HomeARC ML 0591
The 51 ERRORS OF "DAILY NOTICES"!--Of Santa Cruz, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.--By Father Moses David. 24-7-77 DFO NO.591
Copyrighted July 1977 by the Children of God
[Note: These paragraph numbers were not in the original version.]
1. THESE ARE THE 51 ERRORS OF "DAILY NOTICES" IN THEIR SERIES OF 3 ARTICLES of May 31, June 1 and June 2 of 1977. Although it has been some time since this series of 3 articles regarding us appeared in "Daily Notices," nevertheless a continued misrepresentation of the Family of Love and its leadership has persisted in some of the press of late, some of the information taken from "Daily Notices" itself and then highly exaggerated and twisted and placed in other newspapers as well.
2. SO WE HAVE FELT THAT IT IS TIME FOR US TO SPEAK OUT against some of the untruths of the press. Therefore "Daily Notices" has very kindly and fairly offered us this space in which to answer some of the questions which have been raised against us.
3. THIS THREE-PART SERIES OF "DAILY NOTICES" WAS MUCH MORE FAIR and more honest and more accurate than most which have been appearing lately, in others of the press, such as Interviu and the Las Palmas Daily, so we feel that the articles of "Daily Notices" were done in a much more friendly and sincere manner by our dear friend the reporter and writer of these articles, Mr. Ricardo Peytavi.
4. BUT NEVERTHELESS THEY RAISED SOME QUESTIONS regarding certain things which have been misunderstood about us, and also repeated some of the lies which have been told about us by other members of the press.
5. SO TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT and to endeavor to stop this constant repetition of the same untruths which have been spoken against us by various publications, we feel it is now necessary to correct some of these misapprehensions, mistakes, exaggerations and outright errors.
6. THE ARTICLES OF RICARDO PEYTAVI HAVE CONTAINED MORE TRUTH, honesty and factual representations from actual contact and personal interviews with us than most of the other periodicals. Nevertheless there are about 51 errors which appeared in this series of three articles which need to be corrected.
7. WE HEREBY THANK "DAILY NOTICES" AND ITS DIRECTORSHIP for this opportunity wherein to do so. We have not been so charitable towards certain other publications, such as Interviu and the Las Palmas Daily, which attacked us unmercifully and viciously and almost maliciously, without reason or cause, with literally hundreds of lies and almost no truths.
8. SOME ARE WAGING A DELIBERATE AND VICIOUS SMEAR CAMPAIGN against us, the Family of Love and its leadership. We have described why these other publications have attacked us so viciously in some little pamphlets which are on the streets today called "The 202 Lies of Interviu Magazine" and "The 62 Lies of the Las Palmas Daily."
9. HOWEVER, WITH OUR VERY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND RICARDO PEYTAVI, we feel that many of these errors arose through misunderstandings rather than any deliberate or willful desire to attack or hurt us. So it is with this feeling that we hereby present needed corrections to these errors to clear up some of these misunderstandings.
10. WE ARE SURE THAT MR. PEYTAVI and the directorship of "Daily Notices" and even the general public, their readership, will be happy to hear the other side and to have some of these matters more clearly explained.
11. THE FIRST OF THE MISSTATEMENTS which appeared in the very beginning of the first article on May 31st was that "the disciples of Father Brandt are out of the Island." I am sure Mr. Peytavi himself must know by this time there are still many of us remaining there on the Island, although a few have left, including myself, for a rest from the harrassment by some of the press and this undue publicity. But we surely hope to return to that Paradise Isle as soon as all of this ridiculous tempest has died down and we can continue to live in peace as we were before.
