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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Charitable activities

I removed the recently added sentence that says, "For People of Praise, charitable activities comprise a fraction of their activities, with yearly tithes close to 3.8 million in 2017, salaries and other administrative expenditures comprised approximately 3.3 million for the Indiana parent organization, whilst various charitable works were allocated approximately $500,000, making those charitable efforts." I removed it because the footnote/citation that was provided ( to https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/05/30/pope-francis-calls-upon-catholic-charismatic-community-work-justice ) says nothing like that at all. Novellasyes (talk) 01:33, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

The cited article does in fact discuss the proportion of charitable work to evangelical work of this class of group, and the numbers are supported by the 990 which is cited elsewhere, and is in the infobox. The there was a whole paragraph worth of information with multiple cites that is to be read as a whole. Sentences can contain information from multiple sources, that is permissible. DonGeiss (talk) 02:38, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I'm also confused by this content. In the cited article we have "Although there are important exceptions to this story—People of Praise, which has about 1,700 members in 22 cities in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean is one; LAMP ministries in the Bronx would be another—the Renewal is not known for its social commitment." People of Praise seems to be getting singled out for its "social commitment." I don't see anything in the source about People of Praise's financials. As for the 990, pulling things out of it that haven't been highlighted by independent secondary sources is WP:OR. And trying to tie something in the America source that is about the generalities of these types of groups to something specific about People of Praise from their 990 is WP:SYNTH. Marquardtika (talk) 02:52, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
“Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation.” Again, the 990 is relevant, per the infobox, and the numbers referenced here are in support of the fact the PoP spends ~15% of its budget on social causes, vs. what the article suggests is closer to zero for its peers. DonGeiss (talk) 03:02, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I don't understand what you mean when you say "the 990 is relevant, per the infobox". Can you elaborate on what that sentence means? Novellasyes (talk) 13:50, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
All I meant to say was that information from the 990 was included in the infobox, so it's use in the article was more substantive than that single sentence. That said I haven't gotten a clear answer from other users of an example of how a primary source typically supports a secondary source, but I'll reiterate my statement above that the rules are clear: there is not an unequivocal bar to primary sources. I believe these filings are acceptable sources in this instance, but perhaps I am mistaken on that--I can't find anything specifically prohibiting them, and per guidelines anything not specifically prohibited may be use to substantiate a secondary source.
After some discussion, I think it would be more appropriate to offer the quantification in a different way. Overall, though, it is a relevant and appropriate point to include, and a reputable source to provide objective background to the conflicting statements on whether these parachurch groups engage in socially benevolent activities (either frequently, not at all, or de minimis). If the article is going to discuss that distinction, then it deserves some clarity beyond essentially "some do engage, some don't engage, all engage less than mainline catholics". A numerical data point is merely the most concise way I've come up with in a first edit to reduce ambiguity in these more or less conflicting statements. In other words, to simply say PoP spends "some" effort on social support is so vague as to be barely useful, but to say the group spends 500,000 per year outside the community illustrates the point that the secondary source makes in a plain and informative way: That PoP stands apart to some degree from other charismatic communities in this regard, but is not solely (or mostly) devoted to these activities.DonGeiss (talk) 14:20, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
There are a couple of different issues here. (1) Do you believe that if the infobox is structured in such a way that incorporating information into it from the 990s regardless of whether that information has been discussed in reliable sources, that therefore, other information from the 990s can also be incorporated into the body of the article, even if this other information has not been discussed or paid attention to in RS? (2) The sentence you wrote that I took out said "For People of Praise, charitable activities comprise a fraction of their activities, with yearly tithes close to 3.8 million in 2017, salaries and other administrative expenditures comprised approximately 3.3 million for the Indiana parent organization, whilst various charitable works were allocated approximately $500,000, making those charitable efforts." This raises an issue not just relating to whether it is okay to draw directly from the 990s even if RS aren't interested in that topic, but a second area of concern, which is that your sentence performs an analysis of the meaning of the dollar figures in the 990s. I believe this is known as WP:SYNTH and that it is advised against. Novellasyes (talk) 14:54, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I think I addressed your second question in my previous comment. Regarding infobox, no; you misunderstand me. I'll start by saying this is a tricky situation because the organization is secretive and has been actively purging data (as discussed in the article, and cited). So certain information that was formerly available on their own website is now only available elsewhere--for example those in leadership roles and their titles (It's certainly appropriate to include some names, but I will agree not all; that deserves attention, but not complete removal). I further agree that it might be questionable to cite the 990 one time as supporting a secondary source if we had no other use for information in that document. That would be WP:NOR. That is not the case here, and that is why I think its usage is appropriate, in the limited but important manner I have proposed above. Next, regarding the infobox, I simply filled out the infobox template with information that the template itself requests; if you look at other organizations and businesses they do not cite newspaper articles to source, for example, the CEO of Wal-Mart. I believe the same could and should apply here. Filings are acceptable for that purpose. They are also acceptable for subsidiaries. The same applies to subsidiaries on a 990 in this context. Regarding the next part of that question, I'm not saying what you propose, I'm merely suggesting that the appropriateness of the 990's use to support the "squishy" statements about charitable activities is simply bolstered--not justified, just bolstered--by the fact that I/we/etc. didn't dig up a prepared filing specifically for that singular supporting purpose. As I said above, I do agree that expressing contributions as a ratio is probably going to far, but to say they spend some money on charitable activities, and drop a cite to an already used source seems to be exactly what the guidelines for use of a primary source contemplate--to give context and support a valid secondary source (which I also cited). If you disagree, please state why. DonGeiss (talk) 16:08, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Recent edits

I just reverted to an earlier version of this page. In recent days DonGeiss made a lot of changes to the page. Looking at the talk page, it looks like a number of them have already been disputed. I see issues such as WP:OR as well as quite a few pieces of content that don't have sources or don't seem to be verified by accompanying sources. I thought it would be easier to revert to an older version and then discuss suggested changes here in smaller chunks. I hope that works for everyone. I'm sure there are some edits that should be retained and it was inelegant to revert so many changes, but I saw enough substantive issues that I thought it best to go back to an earlier, stable version before proceeding. Marquardtika (talk) 02:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

I’m working back through with sources. However, if you think a citation is needed, you should use the [citation needed] tag rather than revert the entire page. You’ve reverted a number of changes that were properly cited or were simply spelling and grammar corrections, which is counterproductive and cumbersome to fix. WP:Citation_needed for further reading. DonGeiss (talk) 02:33, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Replying to myself, but you nuked a lot of work here for reasons that don’t warrant a reversion. I made my edits in chunks specifically to avoid this issue. You can look at each individual edit without reverting the entire page because I made them in chunks. Since you say that there are edits that should be retained, and you admit that the reversion was inelegant, I ask that you put the page back as it was, and simply tag changes you would like to see as you are supposed to do.

