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Rael to bestow "Honorary Priest" title to Ward Churchill for his essay
the 60,000+ members of the Raelian Movement send Churchill their support
Miami, Feb 10, 2005. Rael, leader of the International Raelian Movement (www.rael.org) has just given the "Honorary Priest" title to Ward Churchill (University of Colorado professor) for his essay which most of the US is decrying as insensitive or unpatriotic.
Ricky Roehr (leader of the US Raelian Movement) is quoted: "Mr. Churchill is exactly right in what he wrote! If we are to have peace, we must take responsibility for our part in the violence and stop handing out blame as if we have done nothing. Quite the contrary, we have done terrible things to countless people.
Churchill addressed the cause of the 9-11 attacks and people want to shoot the messenger. Fox news and the right wing would have him thrown out of the US for being unpatriotic and insensitive to the innocent people killed in the 9-11 attacks. It is precisely Churchill's compassion for loss of innocent life that prompted his essay - his words so easily twisted by the right-wing who dare not think anything which conficts with the what the Bush administration is spoon feeding a public blinded by the rhetoric of fear and intolerance. Blind patriotism is precisely what created Nazi Germany by instilling the same "culture of fear" which allows the normally peace loving public to justify attacking countries who never attacked them. The current air in America is eerily like that of pre-Nazi Germany.
Innocent Iraquis are no less important than innocent Americans - and there were 3,000 killed in the US compared to the 100,000 in Iraq. And don't forget about the 500,000 innocent children who died because of the UN sanctions against Iraq, the same children whose deaths Madeline Albright stated publicly was "worth the cost"?! Bush and the pentagon use sugar coated terms like "collateral damage" to describe the innocent people killed in Iraq. But those killed on 9-11 were innocent victims? What would the US do if a country imposed sanctions which killed 500,000 US children?
Churchill stated: "3 million people killed in the war in Indochina, those who died in the U.S. invasions of Grenada, Panama and elsewhere in Central America, the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, and the indigenous peoples still subjected to genocidal policies - all victims. If we respond with callous disregard to the deaths of others, we can only expect equal callousness to American deaths." It is ALL true and the once great US is embarassingly and shamefully wrong. Nothing can justify the loss of even one innocent life. Because if we can justify one, we can justify two, or a hunderd, a thousand... Think about it! If we look at the history of the US, it would not even exist if its founders (who had slaves, did not allow women to vote etc) had not killed and stolen the land on which we all live today!
In a letter criticizing Churchill, Gov. Bill Owens (Co.) said "the victims of the 9-11 attacks were murdered by evil cowards". It is easy to call someone a coward when you have the world's biggest military and the enemy has the sense to hide from you! Violence is never a lasting solution to any conflict and the proof of this is the retaliation for an aggressive US foreign policy which has been pushing around less militarily developed peoples - people who could never stand "toe to toe" with the world's only super-power and have no choice but to fight in a "cowardly" way. How would anyone who voted for Bush explain to the mothers of the 500,000 children and the more recent 100,000 innocent civilians killed in Iraq that the US military are not terrorists?
Of course 9-11 was terrible. The fanatics who flew planes into buildings did it believing in a god who would reward them for killing innocent people. And within the weeks following George Bush stated that god told him to strike at Saddam. One man's god is another man's devil - and niether even exist!
It's not too late. If the US were to spend only a portion of the time and money it spends for war and apply it toward aopolgies and actions toward reparations, we would become as we once were - a benevolent big brother instead of the big bully everyone hates but fears. And while we're apologizing, send one to Ward Churchill, too."
Who is "Rael," the odd, balding, middle aged man with the outlandish flight suits and silly ponytail?
During a news lull after Christmas of 2002, the bizarre French expatriate, now a resident of Canada, grabbed headlines and television coverage around the world, when his followers made fantastic and unsubstantiated claims that they had somehow produced "the first human clone."
The stories told by the funny little man from Montreal have never been proven and it seems the latest one about "clones" is just another stunt planned to gain media attention for an apparent megalomaniac and "cult leader" whose followers are called the "Raelians."
Rael has created a mythology about his birth, life and eventual realization as a worldwide "prophet," would-be "savior" and/or interplanetary "messenger."
But what is the real story behind this strange man who has become a media curiosity?
The place to start on any quest for the truth about Rael is in France. There are the people who really know him the best, which include his family and old friends.
French journalists have investigated the background of Rael. The following is his biography pieced together from various news articles recently run and/or recounted.
"Rael" was born some 57 years ago and named Claude Vorilhon.
Interviews with family members paint a vastly different portrait of the man who now insists he be addressed as "His Holiness Rael" (French "Sa Sainteté Raël"), as one precondition before granting an audience or interview.
Claude Vorilhon was born in Vichy, in the "Massif Central." An area within France famous for its old volcanoes. He spent his childhood in Ambert, a small town of only 7,500 at that time. Ambert is widely known for its very distinct cheese, the "fourme d'Ambert."
The Vorilhon family was well established and had lived within Ambert for generations. They owned a fabric factory.
But scandal surrounded Claude's birth. Colette, his mother, had a liaison during World War II with man referred to as "Marcel X." He was a married man. And from this union came Claude, born out of wedlock.
Marcel was a refugee from Alsace, an eastern part of France. Germany annexed this region during the war and Marcel's life was subsequently at risk due to his Jewish heritage. The Massif Central provided safe harbor for the Jew fleeing the horrors of the Nazi death camps.
Marcel had run a wood factory in Alsace, which he returned to at the end of the war. He abandoned Colette and Claude. But Marcel continued to see Colette and they made trips together.
