Scientology/Anonymous wars come to Catholic Online

Anonymous protester in Guy Fawkes’ mask demonstrating during the January 2009 raid outside the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C. The group
was originally a response to Scientology’s aggressive efforts to remove a Tom Cruse video from the Internet.

The intensity of Klagenberg’s response to Catholic Online lends credence to the Anonymous explanation of the mask wearing.

It may be an error to say Anonymous is “a very few” in number and wrong to imply that “former members” of Scientology compose or founded Anonymous. We covered the origins of Anonymous in more detail here.
[Photo by Ben Schumin: Some rights reserved]

Scientology Public Affairs Officer Mike Klagenberg in a letter to the editor of Catholic Online wrote:

The article on forced abortions in Scientology is tantamount to bearing false witness. It is absolutely a gross lie fabricated by a very few disgruntled former members that are using the Catholic On Line site to forward their scurrilous lies and bitterness in an attempt to tarnish the Church and it’s members.

Catholic Online Associate Editor Randy Sly responds:

I have filed eight stories on Scientology since June, 2009. As we researched for these articles, the witnesses we found included former members, investigators, affidavits from litigation, etc. The amount of information available regarding false declarations, questionable practices, and suspicious relationships is enormous; its impact is global.

. . .
One major force of opposition facing Scientology – and probably the one that Mr. Klagenberg was referencing – does not come from without but from within. Former Scientologists have formed a leaderless Internet-based cadre called Anonymous. Group members, for the most part, do not know each other’s names; there is no central office, no hierarchy and no official spokesperson.

. . .
Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Québec defended the right of the group to oppose Scientology last February. He received a letter from “Anonymous Quebec” documenting a number of issues after publicly declaring that Scientology wasn’t a church [“La scientologie, c’est autre chose. Pour moi, cette communauté n’est pas une Église”] during an interview.

The article Klagenberg protested doen’t rely on anonymous sources:

Sea Organization or Sea Org is a sort of “religious order” within Scientology where only the most committed members of the late L. Ron Hubbard’s cult live out their lives. For the unborn child of a mother in Sea Org, that isn’t very long. They are aborted.
. . .
It would seem, however, that principle gave way to pragmatics as Scientology grew. Affidavits and other reports of forced abortions go back as early as 1994 while the abortions themselves began taking place in the mid 80’s.
[for example]
Mary Tabayoyon spent 25 years in Scientology, 21 of which were as a member of Sea Org. In an affidavit dated 26 August 1994 for the case CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL VS. STEVEN-FISHMAN AND UWE GEERTZ,
Defendants, she described a September 26, 1986 Sea Org Flag Order (an order binding upon all members) that forbade members from having any more children. Disobedience would result in exile to a lower expression of service. When the child reached age 6, the parents could return.
. . .

Underlying this is another fight, joined the St. Petersburg Times in a Nov. 8 editorial:

As former staffers lift the veil of secrecy that for years has obscured the inner workings of the Church of Scientology, a new mystery emerges: Why are government authorities looking the other way? The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has ample reason to reconsider its decision to grant Scientology tax-exempt status as a religion. Labor officials should determine whether wage and working condition violations have occurred, and law enforcement ought to investigate whether the church’s restraint on members’ free movement crossed a legal line.

Charges were detailed in a three-part series the newspaper ran this summer and which is referred to by Catholic Online:

• Part 1: Scientology: The truth rundown
• Part 2: Death in slow motion
• Part 3: Scientology: Ecclesiastical justice

The relentless parade of revelations about the Scientology’s essentially ludicrous core beliefs and sociopathic practices still do it more harm than the group’s heavy-handed public relations response. It is the revelations which make the case for law enforcement attention and IRS review of the church’s tax-exempt status. Official church response simply underlines that case.

Update: The PR War

Scientology announces “biggest expansion” in its history.