c. 1996 Religion News Service
ROME (RNS)-Italian authorities recently arrested two cult leaders from a group called”Children of Satan,”after learning that they had allegedly performed an occult ritual in the presence of several minors.
Compared to the murders and suicides increasingly associated with wacky or dangerous cults in Europe and elsewhere, news of the group’s activities appeared relatively benign. It registered barely a blip in the Italian press.
But the appeal of such cults in Italy and other European nations has gained steam as the world inches toward the close of the millennium-or, as some cultists would say, the end of the world.”We are seeing an increase in the number of groups, some of them more dangerous than others, that can be attributed to the next millennium,”said Teresa Goncalves, a Vatican expert on what the Roman Catholic Church refers to as”new religious movements.” Church and other authorities say the movements are not solely the province of religious and non-religious quacks preaching doomsday scenarios on a par with nuclear annihilation. Other factors cited for the increase in new cults throughout Europe include economic anxieties that have fueled restlessness among the young and resentment toward immigrants.
The cult phenomenon has shown particular strength in several Eastern European countries that do not have strong organized religious traditions, such as the Czech Republic and Romania, Vatican officials say.
Giuseppe Ferrari, who heads the private Group of Research and Information on Sects in Bologna, estimates that about 15 cults in Italy are dedicated to Satanic worship. Dozens of other groups, most considered less dangerous, represent a wide variety of occult, or supernatural, thought, he said.
Cencilia Gatto Trochi, a cultural anthropologist who teaches at the University of Perugia and has written several books on cults, said,”there are a smattering of small groups, particularly in northern Italy, of skinheads or Satanic worshipers.”Most of the followers, she said,”are young and unemployed.” On the political front, Italy has seen a number of loose-knit groups sprout up in support of two principal leaders-Umberto Bossi of the Northern League and Gianfranco Fini of the National Alliance.
Fini has gained considerable respect among Italian voters as a conservative. But his past as an admitted fascist supporter keeps tailing him. Thousands of young Italian men who are neo-fascists have revered him as their cult leader, saluting him at rallies with an outstretched arm, a gesture popularized by Benito Mussolini. They hold regular rallies against immigrants who they contend are stealing jobs from Italian workers, and have used violence to intimidate their opponents.
Bossi’s fiery oratory and flamboyant style also draw a young crowd, though his followers appear less organized. Bossi is one of the few Italian politicians who is not Catholic. He calls himself a pantheist, a person who believes in the unity of God and the world.
Other Western European countries have seen a sharp increase in the number of nationalist or xenophobic cults sprouting up around right-wing or extreme political leaders. The most obvious example, of course, is Germany, where neo-Nazis are often led by charismatic leaders. A similar political fringe has gained strength in Austria and France.”Cults organized around the millennium and those wedded to political leaders do not preach the same message,”said Massimo Introvigne, who leads the Turin-based research group New Religions, which has studied cults throughout Europe.”But one of the things they have in common is fear, which often breeds extreme behavior.” While nationalist cults often attack what they perceive as the enemy, religious cults fearing the end of the world believe their members must die in order to escape damnation, he said.
One such cult appeared to be the Swiss Order of the Solar Temple, whose wealthy and prominent Swiss and French followers last December chose death to escape the end of the world that they predicted would occur at the dawn of 2000.
The deaths of 16 followers came after a similar ritual in 1994, in which 53 adherents died in Canada and Switzerland.”What was new and dangerous in the Solar Temple was that to attain mystical insight into divine nature you had to pass through death,”Introvigne said.”That was quite new and certainly unusual in occultism.”(STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)
The string of suicides prompted a French commission on cults and sects to urge the French government to set up a watchdog group to monitor the nation’s estimated 850 groups with about 160,000 followers, officials said.”We in France do not feel threatened by a tragedy such as occurred in Waco, Texas, or an attack like that perpetrated by the Aum sect in the Tokyo subway last spring,”the commission said in a report.”But the seeds of such tragedies exist on our territory and prevention is necessary.” The report was referring to the 1993 deaths of more than 70 Branch Davidian followers in Texas after a confrontation with federal authorities and last year’s nerve gas attack in Tokyo in which 11 people were killed. Followers of the nationalist cult Aum Shinri Kyo have been charged with the crime.
For its part, the Catholic Church is clearly concerned by the growing attraction of dangerous cults. The Vatican has instructed clergy to become more familiar with signs of alienation and delusion that often lead people to join cults as a cure-all to their problems.
MJP END HEILBRONNER
