The cult apologist mafia (Part II)
- Luigi Corvaglia
- Dec 24, 2024
- 47 min read
Updated: Mar 7
Luigi Corvaglia
Abridged edition of the 12-part study ‘Fascists, Spies and Gurus. Psychological warfare and the geopolitics of cults' by Luigi Corvaglia
IV - The Black Network
A strange religious expert
The 'Foro Espiritual' in Estella, Spain, is, as it says on the city's website, 'a workshop of fraternity where different religious communities coexist in an atmosphere of harmony, peace and joy, seeking meeting points with the aim of the world finding peace'. In short, an ecumenical festival with clear New Age connotations. At the first edition in 2006, the speakers included a certain Ives Guillou, who was presented as an 'expert on religions'. Anyone who knows enough about the 'strategy of tension" and the italian 'anni di piombo' (years of lead) will wince when they read this name. It is the real name of the man who went down in history as Yves Guérin-Sérac. He was the founder of the Aginter Presse agency, a covert terrorist structure that was financed by Salazar's secret police and had links to Western intelligence services. Aginter Presse functioned as a control room for right-wing subversion from 1966 to 1974. Through the neo-fascist organisation Ordine Nuovo, Aginter Presse was involved in terrorist attacks in Italy, starting with the massacre in Piazza Fontana, and in Operation Condor, a CIA plan to eliminate opponents of South American dictatorships in the 1970s.
It is somewhat unusual for the grey eminence of international black terrorism to speak about universal love and the 'human family' at a religious festival, especially given the fact that he had been in hiding for decades when he was listed at the festival under his real name. Interestingly, however, this was not the first time Guérin-Serac had participated in events related to the world of alternative spirituality. The journalist Andrea Sceresini inform us that in 2002 Guérin-Sérac took part in a meeting of the Women's Federation for World Peace, an emanation of the Unification Church. What makes it all even more incomprehensible is that Guérin-Serac was anything but ecumenical, not only politically but also religiously. One man who knew him very well was the lifelong Vincenzo Vinciguerra, who was a member of the neo-fascist groups ‘Ordine Nuovo’ and ‘Avanguardia Nazionale’. He claimed that what struck him most about the figure who called himself Ralf at the time was his religiosity: 'Ralf was very Catholic. Fundamentalist Catholic!' In other words, he was not the type to attend new age festivals. Vinciguerra, however, added a further notation:
Christian civilisation was built on millions of dead and he had no qualms about doing the same to preserve it!
The traditionalist matrix
(a) the doctrine of double effect
The twisted logical and moral entanglements that characterise a particular environment in which the political right combines with religious radicalism are difficult to see through. For example, there are two glaring contradictions in the lines above. The first relates to the coexistence of the fundamentalist Catholic and the mass murderer in one and the same person - specifically in Guérin-Serac. The second contradiction is that of one who professes a form of Catholicism that is hostile to ecumenism, because he is fundamentalist, and actively participates in events organised by other cults. To solve these apparent puzzles, we need to unravel the skein and start where the thread of the story begins. Following it will take us to unimaginable places.
The proximity of Catholic traditionalism to murders and terrorist attacks was already evident during the Algerian war. The OAS (Organisation Armée Secrète) was a French clandestine paramilitary organisation with the slogan 'French Algeria or death'. It was founded in Madrid in 1961 under the protection of Francisco Franco's fascist government and had as its main political reference the Catholic counter-revolutionary organisation La Cité Catolique, which supplied the OAS with numerous fighters. In fifteen months, the OAS caused around 1,500 deaths through terrorist attacks of unprecedented cruelty. After the Evian Agreement between the French government and the Algerian Liberation Front, which laid the foundations for Algerian independence from France, became known, the OAS decided to carry out an assassination attempt on de Gaulle, who was considered a traitor. This failed and the organisation disbanded.
As anomalous as it may seem, it should be noted that in Catholic circles linked to the military hierarchies, the practise of torture and murder was considered worthy of absolution. This was based on the ideas of Aristotle, St Thomas Aquinas and St Augustine of Hippo. Louis Delarue, chaplain of a unit deployed in Algeria, said that one had to choose between two evils, and letting a bandit temporarily suffer the death penalty was the lesser.
Probably the best justification for the nefarious deeds of Catholic activists was provided by St Thomas Aquinas' doctrine of the double effect: 'The evil caused by an action directed towards the good does not invalidate the morality of the action itself'.
Among the OAS volunteers was Yves Guérin-Sérac, who apparently based his mission on the logic of St Thomas, as he was later prepared to kill millions of people in order to achieve the goal of protecting traditional Christian society.
b) Subversion and revolution
After the defeat in Algeria, Guérin-Sérac and other OAS veterans fled first to Franco’s Spain and then to Salazar's Portugal in order to avoid being sentenced for desertion and treason. It was here that the idea of founding an international anti-communist organisation took shape. This structure was to consist of specialists in the fight against 'subversion'. This concept is of central importance. An important reference for the OAS fighters is said to have been La Cité Catolique. It is therefore appropriate to say a few words about this organisation. It was a Catholic counter-revolutionary organisation led by Jean Ousset. He saw the root of all evil in 'subversion'. By this he meant the distortion of the Christian order, natural law and the Creator's plan, a distortion that had been given its greatest impetus by the French Revolution.
From the 1960s onwards, this fight against subversion also took the form of the defence of the 'white presence' in the few African territories that remained in European hands.
Ousset was not alone in this battle. The same struggle against modernity and the disruption of the natural order was waged in Brazil by Plinio Correa de Oliveira and his association Tradition, Family and Property. What Ousset called 'subversion', Correa de Oliveira called 'revolution'.
De Oliveira argued that Christianity had suffered a dramatic spiritual decline since the 15th century due to the spread of social egalitarianism and moral liberalism, which had put an end to the righteousness that had characterised mediaeval society.
He therefore considered it necessary to fully restore Christian civilisation through the reintroduction of social hierarchies and aristocratic titles, as well as the dissolution of socialist parties. De Oliveira was the advocate of a programme for the 'restoration of order', which was described as a return to a
Christian civilisation, austere and hierarchical, fundamentally sacred, anti-egalitarian and anti-liberal.
TFP has remained true to this goal by actively participating in the efforts of reactionary forces to depose democratically elected presidents in Latin America, beginning with the coups in Brazil in 1964 and that of Pinochet in Chile in 1973. Margareth Power writes that the TFP maintained a "mutually supportive relationship" with Pinochet's dictatorship for seventeen years, justifying the violation of human rights with the overriding need to fight communism. This is the same logic used by the Catholic OAS military in Algeria.
Penny Lernoux points out that the actions of the TFP were in line with the goals of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which not only supported the coup but even seems to have financed the TFP for its work against democracy in Chile (page 297). There are even reports of martial arts training camps in Rio de Janeiro for members of the TFP, the army and the police.
In those years, the TFP forged links with the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), which, according to Benjamin A. Cowan, was "a secretive and often questionable organisation whose activities in the second half of the 20th century ranged from spreading panic to overt or covert support for right-wing terrorism“ (page 156). The fifth WACL congress, held in Manila in 1971, was hosted by dictator Ferdinand Marcos and was attended by the Brazilian and Argentinian delegations of the TFP (Power, op.cit., p. 98).
In the 1980s, the TFP extended its reach further by joining forces with and co-founding the International Policy Forum of the US New Right theorist Paul Weyrich.