Additionally, removing the edits and then asking contributors to discuss them is paradoxical and difficult, because we can not discuss what we can not see. Tag it, and I’ll fix it, and if I can’t fix it, I’ll remove it. Or see if you can fix it. You purportedly have specific concerns but you brought none of them to the talk page, and I’m not inclined to re-do my work just to have it reverted when [citation needed] is the appropriate way to evolve the page. DonGeiss (talk) 02:46, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

If you don't have a readily available citation for content you're adding, then why are you adding it? It doesn't make sense to me to leave a bunch of tagged content in an article. If there are citations available, find them, and then add content. I'll go back through your edits and see if there is anything that I think could be reinstated. And I've started discussing specific issues above. Marquardtika (talk) 02:55, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I had already begun to do that on some tags when you did your reversion. Additionally, you’ll find that existing references cover all of the information you reverted. It is excessive to tag every single sentence, but if the consensus here is that every single sentence needs to be tagged or re-tagged, even if a previous citation applies, then I’ll start tagging every sentence. But if you’re going to bulk revert something, you should read the citations first to be sure your job wouldn’t be better served by adding a ref tag than clicking the revert button. Again, I request that you undo your revert so that I can answer specific questions from anyone who may have them, rather than delete all of the changes and make all the decisions yourself. DonGeiss (talk) 03:07, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Listing out some specific issues here. This was added to the lede "..and who contributes five percent of their gross income to the organization." Source was the POP website. We should find an independent source to show this content is noteworthy enough to include. A bunch of non-notable (no Wikipedia articles) were added to the infobox. Maybe you could put these in the body, but we don't typically include lists of non-notable personnel in this way. "People of Praise and it’s affiliated groups in the parachurch organizations which comprise..." there were a number of grammatical errors here which made me question the sentence as a whole. "The community, unlike the mainline Catholic Church, excludes women from leadership positions." Source? You may mean "the highest leadership positions," in which case...that's not true, because women still can't be priests, right? "Prior to Judge Barrett’s 2017 nomination to the Seventh Circuit bench, the group began purging information from its website that described the group’s activities, beliefs and operations." I don't see anything in the sources about removing information about anything besides Amy Coney Barrett and her family (birth announcements and such). What source says anything about removing information on their beliefs? This section also isn't adequately neutral in that the sourcing makes it clear that the group says it removed this information because members had privacy and safety concerns around the media hounding them about Barrett's affiliation with the group. It makes removing her personal information from their website sound unnecessarily nefarious. Then you actually repeated basically the same information in another section: "Prior to Barrett’s nomination to the Seventh Circuit by Donald Trump in 2017, the group removed references to her, and her family, from its website." This is redundant. "She, her father, her husband, and five of her children are all purportedly members, although she did not disclose information regarding the group, or her participation or contributions, on her nomination questionnaire." This is really getting into the weeds here...why are we mentioning minor children? It also seems like WP:RECENTISM since this group has been around for 50 years. It's in the news now but we needn't document a play by play. The Coral Anika Theill stuff was workshopped here already quite a bit and I think we got to a good consensus version. What you added is WP:UNDUE and not written in a neutral way. Like "Theill had eight children from 11 pregnancies during her 20-year marriage." This is not a diary or family tree of the personal lives of every member of this group. Then the section "Critique by mainstream Catholics." The content there is not "a critique" in any way. Marquardtika (talk) 03:16, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I can respond to all of these concerns but you need to split them out in to individual questions that can be replied to and read by other people coming to this conversation. Or you can restore them and tag them and we can go through the tags. This would be preferable because it would invite more contribution from others, rather than just us. Also, for the record, a giant block of questions like this is not appropriate, especially as a response to my objection that you bulk removed edits; bulk posting questions does nothing toward evolving the article, it just obfuscates the situation and makes it difficult to address your concerns.DonGeiss (talk) 03:36, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Submitted to WP:3O. In my opinion, this article is, and has remained, a really substandard piece of work, with some clear bias that has been discussed and squelched here in the talk page. That is predictable, given the subject matter, but it's not being adequately controlled. My experience in the last few days demonstrates that the lack of quality is largely because several users keep deleting changes, so the iterative improvements that create a good article are just not happening. Whether by me, or by others, those changes just aren't making it through to the article from the talk page. There's good info in the sources already here, also in the reputable sources referenced here in the talk page. As an example, at one point a user linked to an AP article and their contribution was not accepted because a different user declared that the story would "die on the vine" and since it didn't past their personal muster it wasn't going to be included. As another example, all of my edits were removed by another user who acknowledged that a revert was not the right move, that disputes open, but that they were reverting it anyway, without participating in the discussion. With the amount of reporting that has been done as of late, this should not be such a poor quality article. Until the few users engaging in WP:OWN stop doing so, this isn't going to improve in quality.DonGeiss (talk) 08:42, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I think we're following WP:BRD here. You made bold edits, I reverted, and now we're discussing. That's how things are supposed to work. I don't think it makes any sense to have tagged content in the article when we could discuss it here, get consensus, and then implement. Marquardtika (talk) 14:13, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Response to third opinion request:
See below Heart (talk) 18:38, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
This is procedurally complicated for sure. I will say that from my perspective for example, a couple of days ago DonGeiss initiated a conversation here on the talk page (called "Financials") and asked about incorporating material into the article from the 990s. I gave my views on that, albeit tentatively. From my perspective, he didn't really understand the point I was trying to make and then went ahead and edited the article by incorporating information from the 990s into the body of the article that (as far as I know) hasn't been discussed by notable outside sources. (This has to do with % of charitable giving.) I think he thinks that if some information is in the 990s, and if it is okay to put information from the 990s into the infobox (such as a list of the board of directors) then it is also fine to put information in the article from the 990s regardless of whether outside media has thought that was interesting enough to comment on or write articles about or discuss. I don't think this is typically the way it is handled on Wikipedia. I could make similar statements about other changes he has made. I'm in favor of talking through the issues on the talk page until a consensus is reached. I understand that he could certainly think, "Right, I will make changes to the article, and then you can discuss it on the talk page." My approach was to revert some pretty bold sentences he inserted and then open up talk page conversations where those bold changes could be discussed. Novellasyes (talk) 14:48, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Fair enough. And, to be frank, most of your questions were considerations that had occurred to me, so I do have responses to most. It's just hard to address them all in-line. I addressed the 990 issue specifically under my topic here several minutes ago. Please address it there; I would like to continue to figure out the extent to which it is appropriate to use, but I continue to believe it is relevant as a supporting source. I opened that topic because I assumed it would be worthy of attention, and like most of Marquardtika's issues, I anticipated it in advance; it's not proper to impute that topic to any of my other edits, as it is the only source of that nature I included. I'm going to split them out as bullets and reply. It may take me most of the day to get through it, I apologize for that. Additionally, to the extent that I think something was appropriate and worthy of re-inclusion, I just ask that you make changes one by one so that I do not have to repeatedly start over, and so other users can track it. Given that you admit some of the edits you reverted were probably actually okay with you, but you removed them anyway, I think that was not an appropriate move on your part, and it makes expanding the article harder than it needs to be. This could/should be a more iterative process, not a full on "approve/disapprove" decision. On a more broad procedural issue, I noted that you (or one of you) opened a section on the talk page of the Amy Cony Barrett article, so I assume some of your actions here are guided by your ideas on the form that article should take--and there is definitely information (some from my edits, some extant) that belongs there rather than here. I think we could leave the PoP reference at "She and her extended family and in-laws are members and some hold leadership positions." or possibly a little more, but not much. Some of the cited articles say more about the affiliation, so that's an easy rabbit hole to go down, but discussion of notable members is proper if their affiliation generates news, controversy, etc. Perhaps I can move some of that to be offered over there under your talk section for them to include at their discretion. Most of the controversy here, though, is going to (or is) stemming from that association and relevant reporting; so from a practical standpoint broad strokes will be more palatable to most users, but from a wiki standpoint it's kind of negligent to omit entirely. I'll start with broad strokes, and add more as necessary. Let me know if you agree. DonGeiss (talk) 15:05, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I did not say that any of the sentences I reverted are actually okay with me. I've created sections on this talk page to discuss the three areas I reverted. I look forward to your responses in those sections if that is where you would be most comfortable discussing them. I don't see your response to my 990 question or where you put that. I have been discussing that issue in the section on this page about "Charitable activities". As you discuss things here, something I would appreciate when you are relying on a source is to provide a quotation here from that source. 2-3 of the sentences of yours that I reverted were because when I clicked through on the source/footnote you gave, I didn't see anything in that source to substantiate what you had written. I could have missed it, though, which is why I am requesting that you provide that specific quote that you are thinking supports what you are wanting to say. Novellasyes (talk) 15:29, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
You said verbatim: "I'm sure there are some edits that should be retained and it was inelegant to revert so many changes..." That is a clear admission that your revert was inappropriate ("should be retained") in the way that you did it, and is knowingly creating a lot of unnecessary work ("inelegant"). That said, I'm trying to work with you, but you need to meet me half way. You're right, my response to the 990 thing was under charitable activities, I guess we can just continue discussion there. I'll mark it as such. Sorry. DonGeiss (talk) 15:39, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
You have me confused with a different editor. I did not say that. Novellasyes (talk) 15:43, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) No, I said that, Novellasyes did not say that. I'll be more blunt than I was originally. Maybe my initial comments were too mealy-mouthed. Your edits, on the whole, were quite bad. They needed to be reverted because they failed a number of core Wikipedia policies like WP:V and WP:NPOV. Novellasyes opened a couple of talk page discussions on particularly egregious issues. Issues where you added content that you are arguing is sourced, yet no one but you can find it in the sources. We can't have that kind of thing hanging around on a page. So it had to go so other editors could scrutinize your work, which we are now doing. I get that the process can be tiring and cumbersome, but the end result is that we get an encyclopedic article where everything is abundantly well-sourced and verifiable, and where there is a consensus for the content. Marquardtika (talk) 15:49, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, I did conflate the two of you. Look, I gave you a verbatim quote of what you said, and it wasn't mealy-mouthed at all. It was pretty straight forward. I made many more edits than you referenced as questions you had, so please do not say they were "on the whole, quite bad" just because you disagree with them. If you want to change your mind to justify your revert that's fine, but just say so. Either way it doesn't matter what or when, because we'll work through it, but I can only operate from what you actually write here, and what you wrote the first time suggests you should have just left things in place for edits, rather than nuke it. I discuss WP:V below. As for WP:NPOV well, that's your opinion, but you'll see from my responses that I did strive for NPOV compliance. That said, people will always have differing opinions on what is NPOV for this particular article I think; but the article as written certainly is no better than anything I provided. Frankly, the whole article could be scrubbed for WP:NPOV, and that's even after discussion on this page which seems to have been alternately begun and abandoned as users kind of... give up. The article as it is, is just not good, and you're going to have to let some edits through so it can evolve, because to quote you, it is "on the whole, quite bad" as it is. It's not wiki-like, it's biased, and it's thin on relevant details and context. I'm going to drop the indents on my replies to your questions and start a new block, because they won't fit if I stay at level 11. That's messy but I don't know how else to keep it clean; sorry.DonGeiss (talk) 17:23, 5 October 2020 (UTC)


