USS Clueless              Voyages of a restless mind

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Stardate 20010815.0948 (On Screen): There's something called the "Stockholm syndrome", which refers to the fact that a prisoner of a hostile force can begin to believe in and even support his captors. The most famous example of that is Patricia Hearst who was kidnapped by the SLA and eventually joined it in a bank robbery. (She served a prison term for it.)

There's also "deprogramming", where intensive short term indoctrination of someone who has "fallen under evil influence" can change that person back to the straight and true. These things are, of course, matters of opinion in some cases.

Is the Catholic Church now deprogramming one of its archbishops? I think it may be. He somehow fell under the sway of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, leader of a legendary cult, and finally got married, a violation of his vows to the Catholic Church. Irrespective of church law, the marriage was a legal civil ceremony. But the Church threatened him with excommunication, and at this point the reports become mixed. One version is that he voluntarily entered seclusion and meditated and prayed, and changed his mind (presumably under the influence of God). A different version is that he was taken by force, held in isolation and deprogrammed. Regardless, there now has been released a handwritten letter from him, renouncing his marriage. This is apparently in response to his wife's hunger strike.

I'm afraid I'm skeptical about this, and I lean more towards the "deprogramming" side of the scale. I don't credit a handwritten letter at all. I'd be much more of a believer if the Church felt sufficiently confident in his reconversion to let him out on his own again, without guards. If he were free to move around, free to talk to reporters and friends, and if he personally met with his wife and told her in person that he'd changed his mind, I'd be convinced. There are just too many cases where these kinds of letters were not really genuine. It's common, for instance, for POWs to be forced to write such letters confession to all manner of crimes and to condemn their own countries for waging war. This is widely known and because of that such letters are usually ignored.

I'm no fan of the Moonies, but in this case their representative is exactly right: "Our request is one: Let him stand up in front of the world and talk to the world." I want to hear him speak in a circumstance where the church can't censor what he says. How many copies of this letter were ripped up before the right one was written and released? (discuss)

Update 20010829: After a period long enough for successful deprogramming, the Church has actually permitted Archbishop Milingo to spend three hours with his wife, during which time he did inform her that he intended to remain celibate. However, they were never permitted to speak privately; Milingo was supervised at all times by representatives of the Vatican. I am not impressed.