Events leading to the Entry Ban for Rev. and Mrs. Moon to the Federal Republic of Germany and Subsequent Developments Chairman of the Public Relations Team of the Unification Church of Germany during the “Lasting Love Conference” in Berlin, September 2nd, 2000 I. Events leading to the Entry BanRev. and Mrs. Moon, founders of the Unification
Church International and spiritual head of the congregation of Unification
Church members, visited the small but growing German congregation in
1965 for the first time and then continuously over the years. During
these visits, Rev. and Mrs. Moon gave inspirational and spiritual guidance
to the members. On other occasions either Rev. Moon or Mrs. Moon submitted
their message to a broader audience of invited guests and friends of
the Church. These public appearances were mostly held in suitable hotels. On Nov. 12 of 1995 another event was planned in
Frankfurt. The Rev. and Mrs. Moon were to come to Frankfurt and give
a speech on the topic "The True Family and I", after having
delivered the same message in Paris, Warsaw, Rome, Prague and Budapest.
This speaking tour was part of a world-wide tour, which took the founding
couple of the Unification Movement to the five continents of the earth. While the German congregation was busily preparing
for the event in Frankfurt, news suddenly came in by means of a short
notice in the "Bildzeitung" newspaper that Rev. Moon was barred
from entering Germany by order of the Ministry of Interior. This happened
on Nov. 9th, just 3 days before the event was to take place. The decision by the Ministry of
Interior took the board and membership of the German Unification Church
totally by surprise. There was never a problem before, whenever Rev.
Moon, Mrs. Moon or both had visited Germany, either with the government
or with society. At first we thought the news item in the "Bildzeitung"
newspaper was a hoax. When we discovered it to be the bitter truth,
the board tried to lift the ban by asking the Administrative Court in
Cologne to issue a temporary injunction. However to no avail: the court
merely confirmed the right of the Ministry of Interior to deny entry
onto German territory to any foreigner it wishes. Whether the reasons
for such a decision were justified or not would have to be dealt with
later. Much later, more light was shed
on the event. The Federal Ministry for Family, Senior Citizens, Women
and Youth (the government entity responsible for new religious movements,
such as the Unification Church) informed the Ministry of Interior about
the imminent arrival of Rev. Moon and requested his entry to be banned
because Rev. Moon could possibly engage in mission work for his movement.
According to the Federal ministry, Rev. Moon’s movement should be considered
to be part of the so-called youth-sects and psycho-groups, whose activities
entail possible dangers for the social relations and the development
of the personality of young people. And, according to the thinking of
the Ministry, the goal of all activities of the Moon movement is to
obtain world dominion. The Ministry feared that a public appearance
of Moon in the Federal Republic of Germany would lead to strong reactions
among the public; his activities would endanger public security and
order and significantly be against the interests of the Federal Republic
of Germany. The Federal Ministry of Interior, at that time
under the leadership of Manfred Kanther, acted with surprising speed,
ordering the border patrols to bar Rev. Moon from entering Germany,
while simultaneously putting the religious leader on the Schengen List
as "persona non grata", thus making it nearly impossible for
Rev. Moon to enter any European country which is part of the Schengen
Treaty. The “Schengen ‘black’ list” is part of a border treaty among
European countries, which was created for the purpose of preventing
known criminals and terrorists from entering the member countries. The Ministry of Interior justified its decision
by merely stating that the entry of Rev. Moon would impair the interests
of Germany to a very substantial degree. At about the same time, the Ministry
of Interior explicitly extended the entry ban to Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon,
putting her on the Schengen List as well. When
the Ministry of Interior requested the German Federal Bureau of Investigation
(Bundeskriminalamt) to reveal its list of criminal acts committed by
the Unification Church, the office could not mention even a single offence.
Embarrassed by its lack of hard facts, the Federal Bureau replied to the
Ministry of Interior that the Moon Movement was taking meticulous care
not to get in touch with the criminal prosecution offices. Members who
appeared liable to criminal prosecution through their activities for
the Unification Movement were supposedly "exchanged" and sent
back to their respective home countries. This, according to the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, rendered subsequent questioning or other actions
of investigation impossible. The persons responsible for the Unification
Movement in Germany were being exchanged on a regular basis each half
year, making investigation and the assessment of criminal responsibilities
an almost impossible task. On the evening of Nov. 12th 1995, the
event at the Mariott Hotel in Frankfurt went on as planned. The message
which Rev. Moon was to deliver was read by the president of the board.
The hall was filled with members of the Unification Church, friends
and guests, but there was the sad and heavy feeling that the government
had reacted totally unreasonably and had profoundly violated the basic
right of a young religious church to meet its founder and spiritual
head. II. Subsequent DevelopmentsBy way of litigation the church
then appealed to the Administrative Court of Cologne to revoke the decision
by the Ministry of Interior. It was argued that religious terms such
as "Establishing the Kingdom of Heaven" and "Kingdom
of God" are well known in all mainline religions and cannot be
interpreted as meaning Rev. and Mrs. Moon are trying to establish "world
dominion", and thus posing a threat to the Federal Government of
Germany. The second assumption, that the Unification Church
is a "youth sect" harmful to the young people of Germany because
of attempted "indoctrination", was countered with actual facts.
The large majority of members are between 35 and 55 years of age, who
live with their families fully integrated into the rest of society.
In this regard, the Unification Church is no different from other mainline
churches. The accusation that Rev. Moon fosters the break-up
of families and the destruction of family values was dismantled as completely
absurd. During the world tour of 1995, Rev. Moon was emphasizing the
significance and importance of marriage and family in the very speech
which he was not allowed to give. Following a request by the court, the German church
furthermore presented a large number of newspaper articles from the
USA which dealt favorably with church related events. It furthermore
presented an expert opinion on the German Unification Church compiled
by the well-known protestant theologian Prof. Dr. theol. Jürgen Redhardt. After 2 years of dealing with the case, the Administrative
Court of Cologne suddenly decided that it was not the correct institution
to deal with it and passed it on to the Administrative Court in Koblenz!
It was never clearly explained why it took two years for the Court of
Cologne to discover that it was not in charge of the case. An oral hearing took place on 9.11.98 in Koblenz,
where members of the board of the German Unification Church could present
their case convincingly. Yet the court, which obviously felt uneasy
with the line of arguments presented by the government, decided not
to deal with the real contents of the case. They did this by stating
that the Unification Church did not suffer damage to its free pursuit
of religion and, in fact, does not have the legal right to litigate
the case. Rev. and Mrs. Moon should do it themselves, the court stated. An appeal was filed with the Upper Administrative
Court of Rhineland-Palatinate and accepted. A hearing on the case was
fixed for the month of September, when it will be decided whether or
not the Unification Church has the right to be the litigating party. III. The Real Background of the German DecisionThe big question, of course, concerned the source
of information for the German government, upon which the decision to
ban Rev. and Mrs. Moon from entering Germany was based. The line of argumentation put forward by both
ministries concerned makes clear that the Federal Government based its
decision on an opinion which was created and publicized by so-called
sect-experts of the two dominant churches in Germany (the Roman Catholic
church and the Protestant church) in the 70’s. The tactic of these so-called
sect-experts is to discredit all new religious movement for fear of
losing membership. By doing this, they were following the age-old and
well- established church tradition of apologetics, which aims at praising
the advantages of one’s own belief while discrediting the other faith.
Historically, this church policy of dealing with other faiths employed
means of purposely spreading defamatory and derogatory rumors as a prelude
to substantial persecution by allying political powers to its cause.
The climax of these tactics was undoubtedly during the time of the Inquisition,
when any form of perceived difference to established church doctrines
were radically stamped out by physically eliminating the adherents of
the other faith, either by the church itself or by using its political
influence. In the case of Rev. Moon’s entry ban, the information
given by Pastor Dr. Wolfgang Behnk, so-called sect expert for the Lutheran
Church of Bavaria in a press statement, which was also sent to the Ministry
of Interior, is a good example of how the public (and the ministry)
has been misled by half-truths, outright lies and slanderous labels.
In this press release, the Unification Church, for example, is described
as spreading “a fascist blood-mythology” and leading “a bitter battle
against communism”. Pastor Behnk demanded that the Ministry of Interior
should ban the entry of Rev. Moon. Besides appealing to political authorities directly,
the so-called sect experts of the two mainline churches devised another
instrument with which to influence public opinion. When they realized
that their voice had little impact beyond the confines of their religious
communities, some had the clever idea to turn the church issue into
an issue of public concern, thus mobilizing politicians and public funds
to aid their cause. It was the late so-called sect-expert of the Bavarian
Lutheran Church, Pastor Friedrich Haack, who established what he called
a “group of concerned parents”, of which he himself was not only the
founder but the president as well. The strategy was quite clear: with
the help of such a group, the so-called sect-expert from the church
could voice his own opinion in a way which appeared to be the cry of
desperate parents. F. Usarski explains in a land-mark study the dominant
influence of the two main churches on the various “groups of concerned
parents” Unfortunately, political organizations
could not or did not want to recognise the long hand of the so-called
sect-experts behind these groups. Instead, political parties and government
organs allowed themselves to be used as allies and partners of the two
big churches in their battle against new religious movements. This,
of course, is a serious breach of the much declared and highly valued
neutrality of the state in matters of religion and personal opinion. The words and actions of Mrs. Rennebach, the spokeswoman
on sect-related issues for the Social Democrats, amply illustrate to
what degree some politicians have left their position of objectivity
and neutrality and became the henchmen of the so-called sect-experts
of the two main churches. After
the entry ban was published widely in the German press, Mrs. Rennebach
issued a press release in which she claimed the full credit for the
Ministry's decision to bar Rev. Moon from entering Germany. In
the press statement she claimed that by deciding to refuse entry into
the Federal Republic of Germany to the founder of the Unification Movement,
Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Federal Minister of Interior Manfred Kanther
had followed her request in a quick and non-bureaucratic manner.
