Casey McCann

{{See also|The Family Survival Trust}}

McCann first became involved with anti-cultism in 1980 when two students joined the Unification Church in San Francisco, California, while on summer holiday.{{Cite book |last=Arweck |first=Elisabeth |url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/c9c6cd4c-62ce-47e9-9365-e3a578ef6f00/1005983.pdf |title=Researching new religious movements : responses and redefinitions |page=113 |date=2006 |isbn=978-1-134-47246-8 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |oclc=1144327058}} While seeking advice from the Foreign Office about how to get the students home, McCann was connected with FAIR. He and Peter Hullah, Sevenoaks School's chaplain, flew to San Francisco and demanded to speak to the two students, which they were eventually allowed to do. One would return to England to resume his university education, but the other stayed with the Unification Church in the United States.Religious Affairs Correspondent, "Moonies to send Britons home", The Times (London), 26 June 1981.

In November 1981, McCann created a list of British academics who wished to attend a scientific conference in Seoul, South Korea, called the Tenth International Conference for the Unity of the Sciences.Times Correspondent, "Professors absolve Moonies", The Times (London), 13 November 1981. The names became public in an early day motion—for which Conservative MP for Gravesend Timothy Brinton motioned—in the House of Commons. Those listed included Professors R. V. Jones, Antony Flew, J. W. Pringle, and Sir Hans Krebs."Academics in Moonie Row", The Times (London), 3 November 1981. Professor Jones, in a letter to The Times's editor, wrote that he was erroneously put on the list since he refused the last three invitations he received from the International Cultural Foundation, an organization founded by Sun Myung Moon that organized the conferences.R. V. Jones, "Unification Church", The Times (London), 7 November 1981.Tim Brinton, "Unification Church", The Times (London), 11 November 1981. Others, like Professors Flew and Kenneth Mellanby, attended the conference and discussed the issue of the Unification Church brainwashing British students and sending them to the United States, which the professors believed was not an issue anymore since the American branch of the Unification Church took measures to allow or encourage British students to return to Britain to continue their education and see family.

Throughout 1981–2, McCann headed a public campaign for academics to pressure the Unification Church to return students who interrupted their post-secondary educations to join the Church in the United States. McCann believed that approximately 50 students interrupted their studies to convert and a further 450 Britons were in the United States because of their conversion to the Unification Church.Ian Bradley, "Campaign for return of Moonie students", The Times (London), 11 June 1982.

McCann supported the measures detailed in the Cottrell Report, a report from the European Parliament's Committee on Youth, Culture, Education, Information and Sport with MEP for Bristol Richard Cottrell as rapporteur, released as a working document on 2 April 1984.M.T.M. Casey McCann, "Code of Conduct for the cults", The Times (London), 21 August 1984.Richard Cottrell, rapporteur, Report on the Activity of New Religious Movements within the European Community, English ed., PE 82.322/fin (Strasburg, Germany: Committee on Youth, Culture, Education, Information and Sport, European Parliament, 1984). One of the recommendations of the Cottrell Report was requiring new religious movements to report the whereabouts or address of individual members, which some have criticized as infringing on religious freedoms.Beryl Garside, "Code for new cults", The Times (London), 3 September 1984. Garside is a representative of the Church of Scientology. McCann, however, believed that these proposals were voluntarily on behalf of the new religious movements and were not intended to be legislative.

By 1980 McCann was a member of FAIR. According to Elisabeth Arweck, he also served as FAIR's treasurer. In late 1984, McCann shared FAIR's chairmanship with Lady Daphne Vane, a French woman and an MP.Anson Shupe and Susan E. Darnell, [https://www.cesnur.org/2001/CAN1.htm "Agents of Discord: The North American-European Anticult Connection"], paper presented at the 2001 International Conference: The Spiritual Marketplace, Religious Pluralism and Globalization in the 21st Century: The Expanding European Union and Beyond, London: London School of Economics, 21 April 2001. In his article in Journal of Contemporary Religion (formerly Religion Today), it states that he was a "FAIR committee" member in mid-1986.

On 28 February 2000, a maid named Dirce de Olieveira discovered McCann's body in his apartment in São Paulo, Brazil. According to The Times, his death occurred on 26 February 2000."Personal Column: Deaths", The Times (London), 16 March 2000. Olieveira found him bound at the hands and feet on his bed, and he was dressed only in his underwear. São Paulo police investigated the death as a murder case. Neighbors and a coffee shop owner identified a man with whom McCann had sexual encounters as a potential suspect; however, this suspect was never identified and the case is unsolved.

• List of unsolved murders

• Anti-cult movement
• The Family Survival Trust (formerly FAIR)
• Unification Church

{{Opposition to new religious movements}}{{Authority control}}

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Category:1943 births

Category:2000 deaths

Category:Alumni of Trinity College Dublin

Category:Anti-cult movement

Category:Critics of new religious movements

Category:Heads of schools in London

Category:People from Wexford, County Wexford

Category:Unification Church controversies

Category:Unsolved murders in Brazil