12. WE WERE BOTHERING NO ONE EXCEPT PERHAPS SOME OF THE ENEMIES OF LOVE and the strict traditionalists of religion who do not seem to yet realise that a new day has come to Spain, a day of much greater freedom and liberty, not only of politics and government and freedom of the press, but also freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
13. IN A FREE SPAIN you should not only have the right to vote as you please for the government you desire, as Spain has already spoken in choosing a moderate and liberal centrist government by an overwhelming majority of about 70% of its people, but also:
14. THOSE IN SPAIN MUST HAVE THE FREEDOM TO SPEAK YOUR MINDS and your own convictions regarding other areas of life and society such as social customs, sexual mores and the right to believe and practice your own religion. You must have the right to believe as you see fit in whatever faith appeals to you, as long as this liberty does not interfere with the rights and freedoms of others.
15. THIS IS A LESSON WHICH MANY OTHER NATIONS HAVE HAD TO LEARN through hundreds of years of experiencing and practicing democracy: That we must be free in all of these areas or we are not free. So we in Spain must learn to enjoy the freedom to disagree with each other without insisting that you believe as I do or that I believe as you do.
16. AS ONE GREAT AMERICAN PATRIOT ONCE SAID to his opponent of political opinion, "I oppose with every drop of blood in my body what you say--but I would shed every drop of blood in my body for your right to say it!"
17. JUST BECAUSE WE MAY NOT AGREE in faith or principle does not mean that we cannot live together in peace with one another. I have not criticised your religion--why should you criticise mine? But I must say that you have a right to criticise mine if you do not agree with it, but that's your own personal opinion.
18. BUT WE MUST BE SURE THAT WE DO NOT TRY TO FORCE OUR OWN PERSONAL OPINIONS UPON EACH OTHER or insist that I believe and behave as you do, if we are going to be truly free and have true liberty and democracy in Spain. You may argue with me and try to persuade me, as you may utterly disagree with me, but you must not try to force or compel me by any law or regulation of any kind to believe and practice my religion as you do yours. Neither have I by any means tried to enforce my ideas and beliefs and practices upon you. I have no right to do so any more than you have a right to force yours upon me.
19. WE SHOULD EACH GO OUR OWN WAY AS WE SEE FIT in the eyes of God and country as long as we do not interfere with each other's lives to live as we each see fit. As long as I'm not hurting you and you are not hurting me or my Family, we can live in peace together and cooperate together for the freedom, peace and prosperity of Spain.
20. I HAVE NOT TRIED TO ATTACK YOU NOR FORCE MY RELIGION UPON YOU--neither should you try to attack me and enforce your religion and your rules upon me, as long as we are not interfering with each other's lives, rights and liberties.
21. THIS MAY BE A WHOLLY NEW CONCEPT IN SPAIN after 40 years of authoritarianism where the will of the minority was forced upon the majority. But we have been practicing this freedom for many years in democratic countries and we are therefore accustomed to it.
22. SO WE BEG YOU WHO ARE NOT ACCUSTOMED TO SUCH FREEDOM to bear with us until you yourselves are freed and know how to handle that freedom by allowing others the right to their own personal opinions and private lives.
23. BUT TO CONTINUE WITH THE ERRORS which we found in these three articles, Error Number 2, in one of the subtitles of Chapter One, says that I "fled from the United States," the implication being that I fled from the authorities or from prosecution for some crime, which is utterly untrue. But I did flee from the same kind of tyrannical harrassment by some of the press and our enemies who insisted that we believe and behave as they do, even as I fled from Tenerife because of the same type of narrow-minded opposition and annoyance.
24. ERROR NUMBER 3, NEITHER WAS I CONSIDERED AS "UNDESIRABLE IN SWEDEN" for the plain and simple reason that I have never been to Sweden in my entire life--although my father was born there.
25. ERROR NUMBER 4, NEITHER DO WE HAVE "SEXUAL ORGIES" in our Family, unless you consider that proper mates, friends or husbands and wives enjoying sex with each other is an orgy.
26. ERROR NUMBER 5, SAYS THAT THE GIRLS "NEVER LET THEIR COMPANIONS PAY A PENNY" This is entirely untrue because the girls usually permitted their companions to pay the bill for their drinks as any proper gentleman should do when in the company of a young lady, whether enjoying her company at either his or her table.
