How the gunshot that killed Shinzo Abe put Moonies on a downward spiral

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Hak Ja Han, the 82-year-old head of the Unification Church, sat in a wheelchair late last year as prosecutors in a sparse Seoul courtroom outlined an alleged plot to bribe South Korea’s former first lady with Chanel bags and a diamond necklace in return for political favours.

It was a dramatic fall from grace for Ms. Han, who as recently as 2022 had been feted by world leaders – including U.S. President Donald Trump and former prime minister Stephen Harper – at a conference organized by one of many groups under the vast umbrella that is the Unification movement, also known as the “Moonies” for the name of its founder, Ms. Han’s late husband, Sun Myung Moon.

At their height, the Moonies had tens of thousands of followers around the world, controlled a business empire worth billions, and wielded significant political power in Japan, South Korea and the United States.

Today, the movement appears to be in crisis, with twin legal cases in South Korea and Japan threatening to hamstring its operations in Asia − vital for fundraising and continued growth − while its North American operations are still reeling from multiple schisms that erupted after the death of Mr. Moon in 2012.

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Demian Dunkley, president of the Unification Church, USA, said suggestions legal problems presented a major crisis for the church “conflates distinct and unrelated matters across different countries, legal systems, and organizational jurisdictions.”

“Developments in Korea and Japan are separate issues governed by different facts and legal contexts, and they do not constitute a single, unified ‘crisis,’” Mr. Dunkley said in response to a request for comment. (South Korean officials have repeatedly referenced Japan’s handling of the Unification Church in discussing potential future action against the group.)

Ms. Han has denied the charges against her, saying she has “no interest in the politics” of South Korea.

In 2022, almost a decade after Mr. Moon’s death, while the movement he founded had lost some of the public profile it once had in the West − where its mass weddings and accusations of “brainwashing” briefly made it a media sensation in the 1970s and ‘80s − it retained massive political influence and wealth in both Japan and Mr. Moon and Ms. Han’s home country of South Korea.

One gunshot changed all that.

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Former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe was campaigning for his Liberal Democratic Party in Nara, a city in southwest Japan, in July, 2022, when a man in the crowd fired a homemade gun, hitting Mr. Abe in the neck and chest. He would die of his wounds hours later.

Tetsuya Yamagami, Mr. Abe’s assassin, who was sentenced to life in prison this week, told police he had been motivated by the former prime minister’s ties to the Unification Church, which he blamed for bankrupting his mother and tearing their family apart.

In a letter to a journalist sent before the assassination, Mr. Yamagami wrote that “I can no longer afford to think about the political implications and consequences that Abe’s death would bring.” It’s unlikely however, he ever imagined the dramatic upheaval his actions would set off, threatening both the survival of the LDP – Japan’s ruling party for almost all of its post-Second World War history – and the Unification Church itself.

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Mr. Abe’s killing brought to light the open secret that was the Church’s vast influence over the LDP, which had relied on the conservative religious movement for donations and volunteers for decades. The scandal forced multiple resignations by high-ranking politicians, and as the LDP distanced itself from the Church, ministers moved to dissolve it as a religious organization, putting it in the same category as the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which carried out the deadly 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attacks.

A Tokyo court upheld the order last March, but the Unification Church is appealing. Losing its base in Japan would be devastating for the movement, which has long taught that the country is spiritually impure, and only by acts of sacrifice – including monetary donations – could Japanese followers cleanse themselves of the sins the country committed during the Second World War.

“The Church has always been very secretive in terms of its membership and finance,” said Elle Hardy, author of a coming book on the Moonies. “But it’s clear that there was a much larger membership base in Japan than anywhere else.”

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Japanese money helped build Mr. Moon’s small Korean Christian sect into a global movement, and in 1971, he and Ms. Han moved to the U.S., where the “Moonies” soon became a media obsession.

