Kidman has never publicly challenged or defied Cruise or his Scientology sect. Not during the couple's 10-year marriage and not after it ended in 2001.Not even, remarkably enough, when Cruise took primary custody of the children, effectively removing her from their lives and allowing them to be raised in a mysterious sect which recognises Cruise as, if not one of its leaders, its most prominent salesman and advocate.
Cruise, who served a stunned Kidman with divorce papers within a month of their 10th wedding anniversary in February 2001, walked away from that union the undisputed victor -- his life virtually unaltered except for the loss of some property and one unwanted wife. Kidman, on the other hand, lost everything but her career -- her children, her identity as wife and mother, her home were all taken from her.
The couple's children, Isabella and Connor, were nine and six at the time their parents' marriage ended -- Connor being the same age that little Suri Cruise is now.
It is expected that Holmes, whose father is a lawyer, is prepared to go to incredible lengths to ensure her daughter is not claimed by a sect which may see the child as its Messiah.
Having witnessed first-hand Isabella and Connor's increasing estrangement from their mother -- a woman they now call "Nicole", have refused to live with and see only "sometimes" -- and their ongoing indoctrination into Scientology, Holmes must have felt, as any mother would, that she would move heaven and hell rather than be separated from the product of her womb.
Meanwhile Kidman must live in hope that her children will make their own way back to her in adulthood, assuming Scientology's teachings haven't shattered their regard for forever.