27. ERROR NUMBER 6 SAYS THAT OUR DAUGHTERS WERE "VERY RELUCTANT TO ANSWER when you asked them about their lives." This is certainly not true because, as nearly all of their acquaintances and companions have found, they are very free and happy to talk about their lives and what God has done for them through love. In fact immediately after this false statement he spends a whole paragraph reciting the life of one of the girls which apparently he had heard her tell himself.
28. ERROR NUMBER 7 SAYS "PERSONAL FEELINGS DON'T COUNT," apparently meaning in the Family. Of course this is entirely untrue, because personal feelings count in the Family more than ever because there's more love in our Family than most of us had before we were in the Family.
29. ERROR NUMBER 8 GIVES AN ERRONEOUS QUOTE saying that some one of our members has said, "What does it matter who's your husband?" This is an absolutely false statement, because none of our girls have ever said it, because we feel it is very important who your husband is, and many of our girls have husbands and are very loyal and faithful to them.
30. ERROR NUMBER 9 ALSO QUOTES US ERRONEOUSLY as saying "You need to love all of them the same," implying that you should love everybody the same as your own husband or wife. I don't think this is at all true, because there are various kinds of love:
31. THERE'S A CERTAIN SPECIAL LOVE you have for your mate, your husband or wife. There is a special love you have for your parents, your families, brothers, sisters, children, and a very special love you have for your lovers. So I don't think this is at all true and I don't believe that any of us have ever said this, that we must love them all the same.
32. ERROR NUMBER 10 STATES THAT A NEW DISCIPLE IN JOINING THE FAMILY MUST "BELIEVE BLINDLY" IN ME. This is entirely untrue because those who enter the Family enter it with their eyes wide open to reality, their hearts open to love and their minds open to the truth.
33. ERROR NUMBER 11 SAYS THAT YOU MUST BE A "MILLIONAIRE OR A LANDOWNER" TO JOIN OUR FAMILY, and that is an absolute lie! We have never had such a requirement ever! In fact many many young people have joined the Family with nothing but a need for God and His love!
34. ERROR NUMBER 12 SAYS THAT THERE IS AN "OVERLOOKING OF THE ALREADY-MENTIONED RULES IF THE PERSON HAD SOME IMPORTANT QUALITY." We have never abrogated any of our rules simply because any prospective disciple had some desirable quality. The rules are the same in our Family for all regardless of who they are.
35. OUR ONLY RULE, GOD'S ONLY LAW, IS LOVE! You must have the love of God in your heart, you must believe in Jesus His Son and you must love one another and your neighbours as yourself, as Jesus Himself said. (John 3:16; Mat:22:37-40.)
36. THAT IS OUR ONLY ONE GREAT RULE, GOD'S LAW OF LOVE, FOR GOD'S ONLY LAW IS LOVE! So that is our only law--love! This rule is never lifted for anyone, much less for their talents. You cannot join the Family of Love without love, no matter who or what you are or what you have.
37. ERROR NUMBER 13 CALLS OUR MOTIVE A "MISINTERPRETATION OF CHARITY." I would say that's a matter of your opinion. Your interpretation of anything is usually a matter of your own personal opinion. Therefore I would say that this is not true. Maybe in your eyes you think we are "misinterpreting love" because of the way we apply it. But in our eyes and in the eyes of God and according to His Word, there is no such misinterpretation.
38. WE APPLY LOVE AS GOD INTENDED for it to be applied: "With all our hearts, with all our minds and with all our strength," as His Word says. (Mat.22:37.)
39. THE HEADLINE OF ERROR NUMBER 14, "A DETESTABLE MARKET," IS A DETESTABLE TITLE for any portion of this article, because it is inferring that we are engaged in such an unthinkable market as the sale of our children! This is a horrible insinuation and is greatly resented by every one of us, because we have never sold one single child of ours and never would think of doing so, not for any amount of money! So this is utterly ridiculous!
