{"id":5092,"date":"2006-10-23T00:39:36","date_gmt":"2006-10-23T00:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/xenu-calling.html"},"modified":"2006-10-23T00:39:36","modified_gmt":"2006-10-23T00:39:36","slug":"xenu-calling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/xenu-calling.html","title":{"rendered":"Xenu calling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You know how we get all depressed when various non-Catholic and even non-religious entities buy closed Catholic churches? <\/p>\n<p>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>Well&#8230;I don&#8217;t think any of that is as depressing as <a href=\"http:\/\/timescolumns.typepad.com\/gledhill\/2006\/10\/new_scientology.html#more\">the story of the new Scientology building in London:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The five-storey Italian palazzo building in Queen Victoria Street was originally designed and built in 1866 by architect Edward l\u2019Anson after he won a competition to design the new headquarters for the British and Foreign Bible Society. On completion the building was called Bible House. In 1985 the building was taken over by BP and named D\u2019Arcy House, after William Knox D\u2018Arcy, the founder of BP. The Scientologists bought it in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>Virtually in the precincts of St Paul&#8217;s, the teams of Scientologists out on the streets around Tottenham Court Road, where the old London headquarters is still functioning as a centre of the church, are about to become a familiar sight in and around the City of London. Given the many criticisms levelled at Scientology, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xenu.net\/archive\/infopack\/14.htm\" target=\"new\"><strong><span style=\"color: #993333\">not least from its own former acolytes<\/span><\/strong><\/a>, I was slightly surprised to learn how warmly the Church has been welcomed by the clergy at the cathedral.<\/p>\n<p>Canon Peter Delaney, Archdeacon of London and a Canon of St Paul&#8217;s, hosted a welcome &quot;tea party&quot; for the Scientologists at his home close by the cathedral. Senior clergy from churches in the City of London were also invited to get to know their new neighbours.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You know how we get all depressed when various non-Catholic and even non-religious entities buy closed Catholic churches? Yeah. Well&#8230;I don&#8217;t think any of that is as depressing as the story of the new Scientology building in London: The five-storey Italian palazzo building in Queen Victoria Street was originally designed and built in 1866 by&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Xenu calling - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/xenu-calling.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Xenu calling - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You know how we get all depressed when various non-Catholic and even non-religious entities buy closed Catholic churches? Yeah. Well&#8230;I don&#8217;t think any of that is as depressing as the story of the new Scientology building in London: The five-storey Italian palazzo building in Queen Victoria Street was originally designed and built in 1866 by&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/xenu-calling.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-10-23T00:39:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Xenu calling - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/xenu-calling.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Xenu calling - Via Media","og_description":"You know how we get all depressed when various non-Catholic and even non-religious entities buy closed Catholic churches? Yeah. Well&#8230;I don&#8217;t think any of that is as depressing as the story of the new Scientology building in London: The five-storey Italian palazzo building in Queen Victoria Street was originally designed and built in 1866 by&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/xenu-calling.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-10-23T00:39:36+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/xenu-calling.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/xenu-calling.html","name":"Xenu calling - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-10-23T00:39:36+00:00","dateModified":"2006-10-23T00:39:36+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/xenu-calling.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/xenu-calling.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/xenu-calling.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Xenu calling"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}