Cult News

The Church of Scientology may be “mentoring” some recently released convicted criminals in your neighborhood soon.

Scientology is included as “part of a program that gives churches, mosques and other religious organizations an instrumental role in shepherding such men and women back into the community” reports the Washington Post.

Forty-two institutions have signed up for the project, including the controversial church favored by such Hollywood stars as Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

And who is paying for this program?

Not wealthy celebrities, but the American taxpayer.

That’s right, $300,000.00 is budgeted annually, which comes from President Bush’s so-called “faith based initiative.”

Two hundred mentors from an array of religious institutions are currently assigned to 100 convicts.

“It just gives you that spiritual stability,” said one former prison inmate.

But that’s not what TV preacher Pat Robertson once said about using federal funds that in some way might be linked to Scientology.

The televangelist noted that the organization, often called a “cult,” has been “accused of all sorts of underhanded tactics.”

He then concluded that President Bush might potentially open up a proverbial “Pandora’s box” by handing out grants to religious groups through his initiative.

Well, it looks like the box is wide open.

And Robertson hasn’t been critical since he received a generous grant for one of his own pet programs through the Bush plan.

But how do Scientologists “mentor” ex-cons?

Time Magazine once stated, “In reality the church is a hugely profitable global racket that survives by intimidating members and critics in a Mafia-like manner.”

Within its cover story “Scientology: The Cult of Greed” Time reported that 11 top Scientologists, including the founder’s wife, were sent to prison for burglarizing and wiretapping more than 100 private and government agencies in attempts to block investigations.

Maybe those ex-convicts could have used some “mentoring”?

The source for all things Scientology and the top mentor to Scientologists is its deceased creator L. Ron Hubbard (LRH).

However, a California Superior Court Judge stated flatly, “The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be reflective of its founder LRH.”

It seems like trusting Scientology to mentor convicted criminals is like the blind leading the blind, or at best evidence that “Pandora’s box” has indeed been opened and all hell may just have broken loose.