40. WE LOVE OUR CHILDREN AND TAKE THE VERY GREATEST OF CARE OF THEM, perhaps better care than average parents, as we usually give them better training--and they are all still with us, thank God!
41. ERROR NUMBER 15 SAYS THAT "CONTRACEPTIVES ARE FORBIDDEN." Once again, this is not true. Contraceptives are discouraged and disapproved of as being contrary to the laws of nature and of God, but they are not forbidden. Any of our girls is free to use them if she wishes to do so, but we do not approve of them, just as the Pope does not approve of them, and for the same reason.
42. ERROR NUMBER 16 IS REALLY FUNNY, SAYING THAT "90% OF OUR GIRLS GET PREGNANT EVERY YEAR"! This is utterly ridiculous because this is hardly even possible according to the law of averages of pregnancy! According to our actual records only about 10% of our girls get pregnant every year, which I would say is about normal and average for the general public and no different in the Family.
43. TO SAY, AS IN ERROR NUMBER 17, THAT ALL OF THESE CHILDREN BORN TO US ARE "CLAIMED BY ONE FATHER AND REGISTERED IN HIS PASSPORT" is so ridiculous and so easy to disprove by simply going down to the Office of the Registry right there on the Island and you'll find that each of our children was registered in the names of its own parents, and the only two that have been registered in the name of the same father was a pair of twins!
44. AND ALSO, AS IN ERROR NUMBER 18, TO SAY THAT "THE DOCUMENTATION IS ALWAYS AMERICAN" is absolutely false because we have many nationalities in the Family--Spanish parents, German parents, Italian parents, etc. Throughout the world we have parents of some 70 different nationalities!
45. ERROR NUMBER 19 SAYS "FEELINGS OF THE MOTHERS TOWARD THEIR CHILDREN ARE SIDE-TRACKED." This is also very false because our mothers love their children as much if not more than the average parent and take very good care of them.
46. ERROR NUMBER 20 SAYS "A BARE TEN-PERCENT OF THE CHILDREN BORN GETS TO THIS," meaning to the schools that we operate. This is totally untrue, as all of our children are in our schools as soon as they are old enough. Our schools are operated in our own homes and we begin their actual literary training as early as the age of 2 and 3.
47. OUR OWN SON DAVID, BORN THERE ON THE ISLAND, a native Tenerifan born in Puerto at Maternidad, is now 2-1/2 years-of-age and reads over 600 words! I challenge any other children to do the same! We are very good to our children and we educate every single one of them.
48. BUT HERE AGAIN IN ERROR NUMBER 21 IS THE IMPLICATION THAT SOME OF OUR CHILDREN ARE MAYBE SOLD, WHICH OF COURSE IS NOT AT ALL TRUE! But I am thankful to God and Ricardo Peytavi that he makes it very clear that absolutely no proof of this has ever existed or been brought forth, as there is no proof, because such a traffic has never existed amongst us! This is a despicable insinuation and I deny it with every ounce of blood in my body!
49. AND TO SAY, AS IN ERROR NUMBER 22, THAT I WAS SOMEHOW INVOLVED with some unknown party in the United States in such a traffic is an outright lie! To insinuate that in some way I was connected with this baby seller and had fled before I got caught, is totally untrue! I never fled the United States for any such reasons or purposes, and the authorities there know it.
50. THE NEXT ERROR NUMBER 23 IS ALSO ONE OF THE MOST DESPICABLE INSINUATIONS OR OUTRIGHT LIES, to say that "to cover his back he set up a big campaign against the Vietnam war" and so on. We never set up a campaign against the Vietnam war to cover anything except to uncover and expose the perfidy of a great power in attacking a tiny little agrarian society and causing such horrible havoc and destruction and cruel loss of life and suffering--unnecessary, senseless, diabolical and murderous! But we attacked that war not to cover anything, but rather to uncover the hypocrisy of the United States!