Plinio Correa de Oliveira and Jean Ousset did not like each other because the Brazilian found the Frenchman too socialist and because of his allusions to the French counter-revolutionary culture of the 19th century, which always harboured a certain hostility towards the ruling bourgeoisie, as he considered it to be secular and Masonic. However, the two lessons are composed in an Italian counter-revolutionary association that has both Ousset and de Oliveira as cultural references: Alleanza Cattolica.
c) Aginter Presse
In May 1974, after the 'Carnation Revolution' had brought democracy back to Portugal, a group of soldiers stormed the premises of a press agency at Rua des Pracas 13 in Lisbon on the orders of an official from the PIDE, Salazar's secret police. The agency was Aginter Presse, founded by Guérin-Sérac. Analysis of the documents found revealed that the fake press agency was an international centre of subversion, the control and coordination room of an unconventional war, capable of carrying out espionage operations, organising attacks, training mercenaries and infiltrating revolutionary movements. The agency consisted of
- an espionage centre linked to the Portuguese secret services and other Western intelligence agencies, such as the CIA and the West German Gehlen network;
- a recruitment and training centre for mercenaries and terrorists specialising in attacks and sabotage, especially in Third World countries;
- a political organisation called 'Orde et Tradition', flanked by a military arm called 'Organisation d'Action Contre le Communisme International' (OACI).
In the Rua des Pracas archives, evidence was found of active cooperation between Aginter Presse and the security services of major Western countries, which commissioned the agency to carry out 'dirty' operations that were not officially allowed to be carried out by government agencies of democratic countries. The American services supported the agency, for example, in the anti-communist plan Stay Behind, in which the Italian paramilitary secret organisation Gladio was also involved. Relations with the American intelligence were conducted via intermediary organisations that avoided directly financing the Aginter Presse.
One of these organisations was the John Birch Society. This organisation of the economic and religious right is the prototype of a galaxy of conservative foundations and think tanks that form the backbone of American soft power. We will see later what role they play in supporting 'religious freedom" in the world.
This paradoxical struggle against subversion through subversion experienced its greatest stage in Italy with the so-called strategy of tension, which began with the Piazza Fontana bombing in 1969. The documents of Judge Salvini, who was in charge of investigating the massacre, clearly show that the agency and Guérin-Sérac himself were involved in the attack. In June 2005, the Court of Cassation ruled that the massacre was the work of a "subversive group founded in Padua within the Ordine Nuovo', a neo-fascist group founded by Pino Rauti, whose links with Guérin-Sérac have been proven, as Judge Salvini also stated in the parliamentary commission of enquiry into the massacres. The relations between Ordine Nuovo and parts of the Italian secret service were so close that one cannot speak of a simple infiltration of the organisation into the security services , but of two parallel and coordinated structures. Ordine Nuovo was also referred to as the 'prosthesis of the deviated services'.
The Ordine Nuovo also consisted of young people who were fascinated by mystical and esoteric cultures. Rauti himself had them practise magical rituals. The culture of the Ordine Nuovo was permeated by an anti-modern, hierarchical and spiritualist attitude (see Stefania Limiti, Potere Occulto, ChiareLettere, 2022, p. 278).
Through the OAS and Aginter Presse, European neo-fascism underwent a strategic and fundamental change: from an anti-American and anti-Soviet stance to a defence of the West, even becoming a force defending Atlanticism.
c) Alleanza Cattolica
Alleanza Cattolica was founded in 1968 by Giovanni Cantoni together with Agostino Sanfratello. Italian traditionalism, which saw its fulcrum in AC, was also always very critical of the “Risorgimento”, the political and social movement that led to the unity of Italy in 19th century, which was seen as the Italian version of the French Revolution. Alleanza Cattolica was therefore dedicated to spreading revisionist interpretations of the history of the Risorgimento and the apologetics of the various 'insurrections', i.e. the Catholic popular uprisings against the liberal and democratic revolutions (Vendée in France, Sanfedistas in Italy, Cristeros in Mexico, etc.).
Sanfratello is close to the neo-fascist terrorist Franco Freda and was the mentor of Roberto Fiore, the founder of the extreme right-wing movement Terza Posizione. Freda was convicted for the 1969 bombings in Italy, then for incitement to racial hatred and subversive association. Fiore, on the other hand, was sentenced by the Italian judiciary in 1985 for the offences of subversive association and armed gang. During his years as a fugitive, Fiore was protected by MI6 as an 'agent of British intelligence'. In 1991, the European Commission of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia confirmed his association with MI6 since the early 1980s. Fiore and Sanfratello are also the founders of the political movement "Forza Nuova", on whose lists Sanfratello himself stood as a candidate in 2003.
President of Forza Nuova was another representative of Italian catholicism, the jurist Piero Vassallo, author of an essay in defence of the Nazis in court in Nuremberg.
There are many lawyers in the AC. Among them is Alfredo Mantovano, who at the time of writing is Undersecretary of State in the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and responsible for the secret services.
However, the most influential lawyer in AC is Massimo Introvigne. He joined Alleanza Cattolica in 1972, and soon became the most active member of the association and one of the main signatories of the magazine "Cristianità", the official organ of AC. In 2008, he even succeeded founder Cantoni, who had suffered a stroke, in the official role of 'Reggente Vicario', but effectively at the head of the organisation (Cantoni only retained the position of Regent in an honorary capacity). Introvigne continued the tradition of insurrectionary apologetics by founding the Centre for Counter-Revolutionary Studies (CESCOR) in Turin.
But what is Alleanza cattolica?
The organisation says it is committed to defending the 'social doctrine of the Church', where 'social doctrine' has nothing to do with a commitment to solving social problems, but rather with the instructions that believers should follow in the public sphere according to the principles of 'natural morality'. De Mattei writes:
Giovanni Cantoni's encounter with Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, whose major work Revolution and Counter-Revolution became the basic text for the training of young fighters, was decisive for him.
As Introvigne himself told me in a private communication, "Alleanza Cattolica has always 'navigated' between Correa de Oliveira and Ousset, recognising that there was also a pluralism within the counter-revolutionary world, participating in Ousset's famous Lausanne congresses and maintaining no less friendly relations with this world than with the TFP."
Ultimately, the Alleanza Cattolica moves between the organisation that was dear to the OAS fighters (and whose veterans flowed into the Aginter Presse) and the Brazilian association that collaborated with the South American caudillos protected by the CIA.
d) neocon slip
From the mid-1980s, Tradition, Family and Property came under considerable fire from the institutions. A scandal had already shaken the image of the TFP in France at the end of the 1970s. The Saint Benoit school, founded by the TFP in Chateauroux in 1977, hit the headlines when former members of the association and concerned family members denounced the indoctrination of children that took place there through manipulative pressure and led to negative effects on their relationships with their families. This indoctrination allegedly led the children to fully identify with the organisation and its goals, which had a negative impact on their family relationships. In particular, many students were made to see their parents, especially fathers with prestigious professional positions, as an expression of the 'revolutionary' values that the organisation was supposed to combat.
A report on the school's aberrations entitled 'Tradition, Family, Property. Catholic association or millenarian sect?" was compiled by anonymous writers.
Among the other accusations made in the dossier was the excessive veneration of the founder's mother, Mrs Lucilia, whose locks of hair were elevated to the status of relics. Following this report, the school was closed. At a court hearing in 1982, it was established that the students had been subjected to psychological measures to make them members of the organisation.