  • “who contributes five percent of their gross income to the organization." Source was the POP website. We should find an independent source to show this content is noteworthy enough to include.

- The rest of the covenant is sourced from that website. This is a cornerstone. Wherever it’s sourced from should be the same as the rest of the covenant.

Here is an independent source about the 5% tithing. I'm fine including this. Marquardtika (talk) 18:27, 5 October 2020 (UTC)


  • A bunch of non-notable (no Wikipedia articles) were added to the infobox. Maybe you could put these in the body, but we don't typically include lists of non-notable personnel in this way.

- Agreed. I wanted to get some leaders in there, and wasn’t sure who to include or exclude. I thought maybe we could trim this down, but I’m not sure how. That said, it’s an important part of the infobox, and stating the leaders of the organization is highly relevant.

Why don't we say "People of Praise is governed by a board of directors. As of 2018, the organization reported having 12 members on its board." Marquardtika (talk) 18:28, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I think that sounds very wiki-like, and I like it. It does cite the 990, which I think is the best source, but I’m mentioning it for anyone else who comes along reading quickly and not clicking. DonGeiss (talk) 06:29, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
  • People of Praise and it’s affiliated groups in the parachurch organizations which comprise..." there were a number of grammatical errors here which made me question the sentence as a whole.

- Possibly the result of multiple cut and pastes. There's no reason for bad grammar, and I'm happy to fix it, and I apologize for letting it through. Let me know if you have content objections, and that is another matter.

I just wasn't sure what the intended meaning was. Marquardtika (talk) 18:27, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
  • The community, unlike the mainline Catholic Church, excludes women from leadership positions." Source? You may mean "the highest leadership positions," in which case...that's not true, because women still can't be priests, right?

- This was actually a revision of an existing sentence that was apparently "fine". The article previously stated that PoP excluded women from leadership positions just like the mainline Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not do that; the edit corrected a misstatement about the Catholic Church and left existing information about PoP untouched. If it was okay to leave in before, it should be okay now. I’ll let your comments stand on women in the Catholic Church; they parallel my position here.

The content we currently have is "The community, like the rest of the Catholic Church, excludes women from leadership positions. It nevertheless encourages women to pursue higher education and employment." It looks like the source, the Csordas book, verifies only the second sentence there. So I suggest we remove the first sentence and simply state, "People of Praise encourages women to puruse higher education and employment." Or we could just drop both sentences, or move the second sentence somewhere in the body, maybe under "Gender roles." Marquardtika (talk) 18:27, 5 October 2020 (UTC)


  • "Prior to Judge Barrett’s 2017 nomination to the Seventh Circuit bench, the group began purging information from its website that described the group’s activities, beliefs and operations." I don't see anything in the sources about removing information about anything besides Amy Coney Barrett and her family (birth announcements and such). What source says anything about removing information on their beliefs?

- The Atlantic and an AP article (which I did not include, but should have) state that information included contacts for branches (those contacts are not Judge Barrett) as well as newsletters—which describe the group’s activities and accomplishments. The information goes beyond just redacting the name of Judge Barrett and her family as you suggest, and my sources support this. To the extent that they don’t, I can always find more; this was widely discussed.

  • This section also isn't adequately neutral in that the sourcing makes it clear that the group says it removed this information because members had privacy and safety concerns around the media hounding them about Barrett's affiliation with the group. It makes removing her personal information from their website sound unnecessarily nefarious.

- This misstates the situation. They removed more than her personal information, and the removal was done in coordination with “members and non-members.” That’s pretty vague, and while not nefarious, is worthy of mention as it is a direct quote from their spokesman. It has sort of “sketchy” connotations to it which makes it hard to portray in a neutral way—and we can work on that—but the fact that non-members were involved in the request to remove information from the website is worthy of inclusion (and it’s the official quote from them anyway, as they explained the removal).

  • Then you actually repeated basically the same information in another section: "Prior to Barrett’s nomination to the Seventh Circuit by Donald Trump in 2017, the group removed references to her, and her family, from its website." This is redundant. "She, her father, her husband, and five of her children are all purportedly members, although she did not disclose information regarding the group, or her participation or contributions, on her nomination questionnaire." This is really getting into the weeds

- Agreed, and I commented elsewhere that the Barrett issues are a rabbit hole, but some content is necessary.

Currently in the article we have "The group has drawn media interest due to Judge Amy Coney Barrett's association with the group. Numerous media outlets have reported that Barrett is a member. In the wake of heightened interest in the group and its members following her nomination, People of Praise made the decision to remove some materials from its website: Recent changes to our website were made in consultation with members and nonmembers from around the country who raised concerns about their and their families’ privacy due to heightened media attention.'" Do you think we should add to or expand upon this? Marquardtika (talk) 18:31, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
  • why are we mentioning minor children?

- We don’t have to call them out by name, but saying her “immediate family” would be (more) appropriate.

  • It also seems like WP:RECENTISM since this group has been around for 50 years.

- No. This isn’t breaking news. Some people may be coming to it for the first time, but that is not the standard. She has discussed this herself in various publications, but she was not a notable person in her academic career, so they wouldn’t have been included here prior to her qualification as a notable person. Further, discussion of notable persons affiliated with the group is appropriate if they generate secondary sources or controversy, so mentioning Judge Barrett’s affiliation and its coverage in the media and analysis of its relevance in legal scholarship is entirely appropriate, if done objectively and concisely. She has been in national spotlight twice now for her affiliation, and more than that within a niche of her profession. Further, she has herself published journal articles about her beliefs, so discussions of her affiliation are not recent news, but an ongoing part of the history of PoP as well as her resume. She was not a notable person as an academic, so I assume that’s why she wasn’t incorporated here, but from the time she was nominated to the 7th circuit her affiliation with PoP became part of her relevance and qualifies for a sentence or two. But they should be well chosen and concise. We can edit them to be that; but they should not be deleted.

  • It's in the news now but we needn't document a play by play. The Coral Anika Theill stuff was workshopped here already quite a bit and I think we got to a good consensus version. What you added is WP:UNDUE and not written in a neutral way.

- It was mentioned but not attributed. Also, note what I included was from an AP article that was published after the discussion here, and included separate and new statements from her. They overlapped, but they were new, so you may have thought it was the same as the old statements, but they were not. I cited appropriately.

  • Like "Theill had eight children from 11 pregnancies during her 20-year marriage." This is not a diary or family tree of the personal lives of every member of this group.

