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Rock Center with Brian Williams: The Church of Scientology in Tom Cruise’s Latest Divorce with Katie Holmes |
Rock Center with Brian Williams takes on multiple stories on tonight’s show. Nerdles covers the story about Tom Cruise’s and Katie Holmes’ recent divorce, and more specifically, about Katie Holmes separation from the Church of Scientology. Ultimately, it looks like it ain’t going to be easy for Katie to just up and leave Scientology just like that. Find out more below as Nerdles’ recaps this segment of the show LIVE.
The Church of Scientology has been in touch with Brian Williams the past few days (and even the past few hours) to dissuade him and NBC from airing this episode. Now, Kate Snow interviews members of the Church of Scientology who have themselves left the church. First, she interviews a man named Marty Rathbun [sic] who talks about the Church’s practices.
Marty reveals a few of the Church’s more questionanle dealings. For example, a “blow” is an unauthorized departure from the Church. Marty, along with many other private investigators, were tasked to go out and “hunt” these people to get them back into the Church. They’d even go as far as contacting a person’s family, and checking their personal records to “persuade” them to come back into the Church.
When Marty left the Church himself, a pro-Scientology group called the “Squirrel Busters” stalked him for 199 days. They wore shirts with Marty’s face on it, filmed him, and basically harassed him. In fact, they wanted to push Marty far enough to the edge so he’d attack one of them so they could discredit Marty himself. Burt Leyhey [sic], one of the photographers hired by the Squirrel Busters, quit after two days of filming the harassment they put on Marty.
Tom Cruise is the Church of Scientology’s most public member. It’s reported that Cruise would come in for “auditing” (a kind of spiritual auditing which involves the use of a machine that measures one’s emotions) with Marty himself at the Scientology’s Celebrity Center. Connor and Bella, Cruise’s children, were even indoctrinated by Church members during Cruise’s auditing. In fact, Marty shares that the children were even turned against their own mother when Cruise was dating Nicole Kidman.
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Mike Rinder, another man who left the Church in 2007, was also abandoned by his own family – his wife, his son, his daughter, nieces, nephews, and all his in-laws – after years of being unhappy as a member of the Church. In turn, the Church charges that Mr. Rinder was violent and oppressive. The Church charges that Mike and Marty are excommunicated self-promoters who are still performing Scientology practices and services for personal finanacial gain. Kate Rose asks a good question to Mike who had been interviewd before defending the Church: “If you were lying then, how do we know you’re not lying now?” Mr. Rinder says that we don’t know; we just “have to look at [him] and decide.”
With Tom Cruise’s and Katie Holmes’ marriage now ending in divorce, how will the Church of Scientology take Katie’s departure from their fold? Only time will tell, and I’m sure Brian Williams, Kate Snow, and the rest of the Rock Center team will be there for that news update. Until then, let’s have a healthy discussion by telling us what you think, and sound off in the comments below.
Image credit: Rock Center with Brian Williams
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About Kyle Nofuente
Kyle, a U.S. Navy brat who’s travelled the world on planes and ships, is a Philosophy graduate who eventually discovered there weren’t too many job postings for “Philosophers." Fortunately, Lady Luck gave him a sweet gig as a radio DJ and TV host for a nationally syndicated tech show. When he isn’t on-air playing music and spreading the “Nerd Word” on TV, Kyle spends his waking and sleeping hours making Nerdles a dream come true for him and fellow nerds worldwide. Find out more about Kyle on our Staff page, or connect with him via the links provided below.
When Katie Holmes filed her divorce papers against Tom Cruise, asking for full physical and legal custody of Suri, she committed one of Scientology’s highest ‘ethics’ offenses – a scientologist suing another scientologist. Scientologists are not allowed to sue one another without express consent of the church and, in the case of marriages, only if the marriage is sorted out before court proceedings are begun.
By filing those papers, she made it clear that she had divorced Scientology before she divorced Tom Cruise and that she didn’t care that the church would label her a ‘suppressive person’ – the big ‘SP’ Tom talks about in that infamous video millions have viewed since it first appeared on Gawker, since the Church lost in it’s bullying attempts to get it removed from the internet.
Look at the number of google ads they have placed here on this very page, derogatory and spiteful ones to attack Marty Rathbun – one of the subjects of the show. This is what they do in their attempts to quell the ever growing bad press. The truth is that Scientology is a vicious and vindictive organization which likes to bully it’s critics whenever it can, however it can. At times, they have acted like the mafia in their responses to people exercising their right to free speech. The internet has been a repository for documenting these acts.
I am a critic of the church and it’s practices and, as such, I am not a big fan of independent scientologists Mark Rathbun or Mike Rinder , both of whom committed some unrepentent horrendous acts against critics at the behest of the church over their many years as high level execs in Scientology. I hold no loyalty to L Ron Hubbard and his ‘tech’ as they do but I support them for speaking out about this dangerous organization, especially for speaking out about the disconnection policies which hurts and destroys so many families. Mike Rinder escaped when a rare opportunity allowed him to do so. From what I can tell, he was pretty overwhelmed and beaten down mentally at the time and did not have time to consider the consequences fully before he acted.
Katie Holmes did and left after she created a safety plan with the help of real friends and suportive family. Many others have done the same thing or are working on their escape steps, while others have lost family contact through no fault of their own because the organization cut them off without warning. The bottom line is that this disconnection practice is a form of extortion and uses blackmail to prevent exs from talking. What kind of church treats humans as if they do not have right, which destroys families and breaks hearst everyday? Scientology. It’s worse than you think. Katie Holmes knew that and prepared for the escape and we are all so happy she is out of Scientology and the arm of it’s influence on her real family.
Scientology Is using “Google Ads” to link to Attack web sites.and linking them to any story critical Scientology
the “Who Is Marty Rathbun” Web Site Advert Is a Product of Scientology fair game.