusive cult.

Other media outlets have, like Reuters, claimed that the group was the inspiration for the fictional, misogynistic nation Gilead in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, one of progressives’ favorite pop-culture weapons for demeaning religious conservatives. In reality, Atwood has suggested that the main inspiration for the repressive, quasi-religious state in her novel was “the heavy-handed theocracy of 17th-century Puritan New England.”

For a more even-handed account of People of Praise, this 2018 article from the National Catholic Register is a good place to start:

Bishop Peter Smith, an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Portland, Oregon, is a member of the Brotherhood of the People of Praise, an association of priests connected to the group, founded with the support of the late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. Bishop Smith was ordained a bishop on April 29, 2014.

People of Praise was founded in 1971 as part of the “great emergence of lay ministries and lay movements in the Catholic Church,” Bishop Smith told CNA.

The group began with 29 members who formed a “covenant” — an agreement, not an oath, to follow common principles, to give 5% of annual income to the group, and to meet regularly for spiritual, social, and service projects. . . .

While most People of Praise members are Catholic, the group is officially ecumenical; people from a variety of Christian denominations can join. Members of the group are free to attend the church of their choosing, including different Catholic parishes, Bishop Smith explained.

“We’re a lay movement in the Church,” Bishop Smith said. “There are plenty of these. We continue to try and live out life and our calling as Catholics, as baptized Christians, in this particular way, as other people do in other callings or ways that God may lead them into the Church.”

Nothing terribly sinister there. Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan offers similar clarity in her latest, which is worth reading in full. Here’s part of what she points out:

Judge Barrett is a Roman Catholic, like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. Judge Barrett is also a member of a faith community called People of Praise, which is part of the Charismatic Renewal movement within the church that started in the 1970s, after Vatican II. The movement emphasizes personal conversion and bringing forward Christ’s teachings in the world. There are tens of millions of members throughout the world, and about 1,700 members of People of Praise in more than 20 cities in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. . . .

People of Praise has been accused of being a right-wing sect. It answers that it has politically liberal and conservative members. They don’t appear to be obsessed with traditionalism or orthodoxy and are ecumenical: Members include Protestants as well as Catholics. They have joined together intentionally, in community, to pray together, perform service, and run schools. They’re Christians living in the world.

If they are right-wing religious extremists someone had better tell Pope Francis, who appointed a member of People of Praise’s South Bend community as auxilliary bishop of Portland, Ore. . . .

Joannah Clark, a local leader of People of Praise in Portland and the head of Trinity Academy, a People of Praise school, also appears to be failing at submissiveness. “I consider myself a strong, well-educated, happy, intelligent, free, independent woman,” she laughs. She has a doctorate from Georgetown. Trinity’s culture is “distinctly Christian” but “purposely ecumenical.” The emphasis is on reading, writing and Socratic inquiry. “Our three pillars are the humanities, modern math and science, and the arts—music, drama.”

Do they teach evolution? They do.

“We are normal people—there’s women who are nurses, doctors, teachers, scientists, stay-at-home moms” in the community. “We are in Christian community because we take our faith seriously. We are not weird and mysterious,” she laughs. “And we are not controlled by men.”

To no one’s surprise, interviews of this sort have yet to appear in the publications that were quick to assert that People of Praise describes itself as “ultraconservative,” when, in fact, the group does no such thing. If this is the best line of attack progressives are prepared to launch against Judge Barrett, they can expect it not only to fail but to backfire.



ALEXANDRA DESANCTIS is a staff writer for National Review and a visiting fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. @xan_desanctis



https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/get-ready-to-hear-a-lot-about-people-of-praise/

Explainer: Amy Coney Barrett is a charismatic Catholic. What does that mean?

Mathew Schmalz
America Magazine
September 28, 2020

President Donald Trump has nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. Questions have been raised about her association with the “People of Praise,” a nondenominational Christian charismatic community. The People of Praise leave it to individual members to disclose their affiliation, and Barrett has not spoken about her membership. And so, the question remains: What is charismatic Catholicism?

Pentecostalism in the U.S.
Catholic charismatics practice forms of Pentecostalism that embrace the belief that individuals can receive gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Modern Pentecostalism in the United States began on Azuza Street in Los Angeles.

Starting in 1909, African American pastor William J. Seymour led a congregation in the city that claimed to have received miraculous gifts from God, such as prophecy and the power to heal. The movement came to be known as Azuza Street revival.

Members of the Azuza Street congregation believed that they had been given the same blessings as those received by the disciples of Jesus. According to the Bible’s Acts of the Apostles, on the Pentecost – the Jewish Shavuot harvest festival 50 days after Passover – the Holy Spirit came down in the form of flames over the disciples’ heads. Afterward, it is believed, the disciples were able to speak in languages they did not know in order to proclaim “the wonders of God.”

In Christianity, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and is associated with God’s action in the world.

