Amy Coney Barrett served as a "handmaid" for fundie Christian group

(cont.) Barrett has said that judges are not policymakers and that she does not impose her personal convictions on the law.

Responding to questions about Barrett’s membership in People of Praise and her tenure as handmaid, Sean Connolly, a spokesman for the group, said: “Like many religious communities, People of Praise leaves it up to its members to decide whether to publicly disclose their involvement in our community.”

White House spokesman Judd Deere called Barrett an “independent jurist with an exceptional record” and called The Post’s questions offensive.

The title of handmaid was adopted by People of Praise in reference to the biblical description of Mary as “the handmaid of the Lord,” according to the group.

Former members including Art Wang, a member from the late 1980s until 2015, told The Post that handmaids, now known as “women leaders,” give advice to other women on issues such as child rearing and marriage.

I fucking HATE Aidsy Cunty Barrett.

(cont) But the role did not carry authority equivalent to positions held by men in the group’s formal hierarchy, the former members said. The community is led by an overall coordinator and a board of governors. They oversee coordinators of each branch across the country, who in turn oversee coordinators of areas within the branches.

In 2010, Barrett was one of three handmaids in the South Bend branch’s northwest area, according to the directory obtained by The Post. She and 10 other area handmaids were overseen by the branch’s principal handmaid.

Barrett’s position was in keeping with her family’s prior service in the community. Her mother, Linda Coney, served in the New Orleans branch as a handmaid, the Associated Press previously reported, and her father, Michael Coney, led that branch as principal coordinator and sat on the national group’s all-male board of governors.

Connolly said in an email that the group replaced the title of handmaids with “women leaders” in 2017.

Connolly said in a 2018 statement that the title was dropped out of a recognition that its meaning had “shifted dramatically in our culture in recent years.” The phrase took on a particular meaning in popular culture after Margaret Atwood’s dystopian 1985 novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” was adapted for television in 2017. Atwood said in a tweet last month that she was inspired by “a different but similar” group.

Women leaders “help other women who are seeking advice and guidance” and lead retreats and events, Connolly said in the email, adding that they are “appointed after consultation with members of a branch.” 'Much more intense'

People of Praise was established in 1971 by Ranaghan and Paul DeCelles, then young academics at the University of Notre Dame. It was formed as a “covenant community,” in which members looking for close community promise to abide by a common agreement.

While People of Praise is open to all Christians, the vast majority are Catholic, like Barrett. At the time the group was founded, many denominations — including the Catholic Church — looked warily at groups that adopted different practices and created insular, separate communities. That wariness has largely subsided.

People of Praise now claims about 1,700 members in 22 cities in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.

At its formation, People of Praise wanted “to have a more intense Christian community,” said the Rev. James Connelly, a historian of religion based at the University of Notre Dame who was close to some early members. “They wanted to talk about religion, spiritual life, their experiences, to do things together that might not be to the average person’s liking. Not just Mass on Sunday, but something much more intense.”

(cont.) The community was led by men, who taught members to run their families according to their interpretation of biblical views of gender roles, according to former members and group documents.

“Women were homemakers; they were there to support their husbands,” one former member said in an interview. “My dad was the head of the household and the decision-maker.”

A person who was raised in the community said she was instructed by elders not to “emasculate” her male peers by getting the better of them in conversation. “I was made aware of the difference from a young age,” the person said. “I was aware that it would have been better if I had been born a boy.”

The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak about their experiences because they feared negative consequences for members they care about who remain active in People of Praise.

Connolly said that telling girls not to seem smarter than boys does not align with People of Praise teachings.

A 1986 community handbook obtained by The Post said each member is “personally accountable to God for his or her decisions,” but also emphasized “obedience to authority and submission to headship.”

Members are typically assigned a “head” to give them spiritual leadership and guidance on life matters such as buying a car or finding a romantic partner. Younger men and women are led by older members of the same sex, according to former members, but husbands typically take over as “heads” for their wives following marriage.

Men’s “headship” of their wives, and the male-dominated governance of the community, has been the basis of accusations from some critics of Barrett that People of Praise is built on the sexist expectation that women defer to men.

The summer 2015 issue of People of Praise’s magazine, Vine & Branches, featured an article titled “Holiness in Marriage,” which it said was based on a talk given to women in the community in the 1980s by Jeanne DeCelles, wife of co-founder Paul DeCelles.

“Make it a joy for him to head you,” Jeanne DeCelles said, according to the article. “It is important for you to verbalize your commitment to submission. . . . Tell him what you think about things, make your input, but let him make the decisions, and support them once they are made.”

Connolly said every People of Praise member is responsible for his or her own decisions. “In the People of Praise we live by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which recognizes that men and women share a fundamental equality as bearers of God’s image and sons and daughters of God,” he said. “We value independent thinking, and teach it in our schools.”

