LOVE FOR GOD GIRL AND TGF FROM TAMPA TRIBUNE

Public People, Private Spirituality
By MICHELLE BEARDEN
Published: Mar 18, 2006

OK, so we all know just how good Barbara Walters is when it comes to getting celebrities to talk about themselves.

But Cathleen Falsani, the award-winning religion writer at the Chicago Sun-Times, has one-upped the legendary Walters. She got people to talk about their inner selves.

“It’s not as difficult as you would think,” the modest Falsani says in a phone interview from her home in Oak Park, Ill., where she’s nursing a cold. “Generally, I’ve found that if given the opportunity, people want to talk about their faith. It’s something that has meaning to them.”

Her book, “The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People” ($24, Farrar Straus Giroux), is a fun romp into the often-hidden lives of some famous folks, ranging from the bathrobe-clad Hugh Hefner to former Smashing Pumpkins lead Billy Corgan. Some of the stories will surprise you; others are more predictable.

The collection is actually a spinoff from a newspaper project she embarked on in the spring of 2004. She spent several months writing short profiles on the spiritual lives of widely known people. The response from readers was overwhelming. They were hungry for more. Her columns triggered all sorts of questions – and gave her the idea to expand the project into a book.

The way Falsani sees it, more candid talk about spirituality, beliefs, faith and mortality “can only increase knowledge, and knowledge empowers, casting out fear.”

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