In 1984, following a parliamentary investigation, Venezuela banned the TFP, accusing it of practising forms of psychological conditioning of its followers. The following year, the Brazilian Bishops' Conference declared that the TFP was incompatible with the Church 'because of its esoteric character, its religious fanaticism, the cult reserved for the personality of its founder and his mother and the improper use of the name of the Virgin Mary' (XXIII National Assembly of the Brazilian Bishops' Conference, Itaici, 18 April 1985). Two things then happened. Firstly, the TFP published a haphazard pamphlet destined, however, to inaugurate a fortunate thread and entitled Brainwashing. A Myth Exploited by the New 'Therapeutic Inquisition. Its central theme was that mental manipulation was a myth used to combat religion by a fictitious and conspiratorial 'anti-cult movement' made up of psychiatrists and communists. in 1991, TFP reiterated this by publishing in French "The New Atheist and Psychiatric Inquisition Calls Those They Wants to Destroy 'Cults'", by Gustavo Antonio and Luís Sérgio Solimeo, ed. Société Française pour la Defence de la Tradition, Famille et Propriété, Paris 1991, translation of a Spanish text from 1985), which already makes the concept clear in the title.
The second event was that Correa de Oliveira and his followers suddenly developed a vision in which they saw Christian America as the only counter-revolutionary force capable of responding to European secularism, the fruit of the French Revolution, and the 'Marxisation" of the Latin Church, which had gone so far as to criticise Tradition (and even TFP).
Tradition, Family and Property has collaborated with representatives and associations of American conservatism such as Paul Weyrich and the Council for National Policy (CNP). This is a secret organisation described by the New York Times as 'a little-known club of a few hundred of the country's most influential conservatives' that meets three times a year behind closed doors at undisclosed locations for a confidential conference.
The European sister organisations of TFP, such as Alleanza Cattolica and the Lepanto Foundation, have taken the same stance, allying themselves with American neoconservatism in the fight against secularism and defending 'religious freedom". De Mattei (Lepanto Foundation) is a member of the board of experts of the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute as well as the Acton Institute - some of the most active think tanks in the American neoconservative galaxy. Introvgne himself writes in his book on Plinio Correa de Oliveira (Una battaglia nella notte, 2008) that TFP has succeeded in linking with the American right "a set of interests involving the major foundations around which conservative culture revolves" (p. 210).
All of these associations are part of a vast network of Christian pro-free market organisations called the Atlas Network, which is known to operate [...] as a silent extension of US foreign policy, [...] think tanks associated with Atlas receive silent funding from the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy, an essential arm of American soft power. American soft power.
from Lee Fang writes this in Sphere of influence: How American libertarians are remaking Latin American politics, The Intercept, 9 August 2017
In view of this change in political perspective, the foundation of a new institution from the AC in 1988 seems to follow the same logical sequence. This was the Centro Studi Nuove Religioni (Centre for the Study of New Religions), CESNUR. Its founder and director is Massimo Introvigne.
e) CESNUR, the counter- revolution with the mask
CESNUR is a well-known research centre for 'new religious movements' that claims to be 'independent of any religious or denominational organisation'. Although Introvigne has often responded to criticism of the dubious neutrality of a centre for the study of religions whose main representatives are members of Alleanza Cattolica (e.g. Pierluigi Zoccatelli, Marco Respinti and Andrea Menegotto) by pointing out that CESNUR has nothing to do with Alleanza cattolica and works in an avalutative and scientific manner, it was Introvigne himself who declared in 1993:
Thus, the activists of Alleanza Cattolica, together with others, have founded and run CESNUR, the Centre for the Study of New Religions, [... ...] within the context of an apologetic response that does not fail to return to the broader framework of the dramatic struggle between evangelisation and anti-evangelisation, and thus, in the language of the Catholic counter-revolutionary school from which Alleanza Cattolica draws its inspiration, between revolution and counter-revolution, a framework whose thematic presentation constitutes one of the main objectives of the association.
In ‘La questione della nuova religiosità’ by Massimo Introvigne, published by Cristianità, 1993 (ISBN 88-85236-14-6).
"The Catholic counter-revolutionary school from which Alleanza Cattolica draws its inspiration' and which forms the backbone of CESNUR's activities is that of Ousset and Correa de Oliveira.
Over the years, CESNUR has emerged as the main actor in favour of 'religious freedom", presenting itself as a scientific authority entitled to defend the cults criticised by the so-called 'anti-cult movement', which is hostile to free belief. This includes spreading the idea in publications and at congresses that spiritual manipulation does not exist. We are once again faced with the paradox from which we started, namely that Catholic traditionalism thunderstruck by ecumenism on the road to Damascus. Perhaps it was not Damascus.
The dark side of politics
Jeffrey M. Bale of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, arguably the foremost international expert on political and religious extremism, terrorism, unconventional warfare and covert political operations, does not hesitate to write in the second volume of The Darkest Side of Politics that unconventional warfare play a role organisations, promote "political and religious agendas that, in the name of religious and democratic freedoms, actually aim to defend extremist, totalitarian and anti-democratic groups from investigation, criticism and possible state repression, and more generally to resist or even drive back secular humanism, liberalism and modernism in the West". The expert adds that 'perhaps the most important case of these organisations is CESNUR'.. The 'sub rosa' agenda of defending religious freedom with paradoxical 'liberal' arguments (since its director is a 'right-wing Catholic activist'), the "sub rosa" agenda of this centre is to fight against secularism.
Seen this way, CESNUR appears as the “cognitive” version of the Aginter Presse. That was the control and coordination room of a physical and psychological war against communism; CESNUR is the control room of a cultural and cognitive influence war against secularism.
Indeed, Massimo Introvigne still describes French secularism today as a consequence of the Jacobin terror (revolution, subversion), whose heirs would be the government agency Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires (MIVILUDES) and the Fédération Européenne des Centres de Recherche et d'Information sur le Sectarisme (FECRIS), a French organisation that brings together European associations for the defence of and information on the sectarian phenomenon. He writes in an article dated 9 May 2023:
France, even more than Germany, has always been the European country that has made intolerance of religion almost a national sport. Article 2 of the French constitution consists of the famous motto liberté, egalité, fraternité. [...] Not everyone knows that the full text originally contained the closing words 'ou la mort'. [...] After 240 years, the anti-religious mentality of a certain France has still not completely disappeared. [...]
In short, the enemy is still Robespierre.
V- Attack on Secularism
Pre-trial acquittals
On July 8 2022, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a long-time right-wing politician, was assassinated during a rally in the city of Nara. The assassin, Tetsuya Yamagami, claimed to have killed him because he blamed him for the spread of the Unification Church in Japan, an organisation to which his mother had allegedly donated so much that it ruined the family. As the Financial Times reports, the link between the Unification Church and members of Abe's political party is an old one. Nobusuke Kishi, father-in-law of Abe's father, who was prime minister of Japan in the second half of the 20th century, supported the church as an instrument in the anti-communist struggle. Over time, the Unification Church served as a safe reservoir of votes for the Liberal Democratic Party, Abe's nationalist party.
According to the founder "Reverend" Sun Myung Moon, humanity fell from grace when Eve fornicated with the fallen angel Lucifer, who later became Satan. As a result of this perversion of God’s love, all of Adam’s descendants inherited a contaminated bloodline and were alienated from God. Eventually, God sent Jesus as the Messiah to redeem humankind, but God’s plan to purify mankind’s sinful bloodline by having Jesus marry and start a family did not work out. As Plan B, God sent the Messiah Sun Myung Moon, who embodied the Second Coming. Mass weddings are part of the plan. The idea is that two believers, chosen and brought together by the Messiah, will be united as husband and wife with the blessing of the Messiah and their children will be born free from sin.
