My Italian friend is ensnared in what sounds like a very psychologically dangerous cult. It is supposedly the biggest sect in the Catholic Church, except for Opus Dei. It makes its members perform "group confessions" and tells them that anything they enjoy or do outside the cult is an "idol".

We have never met and only knew each other over the internet. He is extremely talented on the guitar and he is very altruistic and loving, with an adventurous personality. We planned for me to go to Italy and meet him, because he knew I wanted to travel. (we "met" on a language learning site because I wanted to learn Italian and he wanted to brush up on his English). He stopped talking to me out of the blue one day and it really hurt. We had been falling kind of in love and that might have been what made him ignore me. His leaders may have told him he was sinning by dating someone outside of the cult.

I tried to contact him when I was vacationing in Italy, but I couldn't find him. I may be in Italy this year and if I make it, I hope to take a couple days out to check on him, since I know what city he lives in. How should I go about this? I don't want to push him further into the cult.

http://church-mouse.lanuera.com/Links/links1.html
http://www.psychologue-clinicien.com...s/augusto1.htm
http://www.cathud.com/LINKS/pages_MR...o_Arguello.htm
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/200...ast-track.html
http://acatholiclife.blogspot.com/20...menal-way.html
http://www.catholic.org/internationa...y.php?id=28614
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=23443
http://www.internetica.it/neocatecum...tification.htm
http://vox-nova.com/2011/01/19/neocatechumenal-way/
http://www.cathinfo.com/index.php/neocatechumenal-way
http://ncronline.org/news/global/bis...problems-chaos
http://citizendia.org/Neocatechumenal_Way
http://www.cfnews.org/neocat06.htm
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2329950484&topic=9253