Photo/Illutration Hideyuki Teshigawara, a top official of the Unification Church, speaks at a news conference at a church facility in Tokyo on Oct. 20. (Nobuaki Tanaka)

The Unification Church on Oct. 20 expressed regret for its recent actions taken against its opponents, but the religious organization’s words and promises to reform were met with skepticism and even anger from critics.

Hideyuki Teshigawara, a top church official, admitted to the group’s blunders at a news conference in Tokyo, its sixth since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot and killed in early July by a suspect with an apparent grudge against the church.

Teshigawara himself was the subject of a protest from a man who has told the media that his wife’s huge donations to the church led to their divorce.

Teshigawara made an unwelcomed visit to the man’s home to tell him to stop talking to the media about the church. He would not leave the man’s home even after the police were called.

A reporter asked Teshigawara if he knew that he was scaring the man.

“I never considered that possibility,” Teshigawara said.

Despite what Teshigawara said about that visit, the man’s ex-wife appeared in a video shown at the news conference, denying his claims about the church.

Teshigawara also said the church should not have sent a fax to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan asking for the cancellation of a news conference by a former member.

Addressing claims that children of church members were forced to remain in the organization, Teshigawara said that in the future, one-third of the leaders of local church districts would be children of members.

To emphasize his point, 17 second-generation members who now head local church districts lined up beside Teshigawara during the news conference.

The education ministry is expected to conduct an investigation into the activities of the Unification Church, particularly its “spiritual sales” and donation-collection methods.

If the church is found to have violated the Religious Corporations Law, it could face a court order to dissolve.

Addressing the growing public criticism against the Unification Church, Teshigawara said the organization was committed to reforming itself.

For example, he explained that the organization would stop sending monetary support to its headquarters in South Korea.

But a lawyer who has helped victims of the church’s financial schemes said the reform plan was insufficient.

“I feel strong anger because it lacks any consideration for what victims and their families have gone through,” Katsuomi Abe of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales said. “The plan is totally unconvincing.”

Abe also said his group was willing to cooperate in the ministry’s investigation because it possessed the largest amount of information and documents about the church.

Government authorities are expected to request reports from the church about its management and operations, as well as question church officials under provisions of the Religious Corporations Law.

“We will respond in a sincere manner,” Teshigawara said.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida earlier this week said in the Diet that the basis for seeking a court order to disband the church would be criminal law violations. But the following day, he said breaches of the Civil Code would be enough to warrant such a court order.

“I was surprised because he changed his position suddenly in one day,” Teshigawara said.

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