Cardinal Ouellet's rumored move to the Vatican and Catholic Church - Scientology relations
For Great Justice - The Catholic archdiocese of Québec has officialy denied today rumors that Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Catholic Primate of Canda has been called to a position in the Vatican.
A call to Rome for Cardinal Ouellet would be significant for the Church's relationship with organized Scientology under the leadership of David Miscavige and its more general concern for human rights abuses. The Cardinal's critical remarks on two occasions in February have moved the Church for the first time ever into a publicly critical stance towards Scientology.
The news of the Cardinal's rumored appointment first broke with a report today in the Québec daily Le Soleil:
Cardinal Ouellet to Rome? (Article in French. Google translation is here . )
This has been followed by a second report:
Cardinal Ouellet to Rome: Diocese ends rumours . (Article in French. Google translation is here . )
At the annual meeting of diocesan clergy at the convent of the Sisters of Charity in Québec on the anniversary of the birthday of the first archbishop of Québec, Mgr François de Laval, Cardinal Ouiellet announced that recently appointed auxiliary bishops Paul Lortie and Cyprian Gérald Lacroix, would provide continuity of leadership within the archdiocese.
Québec is rife with rumours, speculation, and gossip that Cardinal Ouellet will move to Rome and take up a unannounced position in the Vatican. Mgr Ouellet has counseled people not to believe everything written in the newspapers.
However, certain key facts stand out. Cardinal Ouellet has a friendship of long-standing with Pope Benedict. He is knowledgable about the concerns of Catholic Bishops around the world. His masterful summary of their reports in a 70-minute speech to them in flawless Latin at the 2007 Synod of bishops was hailed as a tour-de-force. He has spent on unusual amount of time in Rome recently, beyond what arrangments for the two new auxiliary bishops would require.
Whether or not speculation of a Vatican appointment is confirmed, Cardinal Ouellet remains a prime candidate for a position there at some point. He has shown exceptional intelligence and generosity of heart in navigating the treacherous challenges in Québec of increasing secularization in a multi-ethnic and pluralist society where opportunity for religious instruction for students of all faiths in the secular school system has been recently been eliminated.
Cardinal Ouellet's courageous pronouncements have allowed Catholics in North America to undertake serious investigation into Scientology's suppression of free speech in society and the internet, along with a range of human rights abuses. Some have already become activists. Knowledge of Scientology's human rights abuses continues to spread throughout the media and the religious and secular blogosphere in North America, Germany, and francophone Europe.
It is significant that the Holy See chose Cardinal Ouellet in Québec to take a critical stance in regard to Scientology. Through him it was able to address both anglophone North America and more importantly, francophone Europe where France radiates enormous cultural influence.
In the space opened up for Scientology criticism by Anonymous in the last year, the governments of France and Belgium have revived cases of corporate fraud for engaging in practices that are uniform and universal throughout Scientology around the world. If convicted, Scientology could be dismantled in both countries.
Organized Scientology is opening a sumptuous "veritable supermarket of religious business" Ideal Org in Brussels, home to major European Union institutions. According to the International Association of Scientologists,
facilities were acquired in Brussels to be the home of a greatly expanded Church of Scientology International European Office for Public Affairs and Human Rights. These facilities are within walking distance of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers of the European Union.
Scientology's war on the European Union and the UN Human Rights Commssion engages France, Belgium, Germany, the Holy See, and the United States. There is a long history of Scientology celebrities like John Travolta and Tom Cruise building relationships with the Clinton and Bush administrations to lean on the State Department to plead Scientology's case to all of these countries.
Domestically, Scientology has become a scandal in the relationship of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with public lawyer celebrity Scientologists Greta van Susteren of Fox News and her husband, trial-lawyer John P. Coale. Her unusually close relationship with them has associated her also with Scientology's abuses taking place within its internal staff and management organization, the Sea Org.
The most serious is the abusive treatment of women who are forced to abort if they get pregnant or be expelled from the Sea Org. The most destructive of families is the extreme practice of shunning known as disconnection. Knowledge of these abuses is spilling beyond the boundaries of the Scientology-critical movement. ABC-affiliate KESQ in Palm Springs is reporting on them in a continuing series. Three lawsuits have been filed alleging abusive treatment, coerced abortion, and human trafficking.
Whatever position Cardinal Ouellet might be appointed to now or in future, he will affect the relationship of the Church to organized Scientology. Further moves in Rome on the human rights front would no doubt be of interest to two prominent figures in the international Catholic world of concerned about human rights abuses , Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour and Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon .
Justice Arbour has recently retired from being High Commissioner for the UN Human Rights Commission and now lives in Montréal.
Ambassador Glendon was ambassador to the Holy See in the Bush administration. She teaches constitutional and comparative law at Harvard. She is a heroine to the right to life movement. The interest of either of them would be significant.
Most significant of all, with his critical remarks about Scientology on two occasions in February Cardinal Ouellet has become a Suppressive Person to all Scientologists. An SP is anyone who criticizes Scientology. SP's are considered to be criminal psychopaths. Tom Cruise longs for a world without SP's. Only criminals could criticize Hubbard's 100% correct technology for transforming all of society according to his unchangeable and infallible doctrines and practices.
Cardinal Ouellet now has joined in SP fellowship with Anonymous and Marc Headley as the most significant figures of opposition to organized Scientology's suppression of free speech and its human rights abuses.
We may soon have an SP Cardinal in the Vatican. If rumors are not confirmed, the discussion will still have high-lighted concerns about Scientology locally in Québec and in Europe.
An official announcement of Cardinal Oullet's appointment would give us further information with which to assess its effect on the Church's relationship with organized Scientology. Le Solei has quoted a well-placed source in the archdiocese: "Even if I knew, you know that I cannot confirm it." The current Cardinal Ouellet affair appears to not yet have run its course.
Stay tuned.
Ed. - This post is a revision of an earlier version in light of the unconfirmed nature of early reports.
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