Pentecostal teachings went on to influence the Catholic charismatic movement that initially took hold in the U.S. in the 1960s.

The Catholic charismatic movement
These Pentecostal teachings went on to influence the Catholic charismatic movement that initially took hold in the U.S. in the 1960s.

During a 1967 prayer meeting at Dusquesne University in Pittsburgh, a group of students and professors spoke about special “charisms,” or gifts, received through the Holy Spirit.

According to firsthand accounts, faculty were deeply influenced by two books from the Pentecostal tradition, “The Cross and the Switchblade” and “They Speak with Other Tongues.”

Similar experiences of the Holy Spirit were later reported at prayer meetings at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Michigan.

From these beginnings, the Catholic charismatic movement has spread throughout the world.

For Catholic charismatics, the central experience is “the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” The baptism of the Holy Spirit differs from the traditional Catholic infant baptism with water. Adults baptized in the Holy Spirit have their faith reborn and strengthened by members of the congregation laying their hands on them.

Often a sign of baptism of the Holy Spirit is “glossolalia,” or “speaking in tongues.” Speaking in tongues refers to using an unintelligible language, which is often interpreted by someone else in the congregation. Usually glossolalia is considered a form of prayer. But other times, glossolalia is believed to contain prophecies about present or future events.

Participants in the Catholic charismatic movement also claim spiritual and physical healing associated with the power of the Holy Spirit working through believers.

Catholic charismatic prayer services are enthusiastic and involve energetic singing, hand clapping and praying with arms outstretched.

Controversy and support
There are also forms of charismatic Catholicism that believe in driving out evil spirits.

A Catholic charismatic community in India that I researched practiced exorcism as well as faith healing. The group also had a list of evil spirits that they claimed to have dealt with.

Not all Catholic charismatic groups perform exorcisms, especially since the Vatican tightened exorcism procedures by allowing them to be formally performed only by priests. But Catholic charismatic practices remain controversial for some because they differ from mainstream Catholic worship.

Recently, Catholic charismatics have found a strong ally in Pope Francis. In fact, at Rome’s Olympic Stadium, the pope once kneltand was blessed by a gathering of thousands of Catholic charismatics, all speaking in tongues.

Commentators disagree about whether Barrett’s membership in a charismatic religious community should be an issue in any potential nomination hearings. But charismatic or Pentecostal groups and churches represent the fastest-growing segment of Christianity throughout the world. For this reason, Amy Coney Barrett’s beliefs may be shared by many contemporary Christians.


https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/09/28/explainer-amy-coney-barrett-charismatic-catholic-supreme-court

Some Worry About Judicial Nominee's Ties to a Religious Group

LAURIE GOODSTEIN
New York Times
SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

One of President Trump’s judicial nominees became something of a hero to religious conservatives after she was grilled at a Senate hearing this month over whether her Roman Catholic faith would influence her decisions on the bench.

The nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, a law professor up for an appeals court seat, had raised the issue herself in articles and speeches over the years. The Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee zeroed in on her writings, and in the process prompted accusations that they were engaged in religious bigotry.

“The dogma lives loudly within you,” declared Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, in what has become an infamous phrase. Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, accused his colleagues of employing an unconstitutional “religious test” for office.

Ms. Barrett told the senators that she was a faithful Catholic, and that her religious beliefs would not affect her decisions as an appellate judge. But her membership in a small, tightly knit Christian group called People of Praise never came up at the hearing, and might have led to even more intense questioning.

Some of the group’s practices would surprise many faithful Catholics. Members of the group swear a lifelong oath of loyalty, called a covenant, to one another, and are assigned and are accountable to a personal adviser, called a “head” for men and a “handmaid” for women. The group teaches that husbands are the heads of their wives and should take authority over the family.

Current and former members say that the heads and handmaids give direction on important decisions, including whom to date or marry, where to live, whether to take a job or buy a home, and how to raise children.

Legal scholars said that such loyalty oaths could raise legitimate questions about a judicial nominee’s independence and impartiality. The scholars said in interviews that while there certainly was no religious test for office, it would have been relevant for the senators to examine what it means for a judicial nominee to make an oath to a group that could wield significant authority over its members’ lives.

“These groups can become so absorbing that it’s difficult for a person to retain individual judgment,” said Sarah Barringer Gordon, a professor of constitutional law and history at the University of Pennsylvania. “I don’t think it’s discriminatory or hostile to religion to want to learn more” about her relationship with the group.

Ms. Barrett, through a spokesman at the Notre Dame Law School, where she is on the faculty, declined several requests to be interviewed for this article.

A leader of the People of Praise, Craig S. Lent, said that the group was not “nefarious or controversial,” but that its policy was not to confirm whether Ms. Barrett or anyone else was a member. Mr. Lent, whose title is overall coordinator and who has belonged to the group for nearly 40 years, said in interviews that the group was about building community and long-term friendships, and that members have a “wide spectrum” of political views.