Colette eventually left Claude with his aunt.
The French press has extensively interviewed Claude Vorilhon's family members.
In the Sunday paper Le Journal du Dimanche January 5, 2003, reporter Emmanuelle Chantepie recounts her meeting with Claude Vorilhon's aunt Thérèse, who is now 87. She raised Vorilhon with her mother in Ambert. The elderly woman still lives there in a small apartment.
Thérèse says Vorilhon was a very gentle boy, despite all the nasty stories about him today. She is still fond of him and calls her nephew "little Claudy." Thérèse never had a child and raised Claudy as if he were her own son.
But Thérèse admits that "little Claudy" at times may go too far. She says, "For instance, when he claims that he was born from the union of his mother Colette with an Extraterrestrial." When Vorilhon makes such claims the old woman calls him a "cornichon" (pickle), which is a French word for nitwit.
Thérèse made the same statements to another reporter François Vignole, quoted within the popular French daily newspaper Le Parisien on January 15, 2002.
And what about Vorilhon's mother? What does she think of her son now?
Colette Vorilhon when interviewed chose to hide her face. She is apparently ashamed of her son.
Journalist Hervé Bouchaud on a program that aired three times on the network M6 presented by Bernard de la Villardière on April 10, 2001, April 14, 2002, and on January 14, 2003 interviewed Colette for French television.
Bouchaud prodded the woman, "Don't tell me that you have been inseminated by an Extraterrestrial!"
Colette replied laughing, "Who knows? Like the Holy Virgin? An angel came through my window. Well, I sleep with my window open!"
Aunt Thérèse does not seem to respect Colette. She made negative comments about her to both journalists Chantepie and Vignolle. Thérèse confided, "She was bad."
It seems that little Claudy's aunt feels her nephew suffered due to an unstable home. His mother sent him away at seven and they often quarreled when visiting.
When Vorilhon was 15 his father died. His mother then forced him to abandon his studies. He went to Paris hoping to become a entertainer, imitating the famous singer Jacques Brel. Vorilhon used the stage name Claude Celler. But he failed.
Not long after his singing career fizzled Claude met Christine, whom he married in 1971.
Christine Vorilhon has also been interviewed by French journalists and offered details about their troubled marriage.
In the beginning she loved Claude and would bear him two children. But in the coming years as Vorilhon's incredible ego grew, he became unbearable. The marriage ended in 1985.
Christine says she was "completely destroyed by her husband."
She left their marriage with nothing. And despite his growing income derived from the so-called Raelian movement, "He never raised a little finger for me," she said.
But long before their bitter divorce Claude Vorilhon had essentially ceased to exist. His new stage name became "Rael."
The former Mrs. "Rael" is now attempting to build a new life. She hopes to remain anonymous. "I don't want to be harassed by his supporters. This is a dangerous sect," Christine warned.
Vorilhon made one more failed attempt at a career before becoming Rael. While he lived with his wife and children in Clermont-Ferrant, the main city of Massif Central, he put together a little auto-racing magazine called Auto Pop.
According to an old friend Patrice Vergès the magazine was a "little rag" ("canard"). And after a brief run in 1973 it went under and folded.
Vorilhon now would embark on the only successful endeavor he would ever experience; little Claudy launched his career as a "cult leader."
The failed magazine publisher now began telling fantastic stories about meetings with alien beings from outer space. Vorilhon said these encounters began at a volcano called "Le Puy de Lassalas." The extraterrestrial had supposedly given little Claudy an important message for all mankind.
These sensational claims attracted some media coverage. And from this time forward Vorilhon apparently became obsessed, intoxicated with media attention, which ultimately seems to have become an addiction.
Vorilhon appeared on Le Grand Echiquier, a popular French television program in 1974. And after that appearance he received thousands of letters. Those fans were probably the beginning of what would become Vorilhon's "cult" following.
Roland, a childhood friend of little Claudy, still lives in Ambert. He was also interviewed for French television. On M6 TV Roland recalled an evening with Vorilhon some years ago, during which the two men spoke frankly.
Roland asked Claude if he had lied about his encounter with alien beings from outer space.
Vorilhon reportedly replied, "Yes, I lied, but you knew it, anyway, so I am not teaching you anything!"
Claude went on to explain that he had never seen any "little green men," but that the tale helped him achieve the attention and eventual status he wanted.
It seems that Claude Vorilhon may be misrepresenting more than his close encounters with extraterrestials.
Vorilhon and his followers have made claims about the vast membership of Raelians. But the Raelian movement in France is not really that successful. According to a French official specifically assigned the task of watching specious sects, there are less than a thousand Raelians in France.
It appears French authorities are interested in the group's finances and tax payments.
Some Raelians also have serious legal problems.
According to Christophe Dubois, reporting for The Parisien January 15, 2003, official sources say that there are no less than five cases of sexual abuse currently under investigation regarding Raelians.
Vorilhon hasn't done well in civil court either.
Rael sued French journalist Jean-Yves Cashga in 1991 for defamation. However, he lost and was ordered to pay court costs. The judgement remains uncollected.
Amidst growing legal problems Rael decided to leave France. He immigrated to Canada, where he is a resident and achieved tax-exempt religious status for his Raelian movement.
Claude Vorilhon's mother told reporters recently that she hasn't seen her son since 1996.
The last time that "little Claudy" phoned home he told his mother that he was afraid to return to France. He said that authorities there might put him in "handcuffs."
Comrade said:He reminds me of L. Ron Hubbard, who said something like the best way to get rich and powerfull is to start your own religion.