- This was to balance the story of her husband accompanying her to receive birth control. Mention of various anecdotes of treatment of members, specifically women, is appropriate, and I provided content from the AP interview

This is what we currently have in the article about Coral Anika Theill. "Coral Anika Theill was a member of the group in Oregon for five years during the 1970s and 1980s. In the wake of Amy Coney Barrett's 2020 nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, Theill spoke to a number of media outlets, including Reuters, about her experience with the group. Theill called People of Praise a "cult" and claimed that during her time in the group, women were expected to be completely obedient to men. Reuters could not independently verify her account. According to The Washington Post, Theill said her time in People of Praise 'may have been atypical and extreme and that there may be regional differences.' A spokesperson for People of Praise denied Theill's allegations, saying 'men and women share a fundamental equality as bearers of God's image' and 'We value independent thinking.'" Do you think we should add to or expand upon this? Marquardtika (talk) 18:34, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I don’t know if we need to expand on it, but rather just give it some more structure. The way it is right now just pulls a few of her accusations (largely gender based, when her full remarks were more broad than that) and I want to give a picture of the story because it was reported on by multiple reputable outlets, but not just clip anecdotes. For example, she also told the AP that she had to submit W2s to the main branch to ensure she was tithing correctly. I think that’s relevant because tithing is mentioned elsewhere, but it wasn’t selected for inclusion in the summary of her remarks. I also don’t want to re-tell her entire story, so that’s a slippery slope of choices. I’d like some guidance on volume of content to include, and I’ll try to consolidate the information in to one paragraph or two or however many you think is appropriate. What do you think in regards to length?
Next, I removed the references to Reuters because there are multiple sources for this info now, due to additional reporting by more outlets; so why are we saying Reuters in particular couldn’t verify it, but not mentioning WaPo or AP’s fact checking process? I/we don’t have enough information to know or comment on the editorial process, other than to know that these outlets found it credible enough to print. I’d prefer to just say “she alleged,” cite appropriately, and let the reporting stand on its own. But using multiple sources and then stating Reuters alone could not verify the information sort of cuts off the full extent of the journalism on this topic at the knees (if that makes sense). If every source noted the info wasn’t verifiable, I would just say we should consider omitting it entirely, but that’s not the case. I wish there was a longer response from PoP, it would be easier to balance. DonGeiss (talk) 06:20, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
Agreed, the Reuters stuff is out of date and not needed given the reporting from multiple sources. Will make the change now. Marquardtika (talk) 14:22, 6 October 2020 (UTC)


  • Then the section "Critique by mainstream Catholics." The content there is not "a critique" in any way

- Let's just get this out of the way: It's not appropriate to revert content because you don’t like the heading it’s under. That is extreme and inappropriate. Anyway, I didn’t want to say “skepticism by mainstream Catholics" because I did not want to be accused of editorializing. The mainline church does have some degree of, shall we say, inquisitiveness and caution about these parachurch groups operating under the general name of Catholicism, but toward the fringe, and not directly under control of the Vatican. The article also specifically mentioned the Vatican calling out various Charismatic catholic groups to behave in a certain way that was different than their historical behavior--if that's not criticism, then I don't know what is, but let's pick another word for it, if we must. I cited a really good article about this, as well as noted the fact that the article specifically mentioned PoP as a group that more closely aligned with mainline Catholicism, despite still being very clearly regarded as not entirely integrated and them not mirroring the Vatican's positions. You deleted it and said that you couldn't find my additions, when those additions were either bolded headings, or immediately followed bold headings. So that is not okay. Moreover, the PoP page was utterly devoid of any reference to the intersection of PoP with the mainline Catholic Church, despite referring to the group as Catholic, and ignoring the fact that the Vatican’s position is, to say the least, nuanced, on the issue. And by definition the Vatican's position determines whether the group is Catholic, semi-Catholic, or something else, regardless of the group's position on the matter. So discussion of the Vatican's position is necessary, and probably deserves a section unto itself. DonGeiss (talk) 17:23, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

I am in agreement with User:Marquardtika's approach here. The practices of People of Praise are reflective of standard Catholic thought that has been encouraged since the Second Vatican Council, as mentioned in this article. We need to be careful not to add hearsay per WP:NOTNEWS. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 18:05, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Thanks for continuing discussion here; I'll take a look at all of your comments above and respond in kind. I want to clarify one thing right away, though. This isn't a Catholic group. It's ecumenical. You say above "...the PoP page was utterly devoid of any reference to the intersection of PoP with the mainline Catholic Church, despite referring to the group as Catholic, and ignoring the fact that the Vatican's position is, to say the least, nuanced, on the issue." We need to get our terms straight here. It's an independent, ecumenical group with a majority of members also belonging to the Catholic Church. But it's not formally or informally affiliated with the Catholic Church as far as I can see. Marquardtika (talk) 18:07, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Thanks User:Marquardtika. Indeed, People of Praise is an ecumenical Christian group, but none of its practices come in conflict with the Catholic Church, which is evident given the involvement of bishops and priests in the intentional community. As such, a "Critique by mainstream Catholics" section seems inappropriate. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 18:11, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I think we are saying the same thing regarding the group's relation to the Vatican. The article implies repeatedly (but does not explicitly say) that there is more integration between PoP and the Catholic Church than is accurate (e.g. "The community, like the rest of the Catholic Church"). This is an issue that should not create NPOV problems and could be a good starting point for trying to flesh this out. Discussing the Vatican's opinion of the group's practices is appropriate, because PoP has its roots in the charismatic movement, and as you say, does have a continued relationship with the Church. I have found no indication that PoP maintains any relationships with governing bodies of any other denomination, either (although I suppose they could?). I did find one source that discussed a member of PoP who became a deacon, but found no examples of, for example, Episcopal clergy, so that is why I selected a heading referencing a specific relationship with the Catholic church, rather than its relationship to all Christian faiths. Anyway, the issue I'm really trying to solve here is that the typical reader of this page is probably a layperson, and while the current description is not wrong, without much background knowledge a reader might come away thinking the article says something that it does not, in fact, say. With that as context, I think the source I cited was a good one for this, so I'd like to continue to use it. What would be a good heading to work under? "Relationship with the Vatican" or would that imply a regular relationship with the Vatican? "Differences with Mainline Catholicism" is perhaps closer if accompanied by an adequate description of the group's ecumenical nature. I don't love either of those; I still like "Criticism" insofar as it means "critique" and not "distaste" but that's just my $0.02DonGeiss (talk) 19:06, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
I think "Relationship with the Catholic Church" or "Relationship to the Catholic Church" would work. Marquardtika (talk) 20:02, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
The first paragraph of the section titled "Reception" already seems to address this by providing a relevant quote from the National Catholic Reporter article. Kind regards, AnupamTalk 19:21, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Coral Thiell / controversies

