Where in Washington, D.C. is Reverend Moon?: Chile: Moon organization threatens honest government

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6/11/2004

Chile: Moon organization threatens honest government

Here's what we're hearing from Santiago:

The Chilean government has denied legal status to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, calling the sect a danger to society and internal order.[...]

The government says Moon's doctrine "injures the political stability of the democratic system that governs the nation" and promotes conflict among the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

During its 28-year presence in Chile, the sect, founded in 1954 by the South Korean minister, has been accused of human rights violations and questionable financial dealings.

Several countries have already barred the Unification Church, labeling it a threat to family stability.

Humberto Lagos, an adviser to the Chilean Interior Ministry on religious sects, said that the ideology of the sect "is profoundly anticommunist and xenophobic, with a marked Nazi inspiration."

In 1997, the Chilean arm of the church apparently panicked at a speaking tour by ex-Moonie Steve Hassan, the hardest-working man in cult awareness, fearful that Chile would be turned off to Moonism. Hassan must have succeeded. On the other hand, the church's defense of Moon as a simple guy living a humble lifestyle is worth reading, if only because it is openly silly. The extravagance of Moon's posh headquarters makes Liberace look like Samuel Jackson in "The Caveman's Valentine," and you wonder why he hasn't been featured in any home decor magazines lately.

Hassan's primer on the Unification movement is well worth reading.

I have great respect and warm feelings for the vast majority of individuals who are members of the Unification organization. I believe as a group of people they are very intelligent, educated, spiritual, and well intentioned. I also believe they are deceived, manipulated and mind controlled by the hierarchy of the church...

Read the rest. While Steve Hassan is helping people recover from losing their children to a cult leader or two, it's the cult leader who gets the royal treatment in Congress. Except in a Latin American country where the integrity of government is considered a big deal. So much for the "Third World."

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"John Gorenfeld: The first man on the Moon"
-- Ana Marie Cox ("Wonkette," Time.com Washington editor)

"Thanks to the superb reporting of John Gorenfeld on Salon.com and his indispensable Web page, Moon's shenanigans are routinely scrutinized. Maybe some of Gorenfeld's discernment will rub off on preachers and politicians."
-- Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist

"The scene summoned the moment in Robert Graves's "I, Claudius" when Emperor Caligula declares himself a god in the Roman Senate; a fawning solon instantly offers a prayer."
-- New York Times editorial on the Crown of Peace scandal

"I am happy that our work is being challenged and improved in consistency, openness and coordination, by the accountability your spotlight demands. I am not talking about simply removing stuff from websites..."
-- Moon spokesman the Rev. Phil Schanker

"Instead of welcoming Reverend Moon, this government put me into prison. History will reveal the truth in the future and the American government and people will realize what an evil thing they did. What will they do then? They will bow down. Again, that is the way of natural subjugation." -- Moon in 1987

"A political movement basing its appeal on old fashioned patriotism and family values simply cannot justify an alliance with a cult that preys on the disintegration of the American family and advocates allegiance to an international social order operating with cell-like secrecy."
-- Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA)