Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964-66) In the Middle of It Again!

Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964-66) is in the “Middle of It” again! Maureen this morning on the TODAY Show defended her October article in Vanity Fair about the Church of  Scientology seeking a bride for Tom Cruise.

Maureen told Matt Lauer on the TODAY  Show that “Tom can’t find the Scientology soul mate that he needs to be the No. 2 most important person in the religion, which is what he was called by the head of Scientology.”

The church, it seems, wanted Tom to settle on actress Nazanin Boniadi who dated Cruise for a few months in 2004.

In VF Maureen wrote that when Cruise was married to Nicole Kidman, the pair “drifted away” from Scientology; the Church then ramped up efforts to get them back by “auditing” (“their kind of confessional”) Cruise once a day for almost a year, and collecting information from spies working in the couple’s home. “Every single thing that went on in that house between them was being reported back by their special assistants, who were a married couple in that house,” Maureen writes.

The Church of Scientology denounced the story in a statement: “Vanity Fair relied exclusively on a small group of anti-Scientologists, a handful of self-promoting apostates who are admitted liars and suborders of perjury. … Indeed, the article fails to quote a single source who is not a vociferous anti-Scientologist.”

Tom Cruise’s lawyer, Bert Fields, responded to the article by saying to the Hollywood Reporter, “Vanity Fair’s story is essentially a rehash of tired old lies previously run in the supermarket tabloids, quoting the same bogus ‘sources.’ It’s long, boring and false.”

Maureen replied to all the uproar with: “Scientology does not know everybody I talked to. … All of my sources in my article with very few exceptions are on the record.”

So, this morning on TODAY Lauer asked if Maureen’s sources were all ex-members. Maureen replied, “Some of them are still Scientologists. … They have gripes against the current leadership of Scientology, but they are not against the religion necessarily.”

Orth wouldn’t confirm or deny that she had spoken with Boniadi, who she said was “traumatized by this whole experience,” but she did say that she was unable to speak with Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman or Katie Holmes.

“There’s very few people who were willing to talk,” she added.

However, Peace Corps Writers has faith in Maureen. She will get them to talk!