There's a new section in the article contributed by 202.169.214.191 called "controversies". It goes into the story of Coral Theill. Either she or her former husband were at one time members of a "People of Praise". Coral Thiell was featured in an interview in the last few days on Democracy Now! where she talks about her terrible experiences and calls "People of Praise" a cult. User 202.169.214.191 added a link to this article from 2007, which is a self-published statement from Coral Thiell in which she shares the story of what sounds like a very difficult life and marriage. Her children were removed from her custody. That statement (as far as I could see in it) does not mention "People of Praise". In it, she does say that she was abused/mistreated by her doctor, therapists and the judicial system in Oregon. She filed a complain with the Oregon Medical Board against her doctor, and the Oregon Medical Board rejected it. She writes, "My ex-husband, Mr. Warner, the judges, attorneys and district attorneys involved in my case, act from a place of separation. They do not feel pain, and they do anything they want to do to another human being without thought of the other's feelings, pain or suffering." User 202.169.214.191 also added a link to the Amazon page for Coral Thiell's self-published 2013 book. I'm not 100% sure but it seems like adding this controversies section based on Coral Thiell's experiences might not be a good idea at this time. The main reason I am saying that is because at least so far, the accusations by Coral Thiell have not really been taken up and vetted by the more mainstream media who for all we know, are even now interviewing her and vetting her situation and story because it could easily shed light on the "People of Praise" in an important way. So far that hasn't happened, and User 202.169.214.191's links are mostly to self-published work of Coral Thiell. I am going to go ahead and remove the section, pending further vetting and conversation here. Novellasyes (talk) 12:47, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't think a self-published book is appropriate. This is a general article about a religious organization that has been around over 40 years and is not going to recount every member's experience in the group unless it's been covered by a reliable source. I have no doubt that any religious organization, of any kind, is not without former members who are argue against it. There are plenty of ex-Catholics, ex-Mormons, ex-Muslims, ex-Evangelical Christians, whose accounts we do not include in the general article about that religious group. Liz Read! Talk! 01:37, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Tagging you here Bkuhn. I think this section is a good place to talk about whether to include the Coral Thiell allegations in the article. Novellasyes (talk) 19:01, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
If Reuters, a trusted NPOV media source, is referencing Thiell's allegations, then it seems completely appropriate to include those allegations in the main article. I'd agree that perhaps an allegations/contraversy section is reasonable for this. I might agree with leaving it out if Democracy Now! was the only source material for this, but doesn't Wikipedia often include items reported by Reuters? Your arguments above talk only about the self-published book, not the Reuters article, and you claim that her accusations have *not* been taken up by mainstream media. I suspect maybe you missed the fact that Reuters took it up, because I would assume you're not accusing Reuters of being fringe media? -- bkuhn 19:58, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Well, to go into more detail about my thought process, when I read this self-published article from 2007 by Coral Thiell that an IP editor inserted a few days ago, I concluded, "She [Coral Thiell] is not going to be regarded by the media as credible; this story about her allegations that POP is a cult is going to die on the vine and not be taken up." This was after a stab had been taken at providing publicity to her allegations by Reuters. Now, I could very easily be wrong. But so far, Reuters is the most mainstream place to air this story. They haven't followed up on it past that initial quick foray into it. The big political papers and media (NYT, Wash Post, etc. etc.) haven't touched this story. This is merely a prediction, but my guess is that in spite of the massively heightened attention on the People of Praise, which will continue for weeks, we aren't going to be hearing again about Thiell's allegations from outfits anywhere near the mainstream. I do believe, and I've said elsewhere on this talk page, that it's almost 100% certain that the big national media is (even as I type!) making a really serious effort to figure out if there are stories and allegations and incidents and events and other witnesses that strike them as being very credible, or from people who study cults and may have studied POP, about any credible cult allegations. I don't think they think Thiell is credible. If accusations of cult-like behavior get attached to an initial allegation that turns out to be from someone lacking in credibility, then that makes it all the easier for any future stories to be brushed off. Novellasyes (talk) 21:51, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
It seems to me you're making conclusions about what you think will happen and attempting to make the main article match what you think will probably happen. It seems to me totally reasonable to include the information in the main article, noting that it has a single but credible source. You're dismissing a viable, mainstream, secondary source by claiming that you think it won't be credible in the future because you've done original research in analyzing the primary sources. I don't see any Wikipedia principle that forbids inclusion in the primary article at this moment. -- bkuhn 22:12, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
I agree that what I walked through was my reaction and thought process. I did not put my thought process into the context of Wikipedia policies, but I could have. Doing that, I would say a couple of things. First, one RS has put out the story that Thiell thinks that POP is a cult. I don't think anyone doubts that Thiell does think and has said that it's a cult, by the way. Within the context of Wikipedia policy, I think the question to ask is, "How notable is this fact, if only one RS reported it? How much does this fact matter? How big of a deal is it?" Does including the information in the article pass the Wikipedia:Notability test or does it fail that test? I would say that it fails it at this time. If Thiell's views on the cult-like nature of POP get taken up and reported on by a couple other mainstream RS sources (there are so many that could do this: CNN, NYT, Washington Post, Politico and so on) then it would in my view definitely cross the line into notability. A second issue (and I'm not very familiar with Wikipedia's policies on this) is the question of generically how notable is it if a former member of a group thinks and says bad things in public about the group. Any group past a certain size has former members who think bad things about the group of which they were formerly a member and are happy to say those bad things about the group in public given half a chance. Are those opinions generally regarded as notable about that former group? Novellasyes (talk) 23:26, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Politico has indeed quoted Thiell, see https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/24/amy-coney-barrett-faith-420928 as did Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/role-women-amy-coney-barrett-people-praise-1534033 If your objection is to the word 'cult' specifically, perhaps you should include instead that Thiell claims that she was "tortured and shunned and shamed" by the group, which is indeed quoted in all three secondary sources. This fact is clearly notable, given that so many secondary sources are quoting it. I could agree that maybe the word 'cult' isn't notable yet, since only one secondary source quotes that particular claim. -- bkuhn 23:50, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
