The question for the week appears to be: Are you now, or have you ever been, a charismatic Catholic?

In a land in which citizens are divided just as much by entertainment as they are by their religious and political choices, that question leads directly to cable television and a certain blue-zip-code hit focusing on, to quote IMDB, this story hook: “Set in a dystopian future, a woman is forced to live as a concubine under a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship.”

This leads us to the word “handmaid” and strained efforts by some — repeat “some” — journalists to attach it to the life and faith of Judge Amy Coney Barrett. This topic was, of course, discussed at length during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). How could we avoid it?

It’s crucial to know that the word “handmaid” has radically different meanings for members of two radically different flocks of Americans.

For Catholics and other traditional Christians, this term is defined by its use in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, during this encounter between Mary and the Angel Gabriel. This is long, but essential:

… The angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. …For with God nothing shall be impossible.
And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

In this context, the word refers to a “female servant.” However, its use in Christian tradition has, for 2,000 years, been linked directly to St. Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Now, let’s move to mass media, where the Urban Dictionary defines the term as:

I’ve never read The Handmaid’s Tale but I could not miss the recent PR blitz about the Hulu version that has been running on TV nor the fact that the wait list for borrowing the book is in the hundreds (at least in Seattle’s King County library system).

I’m not sure how long Hulu has been developing the series, but the timing couldn’t have been better for folks who feel that this is how the country will end up if Donald Trump has his way. Looking at trends in modern America, many still see our nation poised to become a theocracy.

Published in 1985 during the Ronald Reagan administration, the book was the Hunger Games of the 1980s; a description of a dystopian universe in a future post-cataclysmic America. For those who think this is just a TV series, with zero impact on the news, take a look at this June 13 piece that ran in The Cleveland Plain-Dealer:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Sixteen women dressed as handmaids from the novel and TV series "The Handmaid's Tale" walked the halls of the Ohio Statehouse on Tuesday to protest an bill that would restrict abortion here.

The women donned red robes and white bonnets and sat in silence as the Senate Judiciary Committee heard initial testimony on Senate Bill 145.

"The Handmaid's Tale," a Margaret Atwood novel turned Hulu series, takes place in a not-so-distant future where the United States. has become a totalitarian society led by men and plagued by infertility. To solve that problem, child-bearing women are forced to become "handmaids" and birth babies fathered by men leading the regime.

"The handmaids are forced to give birth and, in so many cases, because of all the restrictions on abortion access, women in Ohio and across the country are being forced to give birth," Jaime Miracle, deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio said.

The article did have one reference to an opponent who felt demonstrators “were making a mockery "of the issue, but that was way down in the article.

New podcast: Why is the 'handmaid' image so important in Amy Coney Barrett coverage?

Hey reporters and critics: Please add a dose of reality to coverage of The Handmaid's Tale