WINDSOR TERRACE — Senators next week will begin U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing, and a longtime friend and former colleague said the judge is ready for a new round of tough questions.

Barrett already has experience at facing the scrutiny of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee. Her 2017 confirmation hearing for her seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals made headlines when senators pointedly questioned Barrett about her religion.

“She is one of the strongest people that I know,” said Nicole Stelle Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and longtime friend of Barrett.

“She’s a woman of great poise, and grace, and inner strength,” Garnett added. “So, I think she will hold up fine, as she did when she was attacked by Sen. (Dianne) Feinstein and others for her faith in the last hearing.”

Garnett appeared Oct. 7, on Currents News to discuss Barrett, who has been her friend for 22 years, going back to when they both clerked on the Supreme Court. Later, they became colleagues on the faculty of Notre Dame Law School.

Last month, President Donald Trump nominated Barrett, a federal appeals court judge, to replace the late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Barrett was reportedly on the short-list of judges considered for the Supreme Court seat that ultimately went to Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. 

Since then, speculation has churned about how she might decide cases involving hot-button issues like abortion. 

During the 2017 hearing, Barrett responded to questions about how her faith might impact her decisions.

“I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear in the discharge of my duties as a judge,” Barrett said. 

But Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California was not convinced. “The dogma,” she told Barrett, “lives loudly within you, and that is a concern.”

Garnett told Currents News that Barrett has proven that her interpretation of the law is not affected by her faith.

“I have no hesitation in saying it won’t affect her decision-making on the high court,” Garnett said. “I’m sure it informs her as a person. But she has made it quite clear over and over again that her faith is not going to affect her interpretation of the law — that her fidelity is to the rule of law.”

“Since the last nomination, she has participated as a court of appeals judge in 600 cases and written 100 opinions to demonstrate she is exactly a woman of her word,” Garnett added.

Garnett said a nominee’s faith should not be part of the selection process to the Supreme Court. The U.S. Constitution has a clause forbidding it.

“It shouldn’t be on the table,” Garnett said. “For millions and millions of Americans, your faith is very much a part of who they are, including myself, so I hope it’s not on the table. I hope that the senators have better sense than to drag that out again.”

Garnett also discussed Barrett’s connection to the religious group People of Praise. Media reports have stated that Barrett had belonged to the group. The Associated Press reported Oct. 7 that an old directory for the group listed her as a “handmaid.”

The AP stated that Barrett has not yet discussed her membership with the group. The report said that former members said the group “holds that men are divinely ordained as the ‘head’ of both the family and faith while it is the duty of wives to submit to them.”

However, The AP also noted that the group considered handmaids as leaders charged with providing spiritual guidance to other women. The term “handmaid” refers to Mary, mother of Jesus, who told the Angel Gabriel, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word (Luke 1:38),” The AP reported.

The group recently changed its terminology from handmaid to “woman leader” to put distance from negative connotations to Margaret Atwood’s novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” according to the AP. This 1985 book, and the recent popular TV show it inspired, depicts women brutally subjugated in a futuristic male-dominated society.

Garnett told Currents News that connecting Barrett to this story is a narrative that doesn’t fit.

“I would say that Amy Coney Barrett has just been nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States after excelling as a judge and a law professor, and as a law clerk on the Supreme Court, where I met her,” Garnett said. “She is a mother with seven children who has worked outside the home her entire professional life.

“So, I don’t really think the narrative fits.”

Garnett added that she has “a very positive impression” of people she knows who belong to People of Praise. She described the group as having grown out of the Catholic Charismatic movement, and is now an ecumenical organization that “supports one another with community and prayer.”

Garnett said many members of People of Praise belong to her parish, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in South Bend, Indiana.

“And they’re wonderful people,” Garnett told Currents. “They’re giving, loving, generous. They are always helping out at the grade school, always helping out at the parish council, always lecturing — all the things that typical, normal Catholic people do. They’re just lovely.”

Garnett said a good way to understand Barrett’s character is to read what former students say about her. The professor pointed to a recent First Things article by Washington DC lawyer Laura Wolk, who studied under Barrett at Notre Dame.

In the article, Wolk, who is blind, recounted how she first came to the law school, but her assistive technology had not yet arrived, and she risked falling behind in her classes. She took the problem to Barrett.

“But,” Wolk wrote, “she did not merely help me to readjust the burden on my own shoulders; she took it from me and carried it herself. I will never forget the moment when she looked at me from across her desk and said, coolly and matter-of-factly, ‘Laura, this is not your problem anymore. It’s mine.’

“Her unsolicited words were balm to my soul.”

Said Garnett, “I think that shows her commitment as a teacher and a mentor — her character.”

Whether senators ask Barrett about abortion, People of Praise, or any other issue, Garnett expects her friend will be prepared.

“But whatever you throw Amy Barrett, she’s ready for you,” Garnett said.