Was Tom Cruise there?

Will Oremus has a Slate article about Scientology:

Anyone who thought the Church of Scientology would take the high road in response to a critical story in the New Yorker probably didn’t read said story very closely.
According to the New York Observer, a trio of church representatives spent Wednesday morning outside the magazine’s offices in Times Square, handing out the latest issue of their own magazine, Freedom. Its cover spoofs The New Yorker’s design, replacing its iconic Eustace Tilley mascot with an illustration of Lawrence Wright, the original piece’s author. (That’s director Paul Haggis, the disgruntled former Scientologist at the center of Wright’s profile, crawling out of Wright’s top hat.) The headline reads: The New Yorker: What a Load of Balderdash.

The church, it seems, took all kinds of umbrage at Wright’s story which, over the course of some 24,000 words, portrayed Scientology’s leadership as corrupt, abusive, and unhinged. To counter this perception, the church has launched an all-out campaign to discredit Wright, his main sources, and pretty much everyone else who had anything to do with the article, published in The New Yorker’s February issue. In addition to the 51-page glossy print magazine, the volunteers handed out a DVD and directed people to the Freedom website, which features videos with titles such as The New Yorker: Tabloid of Record.

The New Yorker piece was so meticulously researched that the magazine’s fact-checking process for the story generated stories of its own. The Scientology magazine lays into it nonetheless:

Of the 971 statements, assertions, and questions submitted to the Church to ‘fact check’, more than half were completely and utterly wrong. To put it politely, that’s not a fact check, that’s "throwing something at the wall to see what sticks."

Among other allegations, Freedom calls the New Yorker piece an “ambush-style, anti-religious diatribe”, mocks it as “dreadfully dull”, and speculates that “few managed to actually finish reading it”. For those who didn’t, New York Magazine’s Vulture blog posted a helpful summary of the piece’s most explosive bits shortly after it ran.

Rico says you can go to the official church site here, but a made-up religion (aren't they all, really; but L. Ron Hubbard ain't exactly Jesus) is no better than a 'real' religion... But 'corrupt, abusive, and unhinged'? Sounds like he got that part right.