File:The Times Profile of Opus Dei - Jan 12,1981.pdf

By Clifford Longley and Dan van der Vat, published in Times, 12 Jan. 1981, p. 9.

New mood in Rome encourages "church within a church"

The secretive and controversial Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei is seeking to increase its power and prestige in the Church by profiting from the new mood since the election of Pope John Paul II.

Opus Dei is now pressing two claims, either of which would substantiałly advance its ambition to be thę model for Roman Catholicism in the future. It is campaigning for the canonization of its founder who always claimed direct inspiration from God. It is also striving for a unique status in the Church as a largely lay organization which would be independent of local bishops and national hierarchies.

Serious questions about Opus Dei’s fitness for the role it desires are raised by the disclosures of a former senior member who has shown The Times his private collection of secret official documents describing its hidden internal life and ultimate aims. His evidence has been supported by many other sources and papers seen during a detailed investigation by The Times.

On the basis of these documents and his own experiences as a member, Dr John Roche, of Linacre College, Oxford— who remains a practising Catholic— alleges that Opus Dei is a church within a church ultimately loyal only to itself, and psychologically dangerous to its own members. "Personal identity suffers a severe battering: some are reduced to shadows of their former selves, others become severely disturbed. Opus Dei must be thoroughly and exhaustively investigated by the Church", he said. He has offered his evidence to Cardinal Basil Hume, President of the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

He also produced instruments of mortification — a small whip and a spiked chain — which are a normal part of the rigid spiritual discipline which Opus Dei imposes on its members, including adolescents of both sexes. |

There is an extraordinary history of antagonism between Opus Dei and the Roman Catholic chaplaincy at Oxford University. The present chaplain and assistant chaplain, and several previous chaplains, have spoken of the harmful influence which they believe Opus Dei has over its members, and students are now warned against it as a matter of policy.

Opus Dei was founded in Spain as "a new way of sanctification for the faithful in the midst of the world, through the carrying out of their ordinary work and the fulfilment of their personal, family and social duties, thus becoming a leaven of fervent Christian life in all environments", to quote an official tract.

There has often been tension between Opus Dei and other parts of the Church in Spain, involving members of the hierarchy and some of the major réligious orders such as the Jesuits. The latest important incident concerned the suppression of a report based on confidential documents which was about to be published in a Spanish Catholic weekly. The papers included a long formal statement of Opus Dei’s claim to be elevated to the status of a personal prelature, an international diocese under its own bishop outside the jurisdiction of local church authorities. The head of the organization would be promoted bishop.

The claim was addressed to Cardinal Baggio, head of the Congregation for Bishops and reputed in Rome to be sympathetic to Opus Dei. No official announcement has been made, though the authenticity of the document is not in doubt. It is said unofficially that the Pope referred the request for a personal prelature to Cardinal Baggio's department, and at one point the request was turned down by only one vote. As membership of the Congregation changes from time to time, such a refusal would not be final. If a prelature was eventually granted, this would be in spite of the known opposition of several national episcopal conferences.

As well as Cardinal Baggio, Opus Det is believed to have the support of Cardinals Oddi and Palazzini. Cardinal Oddi is in a key position as head of the Congregation of Priests, to which he was appointed by the present Pope. He was less in favour under Pope Paul VI, which also applies to Cardinal Palazzini, head of the Congregation for the Cause of Saints. Cardinal Patagmini, now directly responsible for the canonization process of Mgr Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, makes no secret of his support for it. In 1972 he was secretary at the Congregation for the Clergy, and signed a controversial and embarrassing document which attacked the policy of the Spanish bishops of distancing themselves from General Franco's fascist regime.

Cardinal Tarancon, Archbishop of Madrid, visited Rome to make a strong personal protest to Paul VI, and the offending paper was subsequently downgraded to the status of a “study document”.

The Church’s attitude to General Franco had at the time a crucial bearing on the liberalization of Spanish society and the possible introduction of parliamentary democracy. Opus Dei had been identified with the Franco regime and had members in his government. An attempt by Rome to silence the Spanish Catholic hierarchy had obvious implications.

