Appalachian Apostle

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Joseph says he is catholic only in the sense of "universal." Still, What's Your Name? speaks of the need to heed the authority given by Jesus to the bishops and the Pope. Joseph is reluctant to indulge the "witnessing" common among certain Protestant services. When a woman talks about a vision of angels, or a man talks of being reborn, he cautions against self-centeredness and says fealty to Jesus is the central point of prayer. Asked to sing Ave Maria, he resists at first but then hushes a room with a sonorous baritone. A woman mutters, "I don't care who he says he is--you only learn to sing that way from nuns."

A whiff of disingenuousness clings to him. He has chosen homespun robes, he says, because they make "the most sense" and help avoid a textile industry that "enslaves its workers." Still, living much as Jesus did--declining money and subsisting on charity--is key to winning supportive friends. Says Connie Muir, whose daughter and son-in-law housed him for two months last fall: "He speaks to the deepest part of your soul." And Joseph sees possibilities in this land of shuttered mines. "There's a faith waiting to come out. It's like a beautiful heart is under there, but the coal dust has settled and needs to be brushed away."