I have removed Thiell from the list of notable members. She's not notable--these types of lists on Wikipedia typically only include people who have their own pages here (not red-linked). This seems like a pretty WP:MILL case of a disgruntled member of a group going to the media. This is certainly not exclusive to People of Praise...you can find such disgruntled members for any religious group. Like I said in my edit summary, her allegation that the group is a cult is an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim and requires more thorough sourcing. Marquardtika (talk) 01:38, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
This source that you added is just the Reuters piece, republished. Only it hasn't been updated since September 23, whereas the original Reuters piece says it has been updated a number of times since then. Among these updates it appears they took out the bit about "antidepressants and tranquilizers." I assume this has something to do with where they say they can't independently verify her account. Marquardtika (talk) 01:27, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
PerpetuaGalway, I moved your question down to the end of this discussion. Hope that was okay. I went and read the article you linked and also this one, "People of Praise Accuser Has Long History Of Far-Fetched Lawsuits and Online Partisanship". I don't really know whether that can be included in this article. Here is a list of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources news sources that get discussed on Wikipedia relative to whether they count as reliable sources. I don't see it (the Washington Free Beacon) listed there. Looking at the article, they seem to be a vigorously partisan resource but yet to be doing fact-based reporting. I don't know how that all shakes out. What they are saying is that her accounts of POP should be taken with a huge grain of salt because of things such as the fact that her ex-husband successfully sued her for defamation in 2014, her eight children are estranged from her, and she has unsuccessfully sued various people such as her former therapist and others, making a number of claims about them, and failed in all those lawsuits. This leads to their conclusion that her credibility, when she makes claims, might be something to doubt. I would guess that if Wikipedia included those or some of those facts in this article, some (maybe many) of Wikipedia's readers would conclude that when she says POP is a cult, etc., that perhaps those claims should be taken with a grain of salt. On the other hand, several media companies that are widely seen as being reliable sources on Wikipedia have, when covering her allegation that POP is a cult, not mentioned any of that background material on her. (Which, the Washington Free Beacon says, is because they are biased; in their minds, apparently, this isn't so much a story about her, as about their bias.) Is it fair to include in the article the information that she says it is a cult, without including information about for example her husband's successful lawsuit against her for defamation? (The reason for not including it would either be that that would amount to taking up too much space in the article for her story or that the Washington Free Beacon isn't a reliable source -- if that is the case -- while the other media that told her story are regarded as reliable.) I don't know what the right thing is to do. Novellasyes (talk) 18:18, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Novellasyes. I agree that it's tricky to determine the objectivity of the Washington Free Beacon. (Hence the question rather than an immediate edit to the article.) Just for the record, there's another, similar story here from the same publication: https://freebeacon.com/courts/people-of-praise-accuser-has-long-history-of-far-fetched-lawsuits-and-online-partisanship/ PerpetuaGalway (talk) 22:35, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. I hope other editors with more detailed knowledge of how these policies work will weigh in here. It does seem kind of unfair to include her claim that it is a cult, without including any additional context (like the context of the other allegations she has made against others in her life, which to the extent that they have been litigated or heard by a government hearing board or agency, or a judge, have gone nowhere and were apparently not believed by those relevant authorities). The reason to include just the "it's a cult" claim she is making, but not the background about her, is that the "it's a cult" claim was made in media sources that might rank somewhat higher on the reliable source ranking than the Washington Free Beacon does, and those sources said nothing about the background about her. (I don't see any reason to doubt that what the Washington Free Beacon reports is accurate as it seems to be supported by the official documents they link to.) I get that this seems unfair and I'm not even sure if I am understanding WP's policies correctly here. Two options might be to (1) remove the content altogether or (2) add the additional context about her history of allegations. It does seem like the article now is betwixt-and-between and that doesn't seem quite right. Novellasyes (talk) 13:31, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
WP:IMPARTIAL may be applicable here. It instructs "Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial tone." It seems clear that Theill is engaged in a heated dispute with People of Praise. It also seems clear that there are some credibility issues based on the fact (which doesn't seem to be in dispute) that her former husband obtained a defamation judgement against her. Many of the claims she makes relate to him and their time together in POP. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be media coverage of the specifics of the lawsuit, so we can't know for sure at this point what that involved. The AP article has a flashy headline about subjugating women, but the article itself doesn't bear that out very well. From the article: "Several people familiar with People of Praise, including some current members, told the AP that the group has been misunderstood. They call it a Christian fellowship, focused on building community. One member described it as a 'family of families,' who commit themselves to each other in mutual support to live together 'through thick and thin.' Several people familiar with the group told the AP that, unlike some other charismatic movements, People of Praise has a strong commitment to intellectualism, evidenced in part by the schools they have established, which have a reputation for intellectual rigor." The article mentions Theill and Lisa Williams by name, both have made accusations that their POP groups (in Oregon and Minnesota, respectively) involved the subjugation of women. The article says both women are now estranged from their families. Also from AP: "Theill's and Williams' experiences were from decades ago and not necessarily illustrative of how the group now operates. And current members of People of Praise interviewed by the AP strongly disputed those characterizations." So, we have a group of a few thousand current members, and a couple of former members have made claims about how the group operated several decades ago. The people who have made these claims appear to have had difficult and unfortunate family lives. From the AP story, it seems that these women have grievances against their nuclear families, who happened to be members of POP. But I don't see the connection between their specific allegations of mistreatment by their family members and the POP as a whole. Based on the preponderance of reliable sources that are available about POP, what these women describe as having happened in the past is an aberration and not the norm. Is it worth including here? I don't know. Marquardtika (talk) 15:51, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
Well there's this:
CoralAnikaTheill.com

