Tom Cruise Scientology Video Hits the Web

01/15/2008 at 10:30 AM EST

A video clip of Tom Cruise, from a private Scientology event more than three years ago, is making the YouTube rounds. The clip, which was pulled from the video site but is still online, shows the star praising what he calls the "privilege" of being a Scientologist. (Click here to see the video.)

"It's something that you have to earn because a Scientologist ... has the ability to create new and better realities and improve conditions," says Cruise, 45, in the clip, where the "KSW" to which he repeatedly refers stands for "Keep Scientology Working." "Being a Scientologist," says Cruise, "you look at someone and know absolutely that you can help them."

A rep for Cruise says: "The video is of Mr. Cruise making an acceptance speech to fellow parishioners at a private church event in 2004."

The video has hit the Web the same week that Princess Diana biographer Andrew Morton's controversial new book, Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography, hits bookstores. (Cruise's rep has called Morton's book, which purports to shed light on Cruise's position in the Church of Scientology, a "false, vicious and bigoted attack" on the actor and his family.)