The church is a business empire that includes a car factory, a huge manufacturing company, several hospitals, and major property investments around the world. Among other things, it owns one of the largest seafood export companies in the world and has helped to popularise sushi in the USA and from there to the rest of the West. He also owns the conservative newspaper Washington Times. Naturally, he plays a major political role. In 2003, Moon caused a stir with a sermon in which he claimed that the Holocaust was the just punishment inflicted on the Jews for the murder of Jesus.
Figure 51 - Shinzo AbeSun Myung Moon and Hyung Jin 'Sean' Moon
The founder's son, Hyung Jin 'Sean' Moon, is no less right-wing. He founded The Rod of Iron Ministries in the USA. The 'rod of iron' is the AR-15 submachine gun; in fact, the church worships firearms, which it describes as 'religious equipment'. The leader wears a crown of bullets and the faithful participate in ceremonies armed with this equipment. The church has strong ties to American Identititarian and far-right movements.
Back in Japan, the links between the Liberal Democratic Party and the church became clear after the death of the former prime minister. Since then, dozens of party members, including those in top positions, have admitted their links to the church or other related organisations.
The government subsequently launched an investigation into Moon's church and on 12 October 2023 declared its intention to request the dissolution of the church.
However, the church has many friends. When the US Congress cut off funding to the Reagan administration in 1985 to support the Nicaraguan 'Contras' terrorists against the Sandinista regime, Reverend Moon's Unification Church became involved in providing food and money for the guerrillas (see further ahead). Ford Greene reports that CAUSA, a company of the Moonies, provided thousands of dollars and tonnes of food, medicine and clothing to the guerrilla forces. In 1985, the Moonies' newspaper, the Washington Times, set up a private fund for the Contras and announced that Bo Hi Pak, the paper's official publisher, had contributed $100,000 to raise $14 million. When asked how the paper could afford this, the publisher explained that the paper's owners (the Moon organisation) were willing to provide extraordinary help on important moral issues (i.e. the fight against communism).
The extensive ties between Paul Weyrich's Council for National Policy (CNP), closely connected with the Brazilian Family and Property Tradition, and the Unification Church were discussed at length in an AFN radio interview by Kelleigh Nelson with Chey Simonton. In 1978, the Fraser Commission, a subcommittee of the US Congress, investigated the South Korean government's political interference in US policy, known as Koreagate. The commission published a report in which Moon's involvement in activities with the US government was also listed.
It was recently revealed that former US President Donald Trump received around 2.5 million dollars from the Universal Peace Federation (UPF), the new denomination of the Unification Church, to make video appearances on three occasions between 2021 and 2022, while former Vice President Mike Pence received 550,000 dollars to speak at a UPF event. This was confirmed by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper by obtaining official US documents and comparing them with court documents in Japan. The event took place in 2022, and the director of CESNUR Massimo Introvigne, who gave a talk at the meeting, was also funded by the UPF (Fig. 53).
Obviously, CESNUR immediately came to the aid of the Unification Church after the murder of Abe. The prompt intervention of a group of Westerners in defence of a controversial religious movement reminded someone in Japan of what happened in 1995 after the Tokyo underground attack by the Aum Shinrikyo (The Supreme Truth) cult. The religious group's followers had punched plastic bags of sarin gas, a nerve agent, into underground cars in Tokyo, killing 13 people and poisoning over 6,200. Gordon Melton of CESNUR USA was paid by the group responsible for the terrorist attack even before he arrived in Japan with another pair of experts to defend the cult. A preemptive payment for a prejudicial defence. Melton has in fact written several books that were directly commissioned and paid for by various groups, including the Ramtha School of Enlightenment; the same groups then ensured the distribution of his books. This was also done years ago by the Unification Church of Moon in Italy with a book by Introvigne. In any case, this funding appears to be just the crumbs of a much larger loaf.
Returning to the Abe case, Introvigne writes in an article in the 'Journal of CESNUR' that “While the weak mind of the assassin had clearly been excited by anti-Unification-Church campaigns by militant lawyers and anti-cultists, the latter succeeded in persuading most media, both in Japan and internationally, that rather than being a victim the Unification Church was somewhat responsible for the homicide, in a spectacular reversal of both logic and fairness” (bold mine).
In other words, Shinzo Abe was killed by the 'anti-cult movement'. Regardless of the reader's assessment of where the 'spectacular reversal of logic' lies, this blanket defence exemplifies a tendency towards prejudicial absolution of the cults under criticism, which is hardly consistent with the claims of a rigorous study centre. Some examples of this same prejudged absolution sometimes border on the ridiculous.
In March 2020, at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, a Korean religious movement called Shincheonji Church of Jesus was accused of contributing to the spread of the virus in the Asian country by preventing its believers from adhering to government regulations and organising crowded prayer meetings without social distancing or masks. More than 60% of those infected in the country were church members. The propaganda machine for new religious movements immediately rushed to the sect's aid and published a 'white paper' titled Shincheonji and the Coronavirus in South Korea: Separating Facts from Fantasies. A few days later, the head of the church, along with 12 other members of the sect, apologised on his knees in front of television cameras for causing the outbreak.
Timing does not seem to be CESNUR's strong point. The year before, CESNUR had already shown how difficult it is to deal with the absolving impulse - with disastrous results. In May 2019, the study centre presented the FIRMA awards (International Festival of Religions, Music and Arts) at the Turin book fair. This prize was created by the Introvigne think tank to honour those who have distinguished themselves in promoting peace through interreligious dialogue.
In this edition, Apostle Naasón Joaquín García, leader of the Luz del Mundo church, was among those honoured. A few weeks after being honoured as an advocate of human rights and author of charitable works, Naasón Joaquín García was arrested in Los Angeles on 26 charges, including human trafficking, production of child pornography and rape of minors. The trial ended with a plea by the apostle and his sentencing to 17 years in prison.
I admit that I have occasionally mocked the director of CESNUR for this unfortunate faux pas. I was answered verbatim: 'I would - and I do not rule this out - give Luz del Mundo in the person of its legal representative pro tempore an award for charitable activities, because I know them and they are admirable', and then concluded: 'The intention was to reward charitable activities, not the apostle's private life'.
I invite the reader to watch the documentary film about Garcia and the Luz del Mundo on the Netflix platform (The Darkness within la Luz del Mundo) and then read Introvigne's sentence again. However, it should be mentioned that Introvigne's wife claims that there is a conspiracy between the anti-cult movement and Netflix. This is not a joke (see here).
Although a character as colourful as the Mexican apostle can steal the show with such theatrical plot twists that are not devoid of irony, it is another award winner, Greg Mitchell, who deserves our attention. We have already met him. He is the chief lobbyist for Scientology and founder of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable. (see Fascists, spies and gurus. 3. The cult apologists). The activities of this loyalist of the American religious holding company are not only regularly reported on institutional websites, but Mitchell himself explained in an interview with 'Business Insider' that the church's lobbying work with the US government is currently not focussed on promoting Scientology, but on 'religious freedom". This work 'often involves working with other religious organisations to encourage the United States to put pressure on foreign countries that persecute religious groups'. In other words, Scientology, along with 'other religious groups," encourages the U.S. government to 'exert pressure' on foreign countries.
Thus, exerting pressure on other countries for their actual or perceived interference or restraint in religious affairs is not a conclusion based on circumstantial evidence, but a stated intention pursued by a variety of actors who, even if they have different motivations, consider such action congruent. A convergence of interests, even if they pursue theoretically opposing goals. Here it is useful for Christian fundamentalists to defend movements that are far removed from Christianity.
This activity is already provided for by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, regardless of the spur of Scientology and other cults. Or not?