On March 10, 1996, I was forced, by an Order of the Court, and by my ex-husband, Marty Warner, his attorney, his family and religious supporters, to do something that raged against my good conscience, my common sense and against all my motherly instincts. After a temporary custody hearing, a Court Order signed by Judge Albin Norblad forcibly removed my nursing baby and two youngest children from me. I obeyed the Court Order and gave my children over to my ex-husband. I drove to the hospital, rented a breast-pump and later collapsed and went into shock. I could not understand what had happened and why. I have not yet recovered from the shock; perhaps I never will....

​When I sought safety for my children and myself in January 1996, the Court allowed me to live in hiding with my young children prior to the court hearings, due to the testimony and affidavits of numerous witnesses. I retained an attorney and reported the crimes that had been committed against my children and me.

​​The price for my own safety and freedom in 1996 was an imposed, unnatural and unwanted separation from my eight children, including my nursing infant. The injustice committed against me is not just the physical separation from my children, but the willful desecration of the mother-child relationship and bond, a sacred spiritual and emotional entity. [3]

And:
  1. (yesterday's) forbes[4] - '. . 'My husband at the time was very drawn to it because of the structure of the submission of women,' one former member, Coral Anika Theill, told the AP, having previously written in a book about her time with the organization that all personal decisions would be run through the male leadership. . ."
  2. freebeacon[5] - ". . ex-husband, Vaughn Martin Warner, obtained a defamation judgment against her in 2014. . ."
    --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 15:27, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
She's definitely out there making these claims, no doubt about it. I'm just not sure how to present this info given the defamation lawsuit. Marquardtika (talk) 15:28, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
This whole section is getting very very long and has a lot of earlier information in it that is getting difficult to wade through. I am going to create a new section below which I will call Talk:People of Praise#Coral Thiell (Part 2) and I hope we can restart the conversation there. I will start it by laying out the three different possibilities that have been put forth in a way I hope will make it easy for people to weigh in on them. Novellasyes (talk) 22:23, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

For inclusion?

