All In The Family: Son of Moonies founder takes over as church leader

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Son of Moonies founder takes over as church leader

· Move aimed at broadening appeal of movement
· Harvard man at helm, but father will retain control



Some 3,600 couples attend a Unification Church ceremony at a gymnasium in Seoul. Photograph: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty images

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/26/religion.korea?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews

Justin McCurry in Tokyo
The Guardian,
Saturday April 26 2008

Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification church known globally as the Moonies, has handed over control of the movement to his Harvard-educated youngest son in what is being seen as an attempt to broaden the controversial religious organisation's appeal.

In a ceremony near Seoul last week, 28-year-old Hyung Jin Moon was anointed chairman of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the name the church has used since the late 1990s. "I hope everyone helps him so that he may fulfil his duty as the successor of the True Parents," Moon, 88, said, in a characteristically immodest reference to himself and his wife.

Moon the younger, who was born in the state of New York, promised to "develop the church and to connect as many people as possible" to his parents. "I will do my best to bring the love of the True Parents and God to every corner of the world."

Experts say Hyung Jin, the youngest of seven sons, who has five children of his own, is being groomed to secure his ageing father's legacy more than 50 years after he founded the Unification church in South Korea, declaring himself the new messiah with the aim of establishing a single world government under his leadership.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

1. If his father is The Moonie

doesn't that make the child a Sonnie?

:shrug:

[thunder rising]

2. A single government ... that's why they are teaming with the Republicans

[grasswire]

3. Is Yoo a Moonie?

That question is being asked around the Internets.

[SpiralHawk]

4. "Whoooopeeee." - Republicon homelanders

Them republicons love them some Moonies, fer sure.

Ptooey.

[Warpy]

5. I predict a power struggle when the old bastard finally dies

because those older sons are not going to be happy with the arrangement.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Damn! Them's some HAPPY brides there -

just the kind of wedding they all grew up hoping for, I'm sure.

I wonder if they even know the guys they're marrying.

(I say nothing about the grooms' expressions, as they look like ALL grooms on that fatal day.)