Attack on secularism
In 1995, a French government parliamentary committee of enquiry into cults produced a report, the so-called Guyard report, which expressed great concern about the phenomenon. Similar initiatives followed in Belgium (1996), Germany (1997) and Italy (1998).
in 1996, France adopted a series of laws to protect the victims of 'cults' and, above all, an inter-ministerial mission to combat cults (MILS, later MIVILUDES), whose first president was the socialist MP Alain Vivien. This made the country of laicité the spearhead of the resistance against the infiltration of totalitarian groups in Europe and triggered a process that led to the creation of the Fédération Européenne des Centres de Recherche et d'Information sur le Sectarisme (FECRIS), the 'umbrella organisation" bringing together dozens of anti-cult associations from various European countries, and the adoption of the About Picard law, which criminalised the 'abuse of weakness' in 2001.
On June 6 1997, the interior ministers of the federal and state governments in Germany agreed to place the Scientology organisation under surveillance. This was just one of the measures taken by the German government to crack down on Scientology (a 1998 report emphasised the destructive aspects of this "commercial institution disguised as a religion" and a 2007 report by the Ministry of the Interior described the organisation as "incompatible with the constitution"). This was followed by the Scientology campaign against Germany (which is conceivable), but also a series of strong statements in defence of the cult by the US government (which is less conceivable). Other actions included a document by the Beareau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour (BDHRL), an agency of the US State Department, in which Germany is listed alongside countries such as China among the countries that violate religious freedom.
In 1998, the International Religious Freedom Act was promulgated, making the defence of religious freedom in the world US foreign policy. This act established a new department of the US government, which emerged from the Department of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour. Thus was born the Office of International Religious Freedom (OIRF). In practise, this was a specialised body designed to combat 'discriminatory' policies towards alternative spiritual groups. It was decided that the office would be headed by an authorised ambassador, flanked by no fewer than five officials from the State Secretariat. The Commission even had its own representative in all American embassies. Its first chairman was Robert A. Seiple. The curious thing is that this former marine was for more than 11 years the head of World Vision Inc., the world's most important evangelical association promoting ultra-conservative views (and rumoured to be controlled by the CIA). One would have expected a department concerned with religious freedom to bear the traits of secularism, or at least not to have dogmatic traits that clash with a mission that could be labelled 'ecumenical', i.e. giving equal dignity to all religions and allowing them to coexist.
The fact is that the Commission's first report in September 1998 accused France, Germany, Austria and Belgium of violating religious freedom. The OIRF was soon joined by a new organisation, the Commission on Religious Freedom. This commission was made up of American parliamentarians who made representations to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). During a meeting of the OSCE in 1999, these parliamentarians were the protagonists of a fierce attack on France, which was accused of the nefariousness of the 'Vichy regime', of witch-hunting and persecution. A diplomatic incident almost occurred. The delegation from the Religious Freedom Commission was led by Benjamin A. Gillman, whose election campaign was financed by Scientology (see Fascists, spies and gurus. 3. The cult apologists). The session was moderated by Massimo Introvigne.
In September 1999, the OIRF published an even harsher report against the European countries, forcing French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine to write to his American counterpart Madeleine Albright to denounce the intolerable aggression that was calling into question the fruitfulness of the dialogue. This led to the termination of diplomatic dialogue on the issue.
To complete the picture of the forces on the ground, a third body of the US government was added, this time directly linked to the White House. It is the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Yes, the commission that wrote the report advising Trump to obstruct the work of the FECRIS spokesman at the OSCE (c'est moi!). It's worth taking a closer look.
An American commission
The United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an advisory body to the US government that produces an annual report on religious freedom in the world. It consists of only 9 members, 5 from the President's party and 4 from the largest opposition party. It was established with the passage of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which promotes religious freedom as part of US foreign policy.
The report produced by this commission in 2020 was very tough on the so-called "anti-cult movement', in particular the Federation of European Anti-Cult Associations, the Fédération européenne des centres de recherche et d'information sur le sectarisme (FECRIS).
According to the responsible USCIRF in 2020, scientists, activists and associations that campaign for the rights of cult victims would carry out 'hate campaigns' and restrict civil rights. The 2020 report also contains a recommendation to the US President to
[...] combat the propaganda against the new religious movements disseminated by the European Federation of Research and Information Centres on Sectarianism (FECRIS) at the OSCE's annual Human Dimensions conference by sharing information regarding the continued involvement of individuals and entities, operating as part of the anti-sectarian movement, in the suppression of religious freedom (sic).
In practise, it is proposed that individuals (!!) and organisations active in the fight against abusive cults should be monitored...
The most worrying thing for me is that I am one of these people! In fact, I was - and still am - the one who carries out the 'propaganda against new religious movements' at the OSCE.
At the time the 2020 report was written, the President was Donald Trump. If you know how the commission that drafted this document was composed, there are some surprises and curiosities.
The vice president was Tony Perkins. He is also chairman of the Family Research Council, a fundamentalist Protestant organisation. The Family Research Council is against pornography, embryonic stem cell research, abortion, divorce and LGBT rights. The FRC believes that "homosexual behaviour is harmful to the people who practise it and to society in general and can never be affirmed. It is therefore a vice and a sin. Paedophilia would be a problem related to homosexuality. Questionable but legitimate positions, of course, but not the ones one would expect from those who have to pass judgement on discrimination and 'hate speech'. In fact, the Southern Poverty Law Center classified the FRC as an anti-gay hate group in 2010 because the group "makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science" to block LGBT civil rights.
Now, the Family Research Council is among the organisations cited in a study by OpenDemocracy for sending money to Europe to fund the activities of associations that aim to prevent the affirmation of individual rights.
As if that was not enough, Opendecracy itself had previously found the Family Research Council among the religious right associations in the US that have funded campaigns against sex education, contraception, abortion and LGBT rights in Africa.
Another component of the USCIRF was Gary L. Bauer, the former president of the FRC. In November 2009, Bauer signed an ecumenical statement called the "Manhattan Declaration" in which he called on Evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox Christians to disregard government regulations and laws that they felt would force them to support or simply allow abortion, same-sex marriage and other issues that go against their religious conscience.
It seems odd, to say the least, that someone who calls for defiance of the law and is adamantly opposed to recognising the rights enshrined in the Constitution is a member of a commission that oversees respect for civil rights and liberty.
Another component was Johnnie Moore. The latter is Trump's 'evangelical advisor' and advocate of American hegemony. He is president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, a group monitored by Right-Wing Watch, an independent body that monitors all right-wing subversive groups.
Nadine Maenza, another member of the committee, is executive director of Rick Santorum's Patriot Voices PAC for the Defence of Conservative Values. He apparently opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and has adopted the image of the 'culture warrior' in the war on civil liberties during his tenure in the Senate. Santorum is a supporter of the group Regnum Christi, which is affiliated with the Legionaries of Christ, a highly controversial group at the centre of a major scandal. During his tenure as senator, Santorum authored the Santorum Amendment, which promoted the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in schools and opposed the teaching of evolutionary theory.
Another component is Nury Turkel , Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative-oriented US think tank.
Figure 60 - Tony Perkins, Gary L. Bauer, Johnnie Moore, Nadine Maenza
If we expand the search for the components that have alternated over the years in the USCRIF, we find that the relationships between them and the associations of the Atlas Network are very frequent. We know that these Christian-pro-free market organizations are “a ‘silent extension of US foreign policy.’” In USCIRF we find representatives of the Federalist Society (such as Leonard Leo, Chairman of USCIRF in 2009), the American Enterprise Institute (such as John R. Bolton, former appointee) or organisations linked to them such as the Hudson Institute (such as Nury Turkel, appointee). In 2018, USCIRF endorsed international Senator Sam Brownback as a religious freedom ambassador, who was among the speakers at a Brussels conference along with Scientology and Eurosceptic politicians. His election campaign in Kansas was financed by Koch Industries, one of the founders of the anarcho-capitalist organisation Americans for Prosperity, which is linked to Amway (see the next chapter).