51. ERROR NUMBER 24, SAYS THAT I "SETTLED IN SWEDEN," an outright lie, and just as untrue as Error Number 25 that says I "stayed there for some time," because I have never been in Sweden. I myself was born in America and spent most of my life there, having come to Europe only in the last few years, but never to Sweden.
52. IN ERROR NUMBER 26 AGAIN THERE IS AN IMPLICATION OR INSINUATION THAT WE SELL OUR CHILDREN, in which it is said that one of our motives is "to cause marriages without children to not keep on in that situation"--in other words to sell them our children, which is an outright lie!
53. ERROR NUMBER 27 IS REALLY ALMOST LAUGHABLE WHEN WE ARE ACCUSED OF: "IT WAS NECESSARY TO INVENT A MAGIC WORD--LOVE"! Now that is really something to give us the credit for inventing the word love! I wish I had been the happy party to invent love, but I'm sorry to say love was not my original idea. It was God's in the first place and this is why He created man to begin with.
54. IT WAS GOD WHO CREATED LOVE and gave man the need to love and be loved. So I'm afraid you can't give me the credit for creating love or inventing this magic word--it was all God's idea!--And I'm sure that love had been heard of in Tenerife before the Family of Love arrived!
55. ERROR NUMBER 28 SAYS THAT WE SAID THAT "MEETINGS OF RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS ARE JUST DIRTY MENSTRUAL RAGS." We have never made such a statement in our entire lives, either in our writings nor anywhere! God Himself made a similar statement, but not exactly as dear Ricardo portrays it here.
56. SPEAKING OF THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS RELIGIOUS HYPOCRITES OF RELIGION, in Isaiah 64:6 he says that "your own self-righteousness is as filthy rags in his sight." The original Hebrew literally says that your own self-righteousness "is as filthy menstruous rags in God's sight"! That is the Word of God. It was not ever said by us about religious denominations or their meetings, but of course if the shoe fits they can wear it!
57. NOW BEGINS THE SECOND ARTICLE OF JUNE 1ST, and its first Error, Number 29 for the whole series, is in labeling all of these statements as "facts." But as you can already see thus far we have found that 28 of them in the First Article were not facts, and I find more than 20 more in these next two articles that are also not facts! But I must say they are much fewer than the errors and outright lies of some of the other periodicals, thank God! Again it's implied that I was personally in Sweden, Error 30, and that somehow, Error 31, I was responsible for the disappearance of teenagers there, which was of course impossible as I was not even there.
58. IN ERROR NUMBER 32 IT'S ALSO IMPLIED THAT WE CHAIN OUR DISCIPLES, and this of course is ridiculous and has never been so!
59. THEN IN ERROR NUMBER 33 IT'S SAID THAT I "DECIDED THAT HIS FAMILY SHOULD LEAVE THE COUNTRY" (SWEDEN). They have not left Sweden, so this is not true, and I was not there to make any such decision anyway. There are many of our Family still in Sweden enjoying that beautiful country and still are very active there and very well received. Error 34 again says that "the Prophet of Love left temporarily the Scandinavian Peninsula," but as I have never been on the Scandinavian Peninsula how could I leave it?
60. THE NEXT THREE ERRORS ARE A MATTER OF WRONG STATISTICS, errors in figures: Number 35 says that we have in the Family "70,000 all around the world." Actually we have about two million converts in over 100 countries throughout the world! And we have over 8,000 members of the Family working in full or part time service for the Lord in over 800 homes in 70-some countries speaking 50-some languages!
61. ERROR 36 SAYS WE HAVE "6,000 IN SPAIN." Actually we have several hundred thousand converts in Spain who read a half-million copies of our literature nearly every month! We also have several hundred FULLTIME Spanish workers in nearly 60 communities here, not in 43, as Error 37 says.
