Tuila'epa confirmed that the learning method known as 'Study Technology' was being trialled in six schools as a means to curb the decline in literacy, especially in primary schools. Read more

According to Tuairisc.ie, the subcompany - Golden Era Productions - recently wrote to a number of Irish translators looking for people qualified and interested in reproducing their programs in Irish.

"In addition to the many languages we already provide we will also now be making our materials available in Gaelic and thus we are looking for qualified and interested translators," the company wrote. Read more

The Network says any influence of the church on the education material meant a "biased education" was being delivered.

Registered charity Rule Education Trust, run by David Rule, is delivering driver licence courses to Aucklanders in need.

Rule set up the not for-profit trust in 2002 and has since launched courses in more than 15 locations across Auckland, including marae, decile 1 schools, community centres and prisons.

He has been a Scientologist for 30 years.

Rule once taught Scientology's Applied Scholastics programmes alongside Auckland social worker Betty Wark.

Applied Scholastics International teaches study skills developed by the church's founder L Ron Hubbard.

Rule said he believed in the education technology and while he did not teach these study skills or any religious material during the driver licence courses, he did draw on what he had learned in his time teaching Applied Scholastics.

The techniques include making sure students understand the meanings of words, encouraging them to physically interact with what they are learning about and not teaching too much too soon.

Last year more than 1000 people enrolled in the driver licence courses and about 200 people across the region were currently attending classes.

About half the people enrolled in the courses were referred by organisations like police and Work and Income (WINZ).

The success rate was sitting at about 75 per cent for the community and prison classes and more than 95 per cent in high schools.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Stuff.co.nz

The New Zealand arm The church of Scientology purchased the former Whitecliffe Art College campus in 2007 for $10m using an interest free loan borrowed from the Church of Scientology International.

Church of Scientology New Zealand head Mike Ferriss told the Sunday Star-Times the cost of the restoration was $16m.

More than $3.5m had been raised mostly from the church's 5000 local members, Ferriss said, but scientologists around the globe including expat Kiwis would contribute.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: 3.bp.blogspot.com

At the time of the sale, church secretary Mike Ferris said the church would fully renovate and restore the building, built in 1927, over two years and expected 100 staff would shift there to provide Scientology services.

However, the church remains based in a mall in the bottom of an office tower around the corner from the impressive Grafton site. Continue reading

After his parents' divorce, the 14-year-old Cruise — then Thomas Cruise Mapother IV — gravitated toward a friendly priest who was recruiting students to attend the St Francis Seminary School in Cincinnati.

"I think he wanted a good education," the priest, Father Ric Schneider, told the New York Daily News.

"With his parents going through a divorce, it was tough on him, that's maybe one of the reasons why he came here. He was a typical teenager, trying to find his way in life."

According to Shane Dempler, his closest friend in the seminary, Cruise was sincere about becoming a priest.

"He had a very strong Catholic faith," Dempler said. "We went to Mass, spent time in the chapel and enjoyed hearing stories from the priests. We thought the priests had a great lifestyle and we were really interested in priesthood."

The seminary — where students had to learn Latin, Greek and German — had a drama club that Cruise joined for the two years he was there.

Priests at the seminary have said Cruise chose to leave the school when his family relocated, but Dempler remembers it differently.

One night, he said, he and Cruise stole some liquor from the Franciscan priests, who were planning a celebration.

Dempler sneaked into the room where the liquor was stored and threw bottle after bottle out the window to Cruise, waiting below. Most bottles broke, but they managed to get some intact and hide them in the nearby woods.

"The priests didn't even realise until some of the other boys found out about our plan and snuck into the woods and got drunk," Dempler said. "They were caught staggering down the road to the seminary and forced to confess.

"The school wrote a letter to our parents saying they liked us both, but would prefer if we didn't return. So we weren't kicked out, just preferred not to go," said Dempler.

Source:

New York Daily News

Image: Urban Christian News

Spokesperson Mike Ferris says "It's an easy target. People reject new ideas. They really do."

Ferris said the Salvation Army had been attacked when it was founded, because it was trying to tell people to quit drinking. He said could understand people's fears of Scientology, considering the common characterisation of it as a cult.

"Scientology is copping it now - but this has happened to other religions, so, ease up on it, guys."

Fewer than 400 people in New Zealand declared their religion as Scientology in the most recent Census.

Ferris said about 5000 were taking courses, and 25,000 people had studied Scientology in Auckland since it arrived here.

The Church of Scientology in New Zealand has released a guide for media, The church of Scientology; A Guide for the Media,which it says is an has attempt to clear up misconceptions about the movement.

Ferris says there is no particular publicity push. However A similar campaign has be undertaken in Australia. Scientology's spokesperson there denies the guide's release is related to a new controversial book that examines the inner working of the church. "It just happened to be when we finished it," he said.

In the USA, the Church of Scientology purchased a million-dollar advert which was run in the half time slot during the Superbowl.

Pulitzer prize-winning writer Lawrence Wright penned a 26-page article on the Church of Scientology, largely based on interviews with ex-Scientologist and Hollywood screenwriter Paul Haggis, for The New Yorker in 2011. The article contained allegations of misconduct within the Church.

This article led to Wright's book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, which was released last month in a blaze of interviews.

Source

• The New Zealand Herald
• Crikey.com.au
• Image: Crikey.com.au

However, Murdoch's comments on religion drew attention to his long personal history of religious affiliations, the Catholic Herald reports.

In January 1998, Murdoch, a non-Catholic, but a generous benefactor to the Catholic Church, was made a papal knight of the Pontifical Order of St Gregory the Great. Beside him in the ceremony in Los Angeles was his second wife, Anna, a Catholic.

Many Catholics were horrified that a purveyor of sleaze, tabloid sex, scandal and nudity was blessed with papal recognition.

Continue reading

Holmes and the twice-divorced Cruise were married in 2006 at a 15th-century castle in Italy, in a Scientology ceremony.

They already had a seven-month-old daughter, Suri, and concern for her daughter's welfare is reportedly a factor in the decision by Holmes to seek a divorce.

The New York Post reported that sources close to the actress said she feared that Cruise would abduct Suri.

Holmes sought sole custody of her daughter but, after a settlement was reached, publicists for the couple said they would share her parenting.

"We are committed to working together as parents to accomplishing what is in our daughter Suri's best interests," the statement said. "We want to keep matters affecting our family private and express our respect for each other's commitment to each of our respective beliefs and support each other's roles as parents."

Under the terms of the agreement, Suri will not be exposed to Scientology and will not be expected to attend a Scientology school — unlike Cruise's other two children, now teenagers.

Meanwhile, Holmes is reported to have registered as a parishioner at the Church of St Francis Xavier in New York City, a Catholic church known for its "inclusive witness", including the welcoming of gay and lesbian couples, the alienated and the marginalized.

"Everyone is thrilled to have Katie join us," a member of the church's choir told the Huffington Post. "She has not yet attended a service, but when she does she will be welcomed with open arms."

But the parish priest, Father Joe Costantino, said he was caught off-guard when reporters started calling about Holmes' alleged membership.

"I didn't even know who she was," he told the Daily Beast website.

Sources:

Huffington Post

Wikipedia

Image: The Telegraph

Mr Hague said he had watched members of the church on Auckland's Queen Street target vulnerable people.

Continue reading

The nation's workplace watchdog has received confidential statements from several former Scientology workers who claim they were underpaid, or not paid, for at least a decade.