The group declined to make current members available for interview, and some members reached by The Post declined to comment.

John Fea, a prominent historian of U.S. religion at Messiah University, said Barrett would be the first Supreme Court justice to come from a charismatic Christian background.

Fea said he believes it is fair for senators to ask Barrett how she views the blending of her small, insular community and a job judging for a nation. But he said People of Praise’s belief in distinct gender roles is similar to what is lived and preached across much of America today, in faiths as different as Catholicism, the Southern Baptist Convention and orthodox Islam and Judaism.

He said that believing men should be the spiritual leaders of the family does not mean that women cannot be professionally ambitious. “Everything about Amy Coney Barrett’s career contradicts the idea that women in People of Praise can’t have careers or be successful,” he said.

When President Trump introduced Barrett as his nominee in the White House Rose Garden on Sept. 26, Barrett described her own husband as doing “far more than his share of the work” in raising their seven children.

(cont.) The essay also criticized a magazine for Girl Scout leaders as presenting an “overly aggressive idealization of girls and women.”

After Barrett graduated from law school in 1997, she worked in D.C. as an intern and then as a judicial clerk, according to biographical details she has submitted to the Senate.

Meanwhile, her future husband, Jesse Barrett — whose family also had long ties to People of Praise, according to an obituary he wrote for his grandfather — remained in South Bend to finish law school. In a court record for a February 1998 speeding offense, Jesse Barrett’s address is listed as the Ranaghans’ home.

Jesse graduated in 1999 and married Amy later that year.

Kevin Ranaghan referred interview requests in recent days to Connolly, and on Tuesday he and his wife did not respond to questions about Amy Coney Barrett’s time living with their family.

Fucking freak!!

(cont) The essay also criticized a magazine for Girl Scout leaders as presenting an “overly aggressive idealization of girls and women.”

After Barrett graduated from law school in 1997, she worked in D.C. as an intern and then as a judicial clerk, according to biographical details she has submitted to the Senate.

Meanwhile, her future husband, Jesse Barrett — whose family also had long ties to People of Praise, according to an obituary he wrote for his grandfather — remained in South Bend to finish law school. In a court record for a February 1998 speeding offense, Jesse Barrett’s address is listed as the Ranaghans’ home.

Jesse graduated in 1999 and married Amy later that year.

Kevin Ranaghan referred interview requests in recent days to Connolly, and on Tuesday he and his wife did not respond to questions about Amy Coney Barrett’s time living with their family.

THE END

Blessed be the Fruit!

This seems very out of kilter with Catholicism. Catholics are meant to look to their priest for spiritual guidance, and ultimately to the edicts issued by the church hierarchy. Not to 'heads', 'handmaidens' and so on. Where is the involvement of actually ordained priests in these communities?

I would expect this from the kookier end of American Protestantism. It doesn't add up.

ConcernedEuropean, do you really believe you are somehow an expert on the different varieties of American Catholicism? How did you manage that?

Meet the Ranaghans.

Joseph Fiennes can breathe a sigh of relief.

I don't believe that, no, R10. I was baptised and brought up a Catholic though so I do know something of the subject, and I'll wager you were not.

BUMP

Creepy freak.

Whatever happened to mainline Protestants?

There are weird ultraconservative sects of Catholicism. Mel Gibson's father belonged to one of the biggest ones, Opus Dei; but this one started at Notre da,e/

Further to R9: My family was hardcore Catholic (in NY and the Midwest), and I've never heard of anything like this.

The parish (your church) and the priest were the focus, but at a distance. We had Communion on Sunday and went to confession. A couple might talk with the priest a couple times before they got married in the church. But that was it. But there weren't people assigned to puppet-master your life.

My parents and grandparents would have called the People of Praise nuts.

Yeah, thanks R16. The 'speaking in tongues' is especially out of place IMO, it would be regarded with a great deal of suspicion by all believing Catholics I know, there's a strong feeling that evangelical pastors who encourage that kind of practice are charlatans.

I lived with charismatic Lutherans and charismatic Catholics alike in the Midwestern suburbs. There's a whole lot of crazy out there in the Heartland.

This is not a religion, but a group that is an offshoot of Catholicism and Pentecostalism. It's odd that they encourage women into going into higher positions, yet demean them by barring them from being leaders in the church. I'm more concerned about Thomas and Alito's extremist religious views than this.

I think she doesn't have enough experience to be there. This is the 2nd time Trump has promoted her, in less than four years. That is not normal. And even though she may say she could put aside her personal views, her record indicates otherwise. I don't trust her as far as I can throw her. And if the court does end up deciding the election, she, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch should recuse themselves due to of conflict of interest.

I doubt that would happen with the three justices, r19. These people do not play fair.

Maybe ACB could wear a red gown with a wimple instead of a black gown with a lace collar.