However, the first president is enough to raise doubts about the USCIRF. He is Elliott Abrams, a leading representative of the neoconservatives, who was sentenced to a year in prison for his involvement in the Iran-Contras scandal. This involved the notorious financing of the war in Nicaragua against the democratically elected Sandinista government through the illegal sale of weapons to Iran. Among the crimes committed in connection with this sordid operation was the importation of cocaine by the CIA from the Contras, the anti-Sandinista guerrillas, and the subsequent obstruction of justice in the US Department of Justice. Abrams was one of the men involved in this affair and is also accused of being involved in the massacres in Guatemala and El Salvador when he was in charge of Latin America under Reagan. He has often accused the Israeli Likud of excessive tenderness towards the Palestinians. This champion of rights and ecumenism was chairman of the Commission on Religious Freedom International until 2000 and was still a member in 2022!
In 2023, the Parlament of the World's Religions was held in Chicago with representatives from USCRIF, Scientology and the director of the Centre for the Study of New Religions (CESNUR) Massimo Introvigne (fig. 62).
This is not about the ideas of the USCIRF majority commissioners who wrote the 2020 report, but about the paradox that those who advocate these ideas want to pose as defenders of civil liberties. So it seems clear that this commission, which was unsurprisingly created as an additional arm (there were already three US government bodies for religious freedom) at the promulgation of the International Religious Freedom Act, has the function of reacting to the contrary policy put into practice by France and which hinders the geopolitical vision underlying that policy document.
Appendix: Taiwan as Tortuga pro-cult
For years, numerous conferences and seminars on respect for religious freedom have been held in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. CESNUR, but also representatives of various cults, such as the Church of Providence, the Luz del Mundo, the yoga school from Buenos Aires and the Unification Church, always take part. The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) plays a central role. Taiwan, an island off the coast of China that is disputed by China, is not legally recognised by most countries in the international community and is not represented in the UN in accordance with Resolution 2758 of 1971, which was also signed by the USA and European countries.
This makes it a useful free harbour for conducting political and media campaigns that would be embarrassing in the US. This avoids potential diplomatic misunderstandings with Tokyo, which now holds diametrically opposed positions on the issue of new religious movements but is an important ally of the US. In practise, Taiwan has become what the island of Tortuga was to the pirates of the 17th century: a filibuster port that is not subject to the same rules as most other countries.
VI - The Libertarian Network
The Theory of Religious Economy
Rodney Stark is an American know-it-all scientist who vehemently advocates Darwinism in all fields except the one that is its own, biology (in his opinion, evolution is an invention to discredit religion).
This is how blogger Miguel Martinez sums up this character. An effective and keen synthesis that's enriched in the following lines:
Rodney Stark's main concern is to justify neoliberalism theologically, as is evident from the triumphant title of one of his books, The Victory of Reason. How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. A concept we might translate as, "If they foreclose on your house, it's because Jesus wanted it that way".
The author is witty and shows very well the conditions under which the "American know-it-all" works. However, to say that Stark merely "justifies neoliberalism theologically" falls short; in fact, his main concern is to justify theology on "neoliberal" grounds. We should proceed in order. We can say it better. Rodney Stark can be considered the founder of the theory of religious economy. This is the notion that the religious is a "market' equal in all respects to the commodity market. As in all markets, different consumers buy goods, which in this case are the "religious goods" (the various creeds) of competing religious enterprises (the more or less organized religions) [La Vittoria della ragione: Come il cristianesimo ha prodotto libertà, progresso e ricchezza; traduzione di Gabriella Tonoli, Torino, Lindau, 2006, Ed. It.]. Consistent with this paradigm, the theory states that.
[...] as in any other market for material or symbolic goods, and contrary to what some theorists of secularization think - also in (institutional) religion competition is good for the market and within certain limits supply feeds demand.
from Introvigne, M., Mercato religioso, fondamentalismo e conservatorismo islamico: il caso della Turchia, La Critica Sociologica, 152, 10 Febbraio 2005, pp. 43-56, p. 43
As evidence of this, authors working in the wake of this mercantilist conception point out that.
The countries with the greatest religious pluralism - that's, with the greatest competition among religious enterprises - such as the United States [...], are also the countries where the total number of religious practitioners remains stable or increases.
Whereas,
Where, on the other hand, the state obstructs religious pluralism and, in particular, opposes the entry into the market of new entities branded as "cults" or enemies of national identity, there - as in France and Russia - the number of religious practitioners generally declines spectacularly.
In other words, the conclusion is "more market and less state," according to the classic Lassiz-Faire paradigm. This position is based on two premises and an implicit assumption. The first presupposition is that the increase in the number of people practicing religions is a positive and desirable fact; the second presupposition is that the "consumer," the actor who makes his choice in the market of religions, is "rational" and knows what he's buying, in short, that this person is the 'homo oeconomicus' imagined by neoclassical economics, who tends to maximize his own utility; the implicit assumption of the theory is that the various religious "firms" compete with each other and try to satisfy the buyers they compete for better than the others.
The consequences are manifold. If the basic assumptions are accepted, it follows that there's a need for strong "deregulation" of the religious market. Stark and Iannaccone write:
To the extent that a religious economy is competitive and pluralistic, overall levels of religious participation will tend to be high. On the contrary, to the extent that the religious economy is monopolized by one or two state-supported enterprises, participation tends to be low.
from Stark, R., Iannaccone, L.R., A Supply-Side Reinterpretation of the “Secularization” of Europe, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 230-252, Settembre 1994, p. 233
In short, it appears that the enemy of the religious market, as with any other market, is the state; for it's natural for state institutions to favor monopolies to the detriment of free competition and to brand new potential competitors as "sects" or destructive cults. The attraction that the Theory of Religious Economy has for some cult apologists is obviously due to this ideological notion, which relabels criticism of abusive cults as an attempt to suppress the free market in favor of monopolistic religions protected by a planning state that seeks to protect them from competition. The implication, then, is that anti-cult activism is interested work carried out by people who are somehow connected to the state and/or the religious apparatus. In other words, a conspiratorial idea. Of course, only the large organized religions can claim a monopoly, certainly not the secular states of the West, whose founding value is precisely secularism. Nevertheless, the anti-cult movement has no relation to institutional religions, to the point of being accused of "secularism"...
