Rights. The report was followed by a
debate of Assembly members.
Salles’ report summarized his efforts in
response to an earlier motion by the
Council to look at the influence of sects on
minors in Europe, including “the exertion
of pressure to manipulate a person.”
Through his fact-finding efforts, including
visits to Sweden and Germany and
responses from 25 member states to a
questionnaire he submitted to
parliamentary delegations, Salles reported
that “in Europe the level of protection for
young people against the abuses of sects,
and the amount of information on that,
varies considerably from one country to
another. Only a few member states,
including France, Belgium, and
Luxembourg, have taken legislative
measures to deal with the problem. Other
states, including Germany, Austria, and
Switzerland, have taken measures to
monitor abuses by sects. From various
other countries we have received no data.”
The resulting draft resolution calls for
member states to take various actions,
including creating national centers to
monitor and exchange information about
groups of concern, to “criminalise the
psychological or physical manipulation of
people through an explicit provision
included in their criminal code,” and to set
up voluntary study groups within national
parliaments to increase awareness of the
phenomenon.
The resolution also calls on member states
to “draw up statistics on crimes by sects,
and to create national centres to monitor
religious and spiritual movements, so that
we can have an exchange of information
about these bodies. They should also
centralise information, in particular for
social services, the courts and the police,
to identify any dangers to young people.
They should strengthen state inspection of
private schools and of those educated at
home, and they should criminalise the
psychological or physical manipulation of
people through an explicit provision
included in their criminal code.
Acknowledging and responding to
numerous complaints that had been
registered about his report and
recommendations, Sallas emphasized “that
I am not trying in any way to restrict
freedom of religion or belief, which is a
fundamental freedom both in my country
and in other Council of Europe member
states. All I am trying to do is protect
young people from groups that might use
manipulatory techniques that are often
disguised by ideology.
“I am very much in favour of freedom of
conscience, minority religions. and any
kind of philosophical group that sticks to
the law. I do not need to remind members
that the main difference between sects
and religions is that you can leave a
religion when you want to, whereas you
have great difficulty in leaving a sect.”
A video of the 2.5-hour council meeting is
available from http://www.dimarzio.info/
en/home-en-gb.html (scroll down and
click on image). (Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly, 4/10/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
French police have arrested an unnamed
fundamentalist priest who allegedly raped
and tortured three women during
exorcism rituals. The 40-year-old allegedly
abused the women in 2010, when he was
head of the private religious school
Notre-Dame-de-la Sablonniere in
Goussonville, a village of 600 people 50
kilometers west of Paris. His victims were
teachers at the institute run by the Society
of St. Pius X, a Catholic order blackballed
by the Vatican.
The priest used the spiritual influence he
had on the women to abuse them, Le
Parisien newspaper reported. One of the
victims, a mother, had reportedly come to
him for advice on a previous sexual abuse
she had suffered. The priest performed a
so-called exorcism on her, repeating the
abuse to "purge evil with evil," the
newspaper said. The woman was said to
have been so traumatised that she could
not describe the events to police.
The priest used the same perverse
technique to manipulate two other
women into believing they had been the
victims of sexual abuses and thus needed
to be exorcised. Questioned by police, the
man downplayed the accusations claiming
that the women agreed to the exorcism
and that sexual acts were only simulated.
The alleged crimes came to light as two of
the victims found the strength to lodge a
complaint with police in 2013. Prosecutors
in Versailles charged the clergyman with
acts of cruelty, torture, and rape. Le Parisien
reported that the man had already been
tried by his religious order in a canon trial
and sentenced to 2 years in a monastery.
Founded by French archbishop Marcel
Lefebvre in 1970, the Society of St. Pius X
has no canonical status, which means
ministries exorcised by its ministers are not
considered legitimate by the Vatican. The
order, which opposes reforms of the
church made at the Second Vatican
Council, fell out with the Holy See when it
ordained four bishops without the Pope's
consent in 1988. The four were
excommunicated immediately but
eventually pardoned in 2009. Among them
was Richard Williamson, who denies the
Holocaust and the existence of Nazi death
camps and gas chambers.
The Society sparked controversy last 2013
when it agreed to celebrate funerals for
Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke, who died
unrepentant at the age of 100 in Rome.
(International Business Times, 4/11/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Attorney Paul Morantz has written Escape:
My Lifelong War Against Cults, which begins
by recounting the attempts by Synanon to
suppress and kill him in 1978 for exposing
the group’s treatment of followers and
critics. Morantz goes on to document his
30-year campaign to publicize the
destructive nature of numerous other
cults, including the Manson Family, the
Symbionese Liberation Army, the
Unification Church, and Scientology.
(Santa Monica Daily Press, (11/29/13)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Forty children who were taken in
September from two Twelve Tribes
farming communities in Germany
following charges of child abuse remain in
custody, although doctors who examined
the children found no evidence to support
the allegations. The Tribe advocates
disciplining children with a “thin rod,”
finding support in the Bible for the policy.
In Germany, spanking children is against
the law. Babies and 2- or 3-year-olds are
among the children in custody, with whom
parents have been allowed very little
contact. After 4 months in foster homes,
some of the children do not even
recognize their biological parents. Several
teenagers in custody have tried to escape
but were captured. The Youth Services
(Jugendamt), which is in charge of the
case, is an independent and autonomous
agency more powerful than the police.
(Worldwide Religious News, 2/7/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Approximately twenty-five hundred
identically dressed Unification Church
couples, many of mixed nationality who
had met only days earlier, were married in
Gapyeong, South Korea in February. This
was only the second mass marriage since
the death of the church’s founder, the Rev.
Sun Myung Moon. Traditionally, the Rev.