Cathi Sparnick

[6] [7]

"headship meetings were grueling. They often lasted several hours. Beth [not her real name] would come to the meeting with pages of notes about me, and by the end of the meeting I was exhausted," says Cathi Sparnick, an ex-member of People of Praise. "She would tell me everything that was wrong with me, and tell me everything I needed to do to conform to community teachings and be holy. . . it was very demeaning and embarrassing. I was treated like a child--and a naughty one at that."

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:34, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Page 1 refers to Servants of Christ the king, and page two refers to POP but does not specifically say People of Praise; can you give some more context here? I think this is relevant to the criticism by the Catholic Church section we are discussing above. DonGeiss (talk) 05:52, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
1980 complaint to bishopofFort Wayne-South Bend Re PoP's headships

nytimes[8] - ". . In 1980, the bishop of the Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese received complaints about the People of Praise’s system of headship and that the group fostered fear and guilt, according to an article at the time in the National Catholic Reporter. The bishop said he intended to discuss the concerns with the group. . ."
--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 00:25, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Atwood newsclipping

Here is the text of the 1986 nytimes newsclipping w rgd 'people of hope' that helped inspire margaret atwood's 'the handmaid's tale'.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:44, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

More misc. sources

  1. (Would be nice to access "Wilson, Chip. (1992c, June 14). POP: A low profile, strong presence for 21 years. National Catholic Register. 1-9.")
  2. edinburghuniversitypress[9] - ". . It has been well documented that the CCR [Catholic Charismatic Renewal] began in February 1967, at Pittsburgh's Duquesne University (PA), when a history professor, William Storey, and a graduate student, Ralph Kiefer, were baptised in the Holy Spirit in a charismatic prayer group of Episcopalians. Through personal contacts, the experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit soon spread to the University of Notre Dame, then to Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI) and then to the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI) and many other parts of the US. . ."
  3. patheos[10] - "Amy Coney Barrett, Stephen B. Clark and the Origins of 'Covenant Communities'"
  4. getreligion[11] "A 40-Year History of People of Praise Many Journalists Might Like to Know"
  5. washingtonpost[12] [13] - ". . Pope Francis, who identifies with charismatic worship and has encouraged charismatic renewal, created a special liaison body for charismatic Catholics. Peter Smith, bishop in Portland, Ore., and a member of People of Praise, is the North American representative, [PoPspokespersonSean] Connolly said. Francis in 2014 warned new lay groups not to become abusive, telling them, 'We need to resist the temptation of usurping individual freedom, of directing them without allowing for their growth.'"
  6. spiritualabuseresources[14] - - Cultic Studies Journal, 1999, Volume 16, Number 2, pages 83-179 "Shipwrecked in the Spirit" by Judith Church Tydings - ". . American Catholic charismatic covenant communities have had names like True House, People of Praise, People of Hope, Lamb of God, Word of God, Mother of God, Bread of Life, Servants of Christ the King, Community of God’s Delight, and Alleluia. . . William Storey, Associate Professor of Theology at Notre Dame University, and one of the significant early participants in the movement at Dusquesne, wrote a letter to his Bishop, Leo Pursley, Fort Wayne, Indiana, expressing those concerns. He copied the letter to Cardinal Suenens, other cardinals and bishops, and the editor of New Covenant magazine among others. This widely circulated letter warned that the Catholic Pentecostal Movement, 'a movement of religious enthusiasm,' needed 'careful, responsible and vigorous criticism, and it needs it now' (Storey, 1975, p. 1). Storey warned about 'the steady growth of para-clergy, its reckless employment of coercion in matters of conscience, and its reckless illuminist elitism' (p. 2). . . Individual differences in personality and reciprocal influences between members and leaders create a complex picture that prevents researchers from determining the truth by simply polling current and/or former members (which doesn't mean that group surveys aren't useful; they are merely limited). This complexity also demands that researchers pay attention to all perspectives, not only to those that support the researchers' preexisting biases. So-called "atrocity tales" should not be dismissed as pure distortion or fabrication, although they may sometimes be that. Neither should positive reports be dismissed as mere "parroting of a party line" or "brainwashing," although they may sometimes be that as well. We must look deeply into each individual case and thoroughly examine enough individual cases from a variety of levels within the group to arrive at a reasonably balanced picture of the complexity of the group environment and the idiosyncratic responses of its members and former members. . ."
  7. nytimes[15] - ". . Early on, some devotees decided they wanted to do more than pray together. They wanted to share their lives. Out of this impulse came multiple 'covenant communities' like the People of Praise, founded in 1971, whose members go through a yearslong discernment process of living in the community and figuring out if it is right for them. If it is, they declare an intention to stay with the group for the rest of their lives. Each group of covenant communities, including others like the Sword of the Spirit and the Word of God, has a slightly different character. Some later developed reputations for being excessively controlling. In the 1990s, local bishops intervened in several covenant communities after leaders were accused by members of attempting to strictly control relationships and finances, and representing that control as the will of God. . ."
  8. wsj/maryhallanfiorito[16] - ". . Cardinal Francis George, the late archbishop of Chicago, was introduced to the People of Praise in the early 1990s. He took an interest in some of the group's male members who wanted to pursue the Catholic priesthood. After attending gatherings and meetings, he remarked, 'What you want to do is from the Holy Spirit. You have something to tell the church.' Under his patronage the Brotherhood of the People of Praise eventually became an officially recognized 'society of apostolic life' in the Catholic Church. The Cardinal advised the Catholic priests in People of Praise to be especially respectful of Protestant members. He urged them to ensure the consciences of non-Catholics would be honored, with no pressure to convert. . ."
    --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:47, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Update "Notable members" now that Justice Barrett has been confirmed

The title says it all, "Notable members" still says Barrett is a nominee, but she has been confirmed as a justice now. Wilhelm von Hindenburger (talk) 13:32, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

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