Nicole Kidman to Tom Cruise and Scientology: "I Like Being Catholic"

According to some news reports of late, the main reason for the split between movie actress Nicole Kidman and actor husband Tom Cruise, both members of the controversial Church of Scientology since they met over ten years ago, is that Ms. Kidman does not want her children to be raised as Scientologists.

Aside from seeing the fruit of Scientology and Scientologists up close and personal, the bottom-line source of Kidman´s spiritual "rebellion" against the See of Hubbard in that American equivalent of the Vatican --Hollywood, CA-- may very well be Kidman´s own religious upbringing reasserting itself.

You see, dear friends, Nicole Kidman is a cradle Catholic.

And even more importantly, and no doubt even more so to the chagrin of the Hubbardites, a cradle Catholic who may be rediscovering the depth, richness, and genuine spirituality of the Faith Once Delivered Unto the Saints which she apparently jettisoned in a lapse of youthful indiscretion for the intellectual vacuity and pseudo-spirituality of L. Ron Hubbard´s Con Job Many Times Sold Unto the Glitterati.

In a book published this past year titled I Like Being Catholic: Treasured Traditions, Rituals, and Stories (New York: Doubleday, 2000) Ms. Kidman is qouted (on page 103) as saying:
 
"I really don´t discuss religion or my beliefs. But when Stanley (Kubrick) died, I had an extraordinary night. I actually went out alone to St. Patrick´s Cathedral and spent an hour and a half in the church. It was candlelit, the wind was whipping around that night, and I left at nine, when they close the doors. I thought as I came onto the street: Well, I suppose once a Catholic, always a Catholic. It was very humbling, I received such solace."  (italics in original text)


Hopefully, since she made this statement, Ms. Kidman has been advised by her spiritual director (normally a priest or nun who acts as one´s adviser/confessor) that there is --and can be-- no compromise between the beliefs and practices of L. Ron Hubbard and the teachings of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

(In fact, under the 1983 Code of Canon Law, a Catholic cannot be a participant in Scientology --or in any other religion not in communion with Rome-- without endangering his or her faith and risking or committing self-excommunication for apostasy.)

Apparently, once faced with the awesome responsibility of providing a religious education and upbringing to her two adopted children, Ms. Kidman finally woke up and smelled the incense, and decided to cross the Tiber instead of Hubbard´s much ballyhooed Bridge. (After all, "ex nihilo, nihil fit.")

In which case, God bless her.