36 ICSA TODAY
debate of Assembly members.
Salles’ report summarized his efforts in
response to an earlier motion by the
Council to look at the influence of sects on
minors in Europe, including “the exertion
of pressure to manipulate a person.”
Through his fact-finding efforts, including
visits to Sweden and Germany and
responses from 25 member states to a
questionnaire he submitted to
parliamentary delegations, Salles reported
that “in Europe the level of protection for
young people against the abuses of sects,
and the amount of information on that,
varies considerably from one country to
another. Only a few member states,
including France, Belgium, and
Luxembourg, have taken legislative
measures to deal with the problem. Other
states, including Germany, Austria, and
Switzerland, have taken measures to
monitor abuses by sects. From various
other countries we have received no data.”
The resulting draft resolution calls for
member states to take various actions,
including creating national centers to
monitor and exchange information about
groups of concern, to “criminalise the
psychological or physical manipulation of
people through an explicit provision
included in their criminal code,” and to set
up voluntary study groups within national
parliaments to increase awareness of the
phenomenon.
The resolution also calls on member states
to “draw up statistics on crimes by sects,
and to create national centres to monitor
religious and spiritual movements, so that
we can have an exchange of information
about these bodies. They should also
centralise information, in particular for
social services, the courts and the police,
to identify any dangers to young people.
They should strengthen state inspection of
private schools and of those educated at
home, and they should criminalise the
psychological or physical manipulation of
people through an explicit provision
included in their criminal code.
Acknowledging and responding to
numerous complaints that had been
registered about his report and
recommendations, Sallas emphasized “that
I am not trying in any way to restrict
freedom of religion or belief, which is a
fundamental freedom both in my country
and in other Council of Europe member
states. All I am trying to do is protect
young people from groups that might use
manipulatory techniques that are often
disguised by ideology.
“I am very much in favour of freedom of
conscience, minority religions. and any
kind of philosophical group that sticks to
the law. I do not need to remind members
that the main difference between sects
and religions is that you can leave a
religion when you want to, whereas you
have great difficulty in leaving a sect.”
A video of the 2.5-hour council meeting is
available from http://www.dimarzio.info/
en/home-en-gb.html (scroll down and
click on image). (Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly, 4/10/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
French police have arrested an unnamed
fundamentalist priest who allegedly raped
and tortured three women during
exorcism rituals. The 40-year-old allegedly
abused the women in 2010, when he was
head of the private religious school
Notre-Dame-de-la Sablonniere in
Goussonville, a village of 600 people 50
kilometers west of Paris. His victims were
teachers at the institute run by the Society
of St. Pius X, a Catholic order blackballed
by the Vatican.
The priest used the spiritual influence he
had on the women to abuse them, Le
Parisien newspaper reported. One of the
victims, a mother, had reportedly come to
him for advice on a previous sexual abuse
she had suffered. The priest performed a
so-called exorcism on her, repeating the
abuse to "purge evil with evil," the
newspaper said. The woman was said to
have been so traumatised that she could
not describe the events to police.
The priest used the same perverse
technique to manipulate two other
women into believing they had been the
victims of sexual abuses and thus needed
to be exorcised. Questioned by police, the
man downplayed the accusations claiming
that the women agreed to the exorcism
and that sexual acts were only simulated.
The alleged crimes came to light as two of
the victims found the strength to lodge a
complaint with police in 2013. Prosecutors
in Versailles charged the clergyman with
acts of cruelty, torture, and rape. Le Parisien
reported that the man had already been
tried by his religious order in a canon trial
and sentenced to 2 years in a monastery.
Founded by French archbishop Marcel
Lefebvre in 1970, the Society of St. Pius X
has no canonical status, which means
ministries exorcised by its ministers are not
considered legitimate by the Vatican. The
order, which opposes reforms of the
church made at the Second Vatican
Council, fell out with the Holy See when it
ordained four bishops without the Pope's
consent in 1988. The four were
excommunicated immediately but
eventually pardoned in 2009. Among them
was Richard Williamson, who denies the
Holocaust and the existence of Nazi death
camps and gas chambers.
The Society sparked controversy last 2013
when it agreed to celebrate funerals for
Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke, who died
unrepentant at the age of 100 in Rome.
(International Business Times, 4/11/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Attorney Paul Morantz has written Escape:
My Lifelong War Against Cults, which begins
by recounting the attempts by Synanon to
suppress and kill him in 1978 for exposing
the group’s treatment of followers and
critics. Morantz goes on to document his
30-year campaign to publicize the
destructive nature of numerous other
cults, including the Manson Family, the
Symbionese Liberation Army, the
Unification Church, and Scientology.
(Santa Monica Daily Press, (11/29/13)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Forty children who were taken in
September from two Twelve Tribes
farming communities in Germany
following charges of child abuse remain in
custody, although doctors who examined
the children found no evidence to support
the allegations. The Tribe advocates
disciplining children with a “thin rod,”
finding support in the Bible for the policy.
In Germany, spanking children is against
the law. Babies and 2- or 3-year-olds are
among the children in custody, with whom
parents have been allowed very little
contact. After 4 months in foster homes,
some of the children do not even
recognize their biological parents. Several
teenagers in custody have tried to escape
but were captured. The Youth Services
(Jugendamt), which is in charge of the
case, is an independent and autonomous
agency more powerful than the police.
(Worldwide Religious News, 2/7/14)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Approximately twenty-five hundred
identically dressed Unification Church
couples, many of mixed nationality who
had met only days earlier, were married in
Gapyeong, South Korea in February. This
was only the second mass marriage since
the death of the church’s founder, the Rev.
Sun Myung Moon. Traditionally, the Rev.
36 ICSA TODAY