The profane reader of religious economics, however, is still unsatisfied with the curiosity of how the various religions can compete with each other to satisfy customers better than their competitors. The answer is simple: the religions that satisfy customers the most are the most demanding and restrictive. One of the proponents of this mercantile view is Massimo Introvigne, president of CESNUR, the best example of what I call the differentialist apologists. He places great emphasis on this aspect of competitors improving the quality of the offer. He writes, for example:
[...] there is a kind of Darwinian struggle even in the religious field. The most demanding religious proposals tend to prevail: among Jews, the Orthodox, in Islam the fundamentalists, and among Catholics, the most strict movements and congregations.
from Beretta, R., Contrordine: non siamo più atei. Intervista con Massimo Introvigne, Avvenire, 8 Ottobre 2003
Competition would select the faiths that are more rigid and strict in demanding adherence, in short, the more integralist and fundamentalist versions. Competition, then, selects the fundamentalisms. This selection of extremist versions can be explained by the phenomenon of 'free riders' who literally 'travel cheap.' Those who want to enjoy the benefits of a collective enterprise, but don't want to bear the costs, travel without a ticket. In the religious realm, the collective enterprise is a church or faith community. An organization can tolerate a few free riders, i.e., uncommitted members, but not too many. Introvigne writes:
In the realm of religions, the less strict and rigorous organizations, which charge low admission fees and unobtrusively check that members have paid their admission ticket, i.e., that they're sufficiently committed, take on board such a high number of free riders that they offer their faithful a diluted and unsatisfying religious experience, [...] The more rigorous organizations charge a more expensive admission ticket and check that everyone pays for it: In this way, they allow fewer free riders, and the symbolic goods of a group where there are no free riders are usually perceived as more satisfying by consumers.
from Introvigne, M., Mercato religioso, fondamentalismo e conservatorismo islamico: il caso della Turchia, La Critica Sociologica, n. 152, inverno 2004-2005 [10 febbraio 2005)], pp. 43-56, p. 43
One concludes that the outcome of this beneficial competition between religions is an increase in religious zeal and commitment, i.e., an increase in what is most hostile to competition (in this case, other commitments and zeal). This competition feeds the monopolistic claims of fundamentalisms, which are by definition incompatible. A free market that generates hostility to the free market! This is an incompatibility that cannot be reconciled and cannot harmonize in an ecumenism precisely because of the rigidity chosen by the market.
In conclusion, any representative of a conservative spiritual vision who wanted to strengthen it would have to work to ensure the continued existence of all other faiths on the market and to defend even the most controversial spiritual groups (e.g. Scientology) with all their might. This would have the double effect of strengthening their own incontrovertible "truth" and at the same time - paradoxically - becoming a defender of religious freedom.
Defending the indefensible: the crypto-paleolibertarianism of apologists
This free market, with its less than liberal results, is very reminiscent of the "paleolibertarian" strain of a doctrine known as anarcho-capitalism. Anarcho-capitalism or libertarianism is one of the directions of contemporary political and legal philosophy that proposes the abolition of the state and replaces it with market relations. The main intellectual reference for anarcho-capitalism is the economist Murray Rothbard, who in the 1960s proposed a political theory that focused on the inviolable sovereignty of the individual. Based on the non-aggression axiom, an ethical principle of natural law that states that it's not legitimate to attack the person and property of an individual, all forms of taxation that constitute a theft of individual property and all coercive measures by the state, which is seen as inherently authoritarian, should be abolished. In this society, every service would be provided by private individuals on a voluntary basis. A less extreme version is called mini-archism, and its proponents want to maintain a "minimal state" whose only function is to legitimize the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud. Both versions agree on the central idea that the state would not be authorized to use its monopoly to interfere with free transactions between individuals. Every transaction between individuals is a "market" transaction, even those that cannot be monetized in a concrete sense, such as the choice of friends or partners, because they are based on incentives and disincentives, on costs and benefits. Freedom and economic prosperity can therefore only be guaranteed by universal laissez-faire, in the economy as in any other sphere. The state, even minimalist mini-archism, therefore has no right to interfere in individual choices such as sexual orientation, drug use, lifestyle, and religious affiliation.
When using European political categories, American libertarianism is usually considered "right-wing" in economic terms and "left-wing" in rights terms, because of its radical advocacy of individual liberties. However, many of those who held this view were culturally conservative and considered total freedom in the area of personal choices to be libertine excess. Therefore, in 1990, an article by Lew Rockwell (The Case for Paleo-libertarianism, Liberty, January 1990, 34-38) gave rise to a conservative current called "paleolibertarianism" which traces its origins to the old American paleoconservative right of Ludwig von Mises and Albert J. Nock. What distinguishes it from classical anarcho-capitalism, especially in its "left-wing" version, is the strong defense of traditional values and customs, especially those associated with Christian morality. This creates a correspondence with the European criteria of the "right", since paleolibertarianism combines economic conservatism and cultural conservatism. This current is historically associated with the Von Mises Institute, an academic organization that sponsors hundreds of conferences and meetings to combat etatism and promote conservative moral values. Von Mises, the Austrian economist to whom the institute is dedicated, based his 'praxeology' (the science of human action) on the assumption that "human action is always rational."
The results of this logic may astound the prophane of market libertarianism. In a classic of anarcho-capitalist thought entitled Defending the Indefensible, Walter Block goes so far as to exonerate and justify behavior deemed reprehensible on the basis of the individual's free and consensual choice. "The 'blackmailer,' the 'filthy male chauvinist,' the 'employer of minors,' the 'garbage distributor,' the 'loan shark,' the 'homeless man,' the 'corrupt policeman,' even the 'person who yells 'fire' in a crowded club,' and other unsympathetic figures are defended on the basis of the principle of non-aggression. To give an example of the otherwise brilliant argumentative style that characterizes this provocative book, this excerpt from the speech in favor of the blackmailer is worthwhile:
What exactly is blackmail? Blackmail is the offer of trade. It is the offer to trade something, usually silence, for some other good, usually money. If the offer of the trade is accepted, the blackmailer then maintains his silence and the blackmailed pays the agreed-upon price. If the blackmail offer is rejected, the blackmailer may exercise his rights of free speech and publicize the secret. There is nothing amiss here. All that is happening is that an offer to maintain silence is being made. If the offer is rejected, the blackmailer does no more than exercise his right of free speech.The sole difference between a gossip and a blackmailer is that the blackmailer will refrain from speaking — for a price.
Among the 28 figures that benefit from Block's defense, the one of "guru" or "leader of a coercive group" is missing, but it can be argued with reasonable certainty that the arguments used would be based on the non-aggression principle and on free intercourse between individuals. Moreover, it is the same defense that Block voices with respect to the "capitalist pig exploiter of labor." These arguments overlap with those of cult apologists of all kinds, who are generally also extremely pro-free market. Suffice it to look at the Acton Institute, an American think tank with a Christian and ultra-lassez-faire matrix founded by
Robert Sirico and Amway. Sirico is a Catholic priest with a background as an evangelical Pentecostal pastor and founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, a church that advocates for the rights of homosexual believers. At the age of 19, he joined the 'Jesus People Army', founded by Linda Meissner, which later merged into the 'Children of God'. The Jesus People Army, like the Children of God, emerged in the context of the hippie Christian revival movement, which grew out of the counterculture and mysticism of the 1960s. In 1976, Sirico was arrested after a police raid on a Hollywood club equipped with rooms with leather ropes and iron chains where an auction of young nude male slaves was taking place. Charges against Sirico, who was the organizer of the event and the financial beneficiary of the auction, were dropped because it turned out that the slaves were all consenting adults who were members of a sadomasochistic organization called the 'Leather Fraternity'. Sirico joined the libertarian ideology in 1977 and became a spokesman for 'Libertarians for Gay Rights'. He later converted to Catholicism and paleolibertarianism. He was subsequently ordained to the priesthood. In 1990, he co- founded the Acton Institute with Betsy DeVos, from the family that owns Amway. The latter organization and others associated with it fund the Acton Institute, which, incidentally, is located in the same city as Amway, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Amway is a multinational multi-level marketing (MLM) company that sells various soaps and detergents and whose executives are evangelical activists closely associated with the American economic, political and military right who claim to speak directly to God. According to many scholars, MLM organizations are themselves cults, though not religious ones, based on the Ponzi scheme.