“We don’t try to control people,” said Mr. Lent, who is also a professor of electrical engineering and physics at Notre Dame. “And there’s never any guarantee that the leader is always right. You have to discern and act in the Lord.”

He later added, “If and when members hold political offices, or judicial offices, or administrative offices, we would certainly not tell them how to discharge their responsibilities.”

By all accounts, Ms. Barrett appears headed for confirmation to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, a post one rung below the Supreme Court. She is often mentioned as a potential candidate for the high court, especially if Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg were to retire.

Ms. Barrett, 45, has never served in the judiciary but has won praise for her legal credentials. A law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia, she was hired at 30 at Notre Dame Law School.

She is a member of the conservative Federalist Society, a conduit for judicial nominees to the Trump White House. More than 70 law professors across the country signed a glowing letter of endorsement. A separate letter of endorsement was signed by all of her fellow faculty members.

The sight of Democratic senators grilling Ms. Barrett only elevated her profile. A conservative judicial group began running digital ads targeting Senator Feinstein. Cheeky T-shirts and coffee mugs soon appeared for sale emblazoned with Senator Feinstein’s remark about dogma.

Ms. Barrett was questioned in particular about a 1998 scholarly article in which she and her co-author argued that sometimes Catholic trial judges should recuse themselves from the sentencing phase of death penalty cases. At the hearing, Ms. Barrett backed away from that position, saying she could not think of any class of cases in which she would recuse herself because of her faith.

Current and former members of People of Praise said that Ms. Barrett and her husband, who have seven children, both belong to the group, and that their fathers have served as leaders. The community, founded in 1971, claims about 1,800 adult members in 22 locations in North America and the Caribbean.

The group believes in prophecy, speaking in tongues and divine healings, staples of Pentecostal churches that some Catholics have also adopted in a movement called charismatic renewal. The People of Praise was an early leader in the flowering of that movement in North America. It is ecumenical, but about 90 percent of its members are Catholic.

To fulfill the group’s communitarian vision, unmarried members are sometimes placed to live in homes with married couples and their children, and members often look to buy or rent homes near other members.

Some former members criticize the group for deviating from Catholic doctrine, which does not teach “male headship,” in contrast to some evangelical churches. The personal advisers can be too controlling, the critics say; they may betray confidences, and too often they supplant the role of priest.

Mr. Lent said the group’s system of heads and handmaids promotes “brotherhood,” not male dominance. He said the group recently dropped the term “handmaid” in favor of “woman leader.”

“We follow the New Testament pattern of asking men to take on some spiritual responsibility for their families,” he said.

Adrian J. Reimers, a professor of philosophy at Notre Dame, was one of the founding members of the People of Praise, but he was ejected 13 years later after he said he increasingly questioned the leaders’ authority over members’ lives and deviation from Catholic doctrine. He later wrote a critical manuscript, “Not Reliable Guides.”

Mr. Reimers said in an interview that the breaking point came after he objected to instructions a handmaid had given to his wife. When he took his concerns to his head, he said he was told that his wife was “trying to undermine God’s plan for her life” and that the couple should follow the handmaid’s guidance.

There are some indications that both Ms. Barrett and the People of Praise may have tried to obscure Ms. Barrett’s membership in the group.

Links to issues of the group’s magazine, Vine & Branches, that mentioned her have disappeared from its website, some of them very recently. One included an announcement that Ms. Barrett and her husband had adopted a child; another had a photograph of Ms. Barrett attending a women’s gathering.

A spokesman for People of Praise, Sean Connolly, said the group was sometimes asked by members to remove links to articles about them, but he would not say whether that had happened in this case. Mr. Lent said he was unaware of any such request concerning Ms. Barrett.

Every nominee for the federal bench is required to fill out a detailed questionnaire for the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ms. Barrett did not list any religious affiliations on her questionnaire, though many nominees have in the past.

Administration officials said on Thursday that the White House has been advising all its judicial nominees that they need not list religious affiliations on their Senate questionnaires.

Ms. Barrett did, however, list that she was a trustee of Trinity School from 2015 to 2017, giving no further detail. Many schools have that name, but this one was founded and run by People of Praise, and trustees must be members. Mr. Lent confirmed that Ms. Barrett was indeed a Trinity trustee until very recently.

The Senate questionnaire also asks nominees to list their public speeches, and to supply the committee with recordings or texts. Ms. Barrett listed a Trinity School commencement address she gave on June 11, 2011, but according to a committee aide, she did not submit a copy of that speech.

“I’m concerned that this was not sufficiently transparent,” said M. Cathleen Kaveny, a professor at Boston College Law School who studies the relationship between law, religion and morality. “We have to disclose everything from the Elks Club to the alumni associations we belong to — why didn’t she disclose this?”

A version of this article appears in print on September 29, 2017, on Page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Links to Religious Group Raise Issues for Nominee

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/us/amy-coney-barrett-nominee-religion.html