Cult members in custody after commandos storm island compound

[emad]

Source: Belfast Telegraph

Sixteen members of a religious cult - including a leading fugitive - were in custody today on an Indian Ocean island after French commandos stormed their compound and rescued a boy they had allegedly kidnapped.

Among those arrested was the believed head of the group, Julien Verbard, a 25-year-old who was convicted in absentia of raping two boys but had evaded police on the French island of La Reunion for three years.

Police say the abductors seized 12-year-old Alexandre Thelahine from his parents' residence in Saint-Denis de la Reunion on Friday, escaping in a car they abandoned afterward before switching to another vehicle.

The child was kept in a house rented by the cult, called Mary's Painful and Immaculate Heart, in the southern part of La Reunion, a popular vacation destination for tourists from the French mainland.



Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/world/asia/article2839354.ece

[truthisfreedom]

1. I'm not sure it's a good idea to pursue membership in any cult whose name includes the word

"Painful."

[emad]

2. Is this cult an offshoot of the 'Children of God' or a hybrid Branch Davidians

number?

Seem to remember seeing a tv documentary about them a while back citing 'ideological and financial ties'....

[Adsos Letter]

3. I tried looking info about them up on the net...

...but no luck. Just off the top of my head, it seems doubtful that they would be associated with the Branch Davidians.

The Davidians were an off-shoot of the Shepherd's Rod movement which was itself an off-shoot of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
All three groups were/are strongly anti-Catholic Church in their outlook.

It seems unlikely that an off-shoot of a Davidian group would choose a name such as this group holds; but, stranger things have happened, I suppose...

Please let me know if you find a source of info on this group.

:)