62. ERROR 38 SAYS ONCE YOU HAVE GOTTEN SO FAR IN THE FAMILY IT'S "IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO COME BACK." This is so silly and ridiculous, because as every member of our Family knows, they are free to leave at any time they wish and can go back home or wherever they want to go, as a number have. So this is simply not true.
63. THERE ARE A FEW OTHER EVIL INSINUATIONS that there was something wrong going on in our homes because "during the night a lot of taxis come." Well, when you have very few cars of your own you usually have to take taxis, and since we have a rather large Family it takes quite a few taxis to go back and forth from our homes to the clubs. But I see nothing wrong with using taxis, do you?
64. OUTRIGHT UNTRUTH NUMBER 39 STATES "BEFORE THE NIGHT FINISHED EVERY GIRL HAD TO HAVE A MATE." This is absolutely not so and has hardly ever been true. There was also another statement here which is a matter of opinion, which says that "detestable methods are used for capturing." That depends on your own personal opinion as to whether you think our methods are detestable or not. Some people think they're quite pleasant and pleasurable and perfectly normal and anything but detestable!
65. ERROR 40 indicates, if I understand it correctly, that we "take profit out of the most little things." We are not in the profit-making business. Our goal is to obey God's Law of Love and to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature and to win souls for Jesus Christ, not in making profit.
66. ERROR 41 SAYS THAT "THE IDEALS OF THE YOUTH ARE CONFUSED BY THEM." If anything, we help youths who are already very extremely confused in their ideals, and some without ideals. We have been able, thanks to the love of God and the Truth of His Word, to unconfuse them. We get their heads straightened out and give them higher ideals than they have ever had before. So there-fore our ministry has been more to clarify their minds and their hearts rather than confuse them.
67. ERROR 42 SAYS THAT WE "SEDUCE PEOPLE." That's another matter of opinion. In our eyes it is not seduction. It may be a matter of how you interpret or define this word "seduce." But according to my dictionary it means "to lead astray."
68. THAT WOULD BE A MERE MATTER OF OPINION depending on what your particular ideas of what is right or wrong or what your religion may be. But as far as we are concerned we have never led anyone astray.
69. WE BELIEVE WE HAVE LED PEOPLE IN THE RIGHT PATH, the straight and narrow way through the gate of God's Salvation in Jesus. Finding many stray sheep already astray, we have rescued them and brought them home and set them on God's straight and narrow way after the rest of the world had certainly led them astray!
70. ONCE AGAIN IN ERROR 43 IT SAYS "DRUGS OR CONTRACEPTIVES ARE FORBIDDEN." The misuse of drugs of course is absolutely forbidden in our Family. We rarely even take an aspirin! But the use of normal physician-prescribed drugs for some occasional ailments are permitted and even encouraged if necessary.
71. BUT CONTRACEPTIVES ARE NEVER FORBIDDEN, but merely discouraged and disapproved of as we have already said. Any girl who so desires is perfectly free to use a contraceptive if it is legal and she so wishes. We simply do not believe, however, that it is right, for we believe it is against the laws of God and His Word and the laws of nature.
72. WE FIND ERROR 44 AT THE OPENING OF ARTICLE THREE IN ONE OF ITS HEADINGS WHICH STATES "THE MEMBERS THAT ARE STILL STAYING IN TENERIFE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING." This is rather ridiculous, because the members of our Family know nearly everything that's going on in the Family, so what does MR. Peytavi mean? We don't know anything about what? We know a great deal, so I can hardly agree with Ricardo that we don't know anything.
73. ERROR 45 SAYS THAT WE ARE IN SOME WAY "UNDERHANDED," in other words that somehow we deceive or we conceal our motives and purposes from the girls. This is entirely untrue, because our Family members have read everything that I have ever written and they know exactly what our motives and purposes are and exactly what our beliefs are and exactly what our goals are, and nothing is concealed from them.