Observers in Rome have concluded that while Paul VI tended to side with the Spanish bishops, John Paul 1I now lends his weight to Opus Dei. Relations between Cardinal Tarancon and the present Pope are not thought to be very good. One source stated that the Pope had threatened to dismiss the cardinal if he did not relax his opposition to Opus Dei.

Recently the cardinal called a press conference to answer rumours that the new nuncio to Madrid was associated with Opus Dei, saying he did not believe it was true.

The Pope is said to favour the canonization of Mgr Escriva, an act which would give the highest approval to its image of itself as an instrument specially fashioned by God. One report states that Cardinal Wojtyla, as he then was, was seen praying at the tomb of Mgr Escriva in Rome before the conclave which elected Pope Paul VI's successor.

Opus Dei was paid the compliment last spring of being asked to host an official preliminary conference held prior to the Synod of Bishops in the autumn at its own University of Navarre. Opus Dei has also been reported as wanting to take over the running of Vatican Radio from the Jesuits, a rumour which can neither be confirmęd nor denied in Rome.

Another indication of Opus Dei’s increasing influence is its close relationship with Archbishop Lopez Trujillo, former secretary and now president of the Latin American Conference of Bishops ; in those countries where Opus Dei appears to have significant political or ecclesiastical influence, it is, as in Spain, generally felt on the side of conservative or right-wing tendencies.

Opus Dei established itself in Britain in the early 1950s and organized itself on the basis of a trust deed dated April 2, 1954. Ten years later it was registered as a charity with the stated object of advancing Roman Catholicism and of charitable works.

The principal respository of OD funds in Britain is the Netherhali Educational Association, also a registered charity (1965), which in 1978 had fixed assets of £1.85m, mostły property.

The Association takes its name from Netherhall Gardens in Hampstead, London, where Opus Dei acquired two adjoining houses in 1952. The site now accommodates Netherhall House, an impressive purpose-built hostel for 200 students (who do not have to be OD members or even- Catholic). The first stage of this was opened by the Queen Mother in 1966, and it is now run by a third OD charity, the Netherhalt House Trust, registered in 1970. OD in Britain can be said to have begun in Netherhall Gardens but its headquarters have long since been in Orme Court, Paddington, London.

It is OD’s policy to recruit people of high intellectual capacity as "numeraries", the key grade, and it set its sights on gaining a foothold in Oxford soon after securing its London base. But the Roman Catholic chaplaincy to the university has consistently and effectively opposed OD influence in Oxford despite considerable pressure.

Father Michael Hollings was chaplain in the late 1950s and early 1960s and was prominent in an ultimately successful campaign to prevent OD setting up a Netherhall House-style hostel for students ; although they did take over Grandpont House in Abingdon Road, this is a much smaller affair than they had in mind. OD has since also acquired a hostel for women students in north Oxford, also quite modest in size.

The late Cardinal Godfrey, then Archbishop of Westminster, visited Father Hollings to tell him to cease his opposition, saying that he was flouting the will of the then Pope, Pius XII. If he kept up his opposition, the Cardinal told the Chapłain, “it would not be forgotten”, Father Hollings persisted.

A subsequent chaplain, Father Crispian Hollis, now a well-known religious broadcaster, described the influence: of OD as "pernicious". OD deliberately set itself apart from the rest of the RC community in Oxford, he said, and ran Grandpont House “as if it was a different religion”.

The present incumbent, Father Walter Drumm, is no less suspicious. He told us that he had taken it upon himself to issue a discreet warning to new students to be on their guard against OD recruiting drives and to have a quiet word with any student he thought was especially at risk.

According to its own tradition, Opus Dei was founded in Madrid on October 2, 1928, by Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer y Albas, a Spanish priest then of three-and-a-half years’ standing who practised violent self-mortification and who said he had visions. The strictly separate women's section was set up on February 14, St Valentine’s Day, 1930, and the priests’ section on the same day of 1943. From then on it was known as “the Sacerdotal Society of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei”.

