The nonprofit Religious Technology Center was established in 1982 to “preserve, maintain and protect the Scientology religion.” The center guards against improper use of Scientology’s religious symbols and technologies and has final ecclesiastical authority regarding their application, but it is not involved in routine church matters. Its international headquarters are in Los Angeles. David Miscavige has been […]

A Sept. 20, 2004, article in the Deseret News reported that the church claimed to have 4 million adherents in the U.S. and 8 million to 9 million worldwide.

The website of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research has a New Religious Movements page with extensive links, including a listing of articles on Scientology.

Beliefnet summarizes some of Scientology’s basic tenets.

ReligiousTolerance.org posts information about the Church of Scientology.

An explanation of Scientology beliefs and practices can be found in “Scientology: The Marks of Religion,” which was written by Frank Flinn, an adjunct professor of religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Religious Movements Homepage Project provides extensive information and links on Scientology.

Read a June 29, 2009, report on the pope’s comments about the encyclical, “In preview of new encyclical, Benedict reprises ‘dictatorship of relativism’ speech,” by National Catholic Reporter columnist John L. Allen Jr.

Read a June 29, 2009, article at the First Things Web site, “Economic Heresies of the Left,” by Michael Novak. Novak is considered a conservative Catholic writer who defends capitalism in this essay and elsewhere against interpretations of papal teachings that some say criticize the capitalist system.