She furthermore used this opportunity to attack the government for being
grossly inactive in terms of combating sects. According to her statement,
she was hoping that this entry ban would serve as the shot of the starting
pistol, leading to a more aggressive anti-sect policy of the Federal
Government. IV. The Faults
of the two German Ministries while Dealing with the Issue
a) Blind belief in the statements of the so-called
sect experts The Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Family
Affairs have to be blamed for blindly believing the derogatory statements
made by the so-called sect-experts of the mainline churches and their
political allies. It appears that whatever derogatory statements were
given by the so-called sect experts, they were all considered as factual
and as truthful without further questioning. By doing so, the Federal
Government violated its position of neutrality in religious matters,
as stated in the Basic Law Article 4. b) The Government never bothered to deal with
Scientific and Objective Information The German government never attempted to "hear
the other side", nor to inform itself about Rev. Moon and the Unification
Church by looking through the substantial amount of literature written
by a host of objective and scientifically qualified authors, mostly
scientists of comparative religion, who have studied and written about
the Unification Church extensively. c) The Government ignored the so-called Vienna
Study The government also completely ignored a study
on "Causes and Reasons for social rebellion of young people, with
special reference to 'youth religions'", compiled in 1981 by the
European Centre for Social Welfare and Research in Vienna, Austria and
paid for by the Federal Ministry of Youth, Family and Health in Bonn.
This scientific study, sometimes also referred to as the Vienna Study,
comes to very different conclusions than the opinions of the so-called
sect-experts. d) The Government misused the Schengen Treaty According to the Schengen treaty, an entry ban
should only be applied to those people, who are known terrorists and
international criminals. A ban in one country applies to all other countries
in order to avoid entry by the terrorist through a third country. By
putting Rev. and Mrs. Moon on the Schengen list, the German government
violated the original intention and spirit of the treaty, misusing it
to ban a religious leader from entering Germany and all other Schengen
countries. e) The Government does not comply with the recommendations of the Enquete Commission on “So-Called Sects and Psycho-Groups” It appears as if the German government ignores
important recommendations, put forth unanimously in 1998 by the members
of the Enquete Commission on "So-called Sects and Psycho-groups".
In this final report, members of all political parties agreed to "renounce
the use of such terms, as 'sect' or 'so-called sect'. It should be avoided
to place the entire spectrum of religious minorities in the shadow of
general suspicion". The report also clearly states that “religious
or ideological groups pose no danger to the state or to society”. The
report also reads that "individual and social merit which members
experience (in the new religious movements) should be duly considered". V. What We Hope for the FutureWhen Chancellor Schroeder received the “World
Statesman Award” from the “Appeal of Conscience Foundation” in New York
on September 7th, he made several important statements during
his acceptance speech: We wholeheartedly agree with these sentiments,
coming from a top politician such as Chancellor Schroeder. Instead of
attacking new religious movements by spreading fear and dubious allegations
about them, the government should welcome them as an enrichment for
an already existing multi-cultural society. No new religious movement
would ever refuse an offer for fair and meaningful dialogue coming from
the government. Instead of following a policy of marginalizing and ostracizing
new religious groups, the government would do better to actively integrate
them into our pluralistic society, guaranteeing their freedom of belief
and worship, while simultaneously spelling out their responsibilities
and duties in preserving social peace and harmony and contributing towards
it. The same holds true with the established churches.
The two main churches face increasing numbers of members leaving their
congregation, because they cannot provide the fellowship and spirituality
people are looking for. New religious movements are successful because
they have both: a brotherly fellowship and a high level of spirituality.
Why can’t both sides cooperate and profit from each other? If the traditional
church could surrender a portion of its notion to be “the only true
church”, and the new religious movements a portion of their “exclusiveness”,
the two would be able to mutually benefit from each other. |