This multinational Ponzi scheme, in turn, is part of a vast network of Christian free-market organizations called the Atlas Network, controlled by the Atlas Institute. The organisation has been described as a “self-replicating think tank that creates think tanks”. Major US think tanks that belong to the network include the Cato Institute, the Heartland Institute (which is dedicated to refuting climate change), the Heritage Foundation (which is particularly opposed to abortion and LGBT rights) and the American Legislative Exchange Council.
The connections and sometimes the overlaps between the characters and institutions of the various environments considered here, i.e., the conservative Christian environment, that of promoting aggressive economic laissez-faire, and that of the cults, are consistent, even if little known. The whole world of Christian fundamentalists and enemies of sexual freedoms and self-determination is strangely interested in the defence of cults that are furthest removed from Christian orthodoxy. To give an example, the Conservative Summit 2024 held in Bratislava, Slovakia, featured OndřejDostàl among the speakers. He is a Czech politician who sympathizes with the Creative Society, a project of the AllatRa cult. Another speaker was Mrs. Konecna, a communist politician. Both are quite openly pro-Russian. Ján Figeľ is a Slovakian politician with links to CitizenGo, a Spanish fundamentalist association, which is particularly committed to the defence of religious freedom and is close to both Scientology and the Unification Church. He is a key figure of Agenda Europe, an informal network of associations that came together in January 2013 with the aim of building a Christian-inspired European think tank and supporting the “pro-life” movement in Europe. This was reported by the EPF in a report summarising documents from this network, which were kept secret until 2017 and published following a leak from a still anonymous source.
In 2022, Figel' participated in the symposium "Religious Freedom: A Human Right Under Attack," co-organized by Figeľ's 'Tunega, Púčik and Tesár Foundation' with the Universal Peace federation (Unification Church). Aaron Rhodes (Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe) was among the speakers. Aaron Rhodes served as Executive Director of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) that is said to be infiltrated by Scientology. Rhodes is also a member of the Common Sense Society, an organisation full of pro-Russians.
This is interesting, because even if TFP has opted for the Atlanticist camp, the Polish organisation that refers to TFP, Ordo Iuris, obviously has ties to Russian circles, and conservative christians like Figel do not disdain working with Kremlin-affiliated figures. In 2017, Figel was at a conference of the All Faith Network (i.e. Scientology) with prominent Scientologist Eric Roux, pro-Western Introvigne and Leonid Sebastianov, a Russian ultranationalist, leader of the "Old Believers" and representative of the Kremlin's informal diplomacy. That was before the war, of course. Those were years in which the director of CESNUR could write things like the following:
That Russia behaves well towards the LGBT lobby and fundamentalist Islam does not justify its aggressive and expansionist policies in the West, and at the same time, condemning these expansionist policies does not diminish appreciation for the fight against the gay lobby and fundamentalist Islam that Russia is waging.
A strange statement for an advocate of civil rights and ecumenism, but one that can be summarised in the idea that the Federation's domestic policy was good, but its foreign policy was not.
As in esotericism, what appears on the surface does not always correspond to the deep truth, which remains hidden to most people. The links between the Russian world and the world of cult apologists may be closer than we think, despite the pro-Atlanticism proclaimed on the surface.
Anyway, in 2023, Ján Figeľ together with Willy Fautré (HRWF), Massimo Introvigne (CESNUR) and Aaron Rhodes (Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe), signed a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Kishida in defence of the Unification Church. A month earlier, together with Massimo Introvigne, he had already spoken out in favour of this issue at the International Summit for Religious Freedom (as stated on the church's own website).
The Citizens Commission for Human Rights (CCHR), a well-known Scientology front organisation, funded Paul Weyrich's American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), according to a letter from CCHR board member Carol Steinke.
A branch of Paul Weyrich's American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) also honoured the wife of Sun Myung Moon, the leader of the Unification Church, Hak Ja Han Moon. The award was presented by Robin Brunelli, president of the National Foundation for Women Legislators and wife of Sam Brunelli, ALEC director and long-time CNP member. In an AFN radio interview by Kelleigh Nelson with Chey Simonton, the far-reaching connections between the Council for National Policy (CNP) and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church were discussed at length.
As we have seen in (Fascists, spies and gurus. 5. Attack on secularism), Moon's Unification Church helped the Reagan administration fund the Nicaraguan Contras as part of the secret plan for which former USCIRF Chairman Abrams was convicted.
In 2025, immediately after Donald Trump took office as President of the United States, the annual International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit was held in Washington. Partners in the event included the Universal Peace Federation (i.e. the Unificatiion Church) and Scientology. In the plenary session, Vice President Vance declared the new administration's commitment to securing and strengthening the United States' efforts to protect religious freedom. The programme also included a (sponsored...) meeting with Pastor Paula White, Special Advisor to President Trump, Marco Respinti (CESNUR and Bitter Winter), Patricia Duval (FOB and more), Senator Sam Browmback (former Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom and member of Americans for Prosperity of Atlas Network), Micahel Jenkins and Tomihiro Tanaka, both of the Unification Church. The chairman was the editor of the Washington Times, the Moonies' newspaper. The topic was the persecution of the Unification Church by the (democratic) government of Japan. The Southern Poverty Law Center had warned that the IRF summit would bring together far-right groups.
With the re-election of Donald Trump and the establishment of a White House Office of Faith aimed at defending Christians from prejudice and ‘empowering faith-based entities’, the presence of Scientology in key positions appears to be increasing. For example, one of the church's major financial backers has been appointed to the board of the Kennedy Centre and a high-ranking Scientologist has been chosen to be among the peace negotiators between Russia and the Ukraine.
Follow the money
From 2008 to 2020, the major Christian conservative associations in the United States spent more than $280 million abroad. At least 90 million of that went to Europe, while the rest went to Africa and Asia. This is according to an analysis by the US investigative website OpenDemocracy, in which authors Claire Provost and Nandini Archer analysed thousands of financial records from 28 mostly Christian extremist and ultra-pro-free market US groups with strong links to the conservative, sometimes far right.
In recent years, thanks in part to these investments, these groups have become increasingly influential in American and international politics. Indeed, the funds have the explicit purpose of supporting both initiatives and other satellite organisations around the world, which in turn work to influence public opinion, laws and national policies to prevent the enforcement of sexual and reproductive rights. But that is not all. Among the aims of all these organisations, the protection of “religious freedom” is of great importance
The list of 28 groups under consideration includes the Acton Institute, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council, the Federalist Society, the American Center for Law and Justice, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property. The latter is nothing other than the American branch of the Brazilian organisation for the defence of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), which was founded by Plinio Correa de Oliveira and to which the Italian traditionalist Catholic associations Alleanza Cattolica and Fondazione Lepanto refer, as we have seen (see Fascists, spies and gurus. 4. The black network). From the first part of this report, we know that the main objective of this organisation since the mid-1980s has been to defend religious freedom and thus promote an anti-secular vision of society. It is therefore likely that the funds of this society - 3,123,131 dollars between 2008 and 2020 - will flow to European organisations pursuing the same goal. In Italy, the most important organisation of this kind is the Centro Studi Nuove Religioni (CESNUR), which has emerged from a rib of Alleanza Cattolica, with which it has long shared a top figure. On the other hand, De Mattei, the head of the Lepanto Foundation, is a member of the expert panel of the Heritage Foundation and the Acton Institute, both of which are included in the list analysed by Open Democracy. This flow of money to Europe is driven primarily by two groups that focus their battles on the courts. One is the organisation American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), led by Trump's personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). The latter boasts Betsy DeVos's family among its founders. Both groups are part of Agenda Europe
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