Hallowed be thy ... Whatsyourname

My day with Whatsyourname, the itinerant preacher who looks a lot like YouKnowWho

In the SUV waiting at the corner, the British news team is ticked. The crew from ITV had been having trouble all day tracking the holy man known as Whatsyourname, and now they were anxious about getting him to a studio in Philadelphia, 100 miles away, in time for a live satellite interview. Whatsyourname had refused to ride with them. "I'd like, in fact, I insist, that John drive me," he told them. In the car he tells me, "I don't like their attitude."

Now, as we are about to drive off, two priests run up, waving and tapping frantically at my car window. They are from Poland, they explain. They were passing by when they recognized my passenger walking along the icy sidewalk in his bare feet and white robe. "We saw you on television and just had to tell you what an inspiration your ministry is!"

After ten minutes of this, the SUV backs up. The cameraman glowers at us from behind the wheel.

Whatsyourname, as he likes to be called, is an itinerant preacher who, from the robe to the beard and shoulder-length hair, is a dead ringer for Jesus. More precisely, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Warner Sallman's popular 1941 portrait, "Head of Christ," which was reproduced 500 million times, becoming one of the most recognizable images of the 20th century. Whatsyourname strolled into Hazleton, Pennsylvania, seemingly out of nowhere, last October. He preached on the streets and when asked his name would reply, "What's your name?" Even after the local paper revealed him to be Carl J. Joseph, 39, Whatsyourname stuck.

People knew only what little he had revealed--that he'd taken a vow of poverty and lived on charity; that he claimed he was called to spread the Gospel, a mission he started nine years ago. He said his mission had already taken him through 47 states and 13 countries. Police ran a check and found nothing of concern--an arrest in Ohio for failing to disband a disorderly crowd gathered to hear him preach. (Charges were dismissed.) The Rev. Gerard Angelo, pastor of the Shrine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, visited Whatsyourname and deemed him genuine, "He has a strong religious faith and doesn't claim to be Jesus." Eventually, Father Angelo invited the missionary to participate in a Mass.

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