Wolrd Religion

A former president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has renounced a plea deal he had entered and is now set to go to trial for three charges of felony bigamy.

Conditions Wendell Loy Nielsen found objectionable included staying away from playgrounds, not having contact with people under 17 and participating in a cognitive behavioral therapy program.

 

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An Australian resident has told Lateline, an Australian television news and current affairs program, that the Church of Scientology imprisoned her on its cruise ship The Freewinds.

Valeska Paris says the Church of Scientology's leader David Miscavige -- who she describes as a psychopath -- sent her to the ship when she was 17, to prevent her mother taking her away from Scientology.

 

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A French woman has lost her "enslavement" court case against two followers of Opus Dei and an association closely linked to the powerful conservative Catholic group.

 

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A southern Utah judge has found William "Willie" R. Jessop, the former spokesman of the polygamous sect led by Warren Jeffs, guilty of a contempt of court charge for failing to show up to a hearing.

Fifth District Judge G. Rand Beacham had previously issued a $15,000 warrant for Jessop's arrest.

 

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The pope's envoy running the disgraced Legion of Christ religious order says the 1,000-plus rules governing the cult-like life of some of its members are invalid and will be whittled down to a core set of norms.

Pope Benedict XVI took over the Legion last year after the order admitted its Mexican founder sexually abused seminarians and fathered three children.

 

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A judge in British Columbia has decided that Canada's ban of polygamy does not violate the country's Charter of Rights.

>B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman issued his decision Wednesday, saying that while the ban does indeed violate the freedom-of-religion rights of those practising polygamy, polygamy brings such harm to women and children that they outweigh those rights.

 

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Authorities raided the compound of a breakaway Amish group Wednesday morning and arrested seven men on federal hate crime charges in hair-cutting attacks against Amish men and women.

Among those arrested were the group's leader, Sam Mullet, and three of his sons, said Mike Tobin, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office.

 

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The Aum Supreme Truth cult could have toppled the government and taken power, even only for a short period, by committing mass murder in Tokyo with 70 tons of deadly sarin gas and 1,000 automatic rifles, a former Supreme Court justice said in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun.

Meanwhile, New Religious Movements scholars -- paid for by Aum Shinrikyo itself -- defended the cult.

 

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