How Opus Dei manipulated its way into power
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My personal experience with Opus Dei as an undergraduate and in my professional career was typical of many of others my age at the time. As a conservative Catholic, I appreciated the order’s focus on the layperson’s potential to explore spirituality in their everyday working lives and its emphasis on traditional forms of devotion: meditations in the chapel on Saturday evenings, followed by benedictions and social dinners with fellow students and professionals. (My one disappointment was that these gatherings were male-only. Women interested in Opus Dei were directed to separate centers, something that I discovered was fundamental to the prelature’s way of operation.)
Even when I became aware of the sect’s more stringent demands of its lay members who chose to devote their lives and careers as so-called “numeraries” to Opus Dei, I reasoned it was not unlike the traditions of other religious orders and movements in the long history of the church through the centuries. Over the subsequent years, I read superficially about controversies surrounding Opus Dei, its founder Josemaria Escriva (canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II) and its origin during Spain’s Franco regime. I had and still have friends in the sect, though some also left it. But once I’d left, I did not pay much attention to Opus Dei—until people began discussing its deep involvement in U.S. politics and connections with the Trump administration. People even began to speculate about whether Opus Dei is a cult.
Financial journalist Gareth Gore’s new book, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church (Simon & Schuster) is quite frankly shocking. It’s also a much-needed exposé of what looks very much like a cult within the Catholic Church—every bit as reckless and dangerous as the late Marcel Maciel’s Legionaries of Christ, before it was finally reformed by Pope Benedict.
Opus Dei has issued a press release claiming that Gore misled them about his aims in writing the book and that it is largely fabricated. Nevertheless, it’s clear from Gore’s own detailed notes and the extensive hours he spent interviewing both members and former members that financial and political scandal has dogged the movement since its very beginning.
Content retrieved from: https://uscatholic.org/articles/202411/how-opus-dei-manipulated-its-way-into-power/.
