Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Monday ordered his culture ministry to launch an investigation into the Unification Church, aka the Moonies, for their ties to his ruling conservative party revealed following former PM Shizo Abe’s assassination back in July, Reuters reports.
The man who shot and killed Abe during a speech in the city of Nara told cops he believed Abe was linked to the Moonies’ Japanese branch. Nicknamed for their founder, the late Sun Myung Moon, who thought he was Jesus and that Korean people were the master race (a belief that the church’s non-Korean membership willingly agrees with), the Moonies are a serious financial suck on their adherents, and the shooter, 41 year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, believed his mother was bankrupted by her devotion to the Unification Church and took it out on Abe.
The Moonies have deep links to the American Conservatives, roping in Vice Former Guy Mike Pence to speak at their global forum in Seoul earlier this year (with disgraced ex-President Trump also addressing them via video), and owning the Washington Times, among other newspapers. Abe himself had spoken at Moonies events, most recently addressing them via video in September 2021, so Yamagami wasn’t entirely wrong to believe Abe was “linked” to the evil cult.
Following the assassination, the Moonies put out a statement saying “guns have no place in our religious beliefs or practices,” which might be technically correct about their mainline branch. However it’s a flat out lie when you consider the Pennsylvania sub-sect called the “Church of the Iron Rod,” founded by one of Moon’s sons, and whose religious beliefs and practices often feature a golden, jewel-encrusted AK-47. Republican Pennsylvania governor candidate Doug Mastriano considers himself a friend of the Iron Rod crew, as does alcoholic degenerate Steve Bannon.