74. ERROR 46 SAYS THAT "THE GIRL DISCIPLES CANNOT COME BACK FROM THEIR WAY." What he means by this is not clear, but it seems to indicate that once a girl has become a member of the Family she can never leave it, but this is not so. The girls are free to leave whenever they wish and a few have.
75. ERROR 47 IS AN OUTRIGHT LIE, STATING "THE ADULTERY, FORNICATION AND EVERYTHING IS ALLOWED." This is absolutely untrue. We do not believe in adultery or fornication, and we do not allow everything. We merely believe in love, that God's only law is love, as Jesus Christ Himself stated in the Gospel (Mat.22:37-40) when asked what was the greatest law: He said,
76. "THOU SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD....AND THY NEIGHBOUR AS THYSELF"! In other words, love is God's greatest law, His only law now since the coming of Christ. For Jesus said, "In this (love) is all the law and all the prophets."
77. SO JESUS SAID THIS IS ALL THE LAW, THE ONLY LAW--LOVE! Therefore whatever is done in pure love, the love of God, unselfish love, sacrificial love, for God or another, is lawful, according to God's Word and law of love! As long therefore as it is in love with mutual consent and hurts no innocent one, it is lawful, according to God's own Word and His own Son, Jesus Christ!
78. THE APOSTLE PAUL ALSO SAYS, "AGAINST SUCH (LOVE) THERE IS NO LAW." (Gal.5:23.) Against this pure kind of love, the love of God, the unselfish sacrificial love of God and your fellow man, there is no law of God! In some places man may have some laws against it or some of the churches may have some rules against it.
79. BUT GOD HAS NO LAW AGAINST LOVE, if it is true love, the unselfish sacrificial love of God! We have written a very interesting little pamphlet on this. If you'd like to read it sometime, we'd be happy to send it to you or you may find it on the streets. In it we deal with questions that have been asked us regarding adultery, fornication and so on--a little pamphlet entitled "God's Only Law is Love."--You may be amazed at its liberating truths!
80. ERROR 48 IS AN ABSOLUTE UNTRUTH STATING THAT "THE FAMILY KEEPS DENYING EVERYTHING." This is not so, we do not deny everything, otherwise we'd be denying our own faith and our own God and His love.
81. BUT WE CERTAINLY DO DENY THE FALSE STATEMENTS which we have been dealing with here, the lies, the untruths, the misrepresentations, the distortions, the misstatements and exaggerations and all of these errors!
82. AGAIN IN ERROR 49 HE SAYS THE SAME THING, "THE FAMILY ARE JUST DENYING EVERYTHING that has been said about them'. Of course we deny the falsehoods that are said of us and the lies that are told against us, we deny all of these. But we do not deny everything.--Much good truth has been spoken of us as well.
83. TOWARD THE END OF THIS ARTICLE THERE IS AGAIN A MIX-UP REGARDING FIGURES AND STATISTICS which may have originally been due to my own poor Spanish, because as I recall that when dear Ricardo Peytavi first interviewed me and asked me how many of us there were throughout the world I told him at that time there were over "siete mil," or 7,000. He may have misunderstood this or I might have accidentally said the wrong words, "setente mil," which would be 70,000.
84. BUT WE HAVE NOW ACTUALLY TWO MILLION CONVERTS IN 100 COUNTRIES and over 8,000 full and part time workers in over 800 communities in 72 countries speaking 50 languages! So our Letters are translated not merely into Spanish alone but into 50 other languages throughout the world!
85. THEN IN A VERY WRONG ACCUSATION ERROR 50 IMPLIES THAT WE HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE DEATHS of a number of people who were once our members. Nothing could be further from the truth! This is totally and absolutely untrue of course! We have never had anything to do with any of the deaths of any of our ex-members whatsoever! If they died it was not our fault and we had nothing to do with it, so this is a totally untrue and terrible accusation! It is criminal libel!