Mr. Moon shored up his movement by becoming a political player. He founded The Washington Times – which Ms. Hardy described as a “proto Fox News” for its influence on American conservatism – and courted politicians including George H.W. Bush. In 2004, more than a dozen lawmakers attended a congressional reception at which Mr. Moon declared himself the messiah and was presented with an ornate golden crown.

While many attendees would later claim to have been duped into attending, the subsequent scandal, and Mr. Moon’s often outlandish statements – he described himself as the second coming of Christ and said only he could save the world from Communism – did not prevent him from having political influence, including in Canada.

As Radio Canada reported in 2023, dozens of Canadian politicians have attended Unification Church events since 2013, most notably Mr. Harper, who spoke at the 2022 conference organized by the Church just months after Mr. Abe’s assassination.

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At that event, focused on bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula, Mr. Harper paid tribute to Mr. Abe, and praised Ms. Han for “her leadership and ongoing vision.” Representatives for Mr. Harper did not respond to a request for comment. The Canadian branch of the Church also did not respond.

The 2022 conference was a brief moment of triumph for Ms. Han, who was nearing the end of a decade-long fight with two of her sons for control over the Church, one that erupted almost immediately after Mr. Moon’s death in 2012.

In 1998, Mr. Moon named his son Preston vice president of one of the main arms of the Church, and suggested he was the “fourth Adam,” and would succeed his father as leader of the movement. (Moonies believe Mr. Moon is the “third Adam,” and Jesus the second.)

Over the following decade, Preston accumulated more and more power within the Unification movement, but after he publicly criticized the direction the Church was taking in 2008, his parents moved to replace him as heir apparent with Sean Moon, his younger brother.

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After Mr. Moon’s death, a similar pattern played out, with Ms. Han marginalizing Sean and seizing control of FFWPU, the main Unification organization, according to a civil case brought by Sean. Since then, she has advanced herself as her husband’s true successor in her role as “True Mother.”

Multiple lawsuits were filed as all sides of the split attempted to assert control over the Unification movement and its billions of dollars. U.S. courts largely punted on the issue, ruling they could not decide the case without wading into questions of constitutionally protected theology.

In July, an appeals court left Preston in charge of a significant chunk of Unification assets; he now heads the non-denominational Family Peace Association, seeking to create a universal “One Family under God,” building on the original vision of Mr. Moon.

Sean Moon, meanwhile, created the schismatic Rod of Iron Ministries, or Sanctuary Church. He has denounced his mother as the “harlot of Babylon,” and held a ceremony in which he and his wife were crowned the Unification’s new “True Parents.” A supporter of Mr. Trump, Sean and his followers took part in protests at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and are notorious for toting assault rifles during church services.

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Mr. Dunkley, the Unification Church USA president, said “the existence of independent groups or sects – whether in the United States or elsewhere – does not represent institutional instability."

“As with other global faith traditions, the Unification Church includes a diversity of expressions and organizations that operate independently,” he said. “The U.S. church remains stable, active, and growing.”

While Preston largely focuses on inter-Korean peace issues, Sean Moon has publicly revelled in his mother’s legal problems. In September, he said her arrest on corruption charges had been prophesied by his father 12 years earlier and was “only the beginning of the Judgment.”

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“My mother’s heresy and those who profited from aiding the Han heresy have lost God’s blessing and judgment has come to her rebellious organization that has betrayed the Lord (both the Korean and Japanese Governments have cracked down on her heretical organization),” Sean wrote in a statement.

Ms. Han has twice applied for bail on health grounds, and if convicted even a short jail term could end up being a life sentence. What happens in the event of her death is unclear, but will almost certainly reopen a battle for succession among her 10 surviving children, with potentially more schisms and fracturing of the movement. The Church has also expressed concern South Korea could follow Japan in dissolving its operations, a potentially fatal blow to its Asian arm.

Stephen Kent, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Alberta, said that “almost all new religions die.”

“The death throes however can take multiple generations,” he added. “If these charges stick in South Korea then there will be more damage, just as there has been damage to the reputation of the Unification Church and its ability to fundraise in Japan.”

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