86. IN ERROR 51 OF THE CLOSING LAST PARAGRAPH OF THE THIRD ARTICLE HE AGAIN SAYS, "THE MEMBERS DON'T KNOW ANYTHING." Personally I consider this an insult, as our members know quite a bit! They know nearly everything about the Family and our beliefs and religion and the Word of God and God's love and their life of love in the Family of Love. So I think this is certainly an error to say that we don't know anything!
87. WE MUST KNOW SOMETHING or we would not be where we are today, with over two-million of us throughout the world in over a hundred countries, as well as over 8,000 full and part time workers in over 800 communities in 70-some countries! So we must know something!
88. IT IS TRUE THAT THE FAMILY DOES NOT KNOW WHERE I AM because I always keep my whereabouts strictly confidential and unknown to any except the members of my immediate family and staff who live with me.
89. IT SHOULD BE EASY TO SEE WHY, CONSIDERING THE ATTACKS OF THE PRESS AND OUR ENEMIES who have harrassed us sometimes almost more than we could bear, annoying us to the point that we have had to go into seclusion to have rest and peace and retain our health.
90. SO THERE YOU HAVE IT, THE 51 ERRORS of these three articles written by young Ricardo Peytavi, including a couple I may have failed to even count. As God's Word says, "In a multitude of words there lacketh not sin." (Prov.10:19.)
91. MANY OF THESE ERRORS HE GOT FROM OTHER SOURCES and periodicals which he should not have trusted. But in spite of these many errors, our dear young Ricardo has probably said more truth and good things about us than many other authors of some much worse periodicals which you may have read recently!
92. HE HAS NOT MADE AS MANY MISTAKES OR TOLD AS MANY LIES ABOUT US AS SOME of the more unscrupulous reporters of other periodicals. So we still count him as a personal friend although he has been frequently mistaken about us.
93. WE ALSO WISH TO EXTEND OUR THANKS TO THIS NEWSPAPER, "THE DAILY NOTICES" of Santa Cruz, Tenerife, who carried these articles, and its directorship, for their fairness in giving us this opportunity to reply and correct some of these mistakes, and we trust that this has been helpful to you all in understanding us better.
94. WE DO HOPE THAT YOU WILL LEARN TO RECOGNISE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD when someone is speaking to you of the Family of Love. The best thing to do is to come meet us for yourself and get to know us personally yourself so that "You may know the truth and the truth shall set you free!" As Jesus said, "If ye shall continue in My Word, then are ye My disciples indeed
95. "AND YE SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE"! (John 8:31-32.) So if you want to know the truth about my writings, why don't you read them for yourself?--You can find them on almost any important street in Spain for only a small token of your love! Read them for yourself, and may God bless you with the truth! I will surely heartily agree with Ricardo's final statement:
96. "CERTAINLY WHAT WE ARE SURE OF IS THAT THE FAMILY OF LOVE HAS BEEN BROUGHT OUT INTO THE OPEN IN SPAIN FOREVER:" That's for sure! Hallelujah! Thank God! And we hope you'll like and love us and even join us if you wish! There are nearly 60 communities of us in Spain with hundreds of members and hundreds of thousands of followers. I'm sure that some of us must be near you, so please come and see us! We'll welcome you with lots of love! Very sincerely yours in God's Love,--Father David and his Family of Love!
97. P.S.--AND MAY WE ADD A WORD OF WARNING to any other periodicals who persist in repeating these lies and false rumours about us in spite of our denials and the truth:
98. WE INTEND TO SUE TO THE HILT FOR CRIMINAL LIBEL any periodical who continues to lie about us without apology, retraction and/or right of reply! In the United States we sued some who lied about us for $1,000,000 until they begged us to drop the case and settle out of court!
99. WE ONLY HAVE ONE CHEEK TO TURN BEFORE WE MUST FIGHT THESE LIES!--And we've already turned too many cheeks for some! Please let's stop all this nonsense and get back down to business in the very difficult task of making Spain loving and free!--For all!--Amen?--Even the Family of Love!--Thank you!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family}