Membership of Opus Dei is by invitation only and should not be disclosed even to closest relatives. One of its principal attractions is the carefully fostered feeling of belonging to a chosen elite, former members said. The very rigidity of its doctrine and the daily observances it imposes seem to offer refuge from doubt in an uncertain world for the lonely, the emótionally immature and those with an unfulfilled sense of mission. Its residences spare no expense on material comfort and strive to create an atmosphere of cheerful companionship for those prepared to conform.

The Oxford chaplains said they soon learned to recognize students likely to be susceptible to an approach from Opus Dei; a senior Spanish defector said : "If you need a leader, you are in danger".

It was only after the Second World War that Opus Dei began to spread round the world. On June 16, 1950 it finally received the "definitive approval" of the Vatican as a secular institute. At about the same time, as informed sources in Spain told The Times, Opus Dei was acutely short of funds. Nor had it made much headway in Rome.

It therefore set out to acquire economic and political influence in Spain, a country with a special place in the Church. Direct influence in Madrid grew into indirect but powerful influence in Rome, now bolstered by a considerable physical and organizational presence there. They adopted the same strategy in other parts of the world, notably in Latin America but also in the 80 or more countries in which their reported 75,000 members live.

The late 1960s in Spain were "the age of the three Lopez's" — Sr Lopez Rodo, Minister of Economic Planning, Sr Lopez Bravo, Minister of Industry and later Foreign Minister, and Sr Lopez Letona, Minister of Commerce and later of Finance. They were all OD members and they worked as a team to revive and expand the Spanish economy at a speed which won the amazement and applause of much of the rest of the world. It was not done by Opus Del as such but by three of its members whose presence in the government nonetheless brought OD influence in Spanish politics to its peak in the period 1969-73. An elitist body with a strong sense of discipline can reasonably be said to have a lot of political influence when three of its members sit in the same Cabinet at the same time, jointly running a booming economy.

If the fresh air of post-Francó democracy in Spain has blown away OD's influence at the political summit, though not at still significant lower levels of the state apparatus, its connexions with big business are very large and continue to grow.

The largest conglomerate in Spain's private sector is RUMASA (Ruiz-Mateos Sociedad Anonima), a holding company with more than 300 subsidiaries including 21 banks and 13 firms which appear in the list of the top 1,500 Spanish enterprises. With about 37,000 on its combined payrolls, RUMASA is the largest employer of labour in Spain's private sector. Its resources amount to about £300m, its annual sales to about £600m and deposits at its banks to about £1,800m. Its shares are not quoted and its profits are not disclosed. In Spain it is often called "Octopus Dei".

Sr Jose Maria Ruiz-Mateos Jimenez de Tejada owns half the shares in RUMASA and made it what it is. He is a devoted supernumerary member of Opus Dei and one of its main benefactors who also pays more personal income tax than any other Spaniard. The firm's origins lie in the wine trade and it owns the world's largest bodega, a single structure of 60,000 square metres at Jerez, as well as at least 17 subsidiaries in the British wine trade.

The purchase of a bottle of Dry Sack sherry at an Augustus Barnett off-licence represents a potential double contribution, however infinitesimal, to the coffers of Opus Dei : RUMASA owns both.

OD members are also prominent in journalism in Spain, with strong connexions with publishing firms. There is a school of journalism at the University of Navarre at Pamplona, which is an OD institution. There is far more to OD’s role in its country of origin than space permits us to describe ; collectively the influence of its tightly organized membership in an intensely Roman Catholic country 1s both widespread and profound.

The newly liberated Spanish press has produced a wealth of material about OD in recent years, some very detailed and probing. Long lists of names of members in sensitive places including the court of King Juan Carlos have been published and left undenied. Although OD is highly secretive, and rarely makes statements, it is extremely sensitive to what is written about it, as the following unusual incident illustrates.

Father Bernardino Hernanda, a secular priest of 47 who has made his career in journalism, letters and poetry, edits Vida Neuva, a most influential Roman Catholic weekly, and has been watching Opus Dei for 20 years. In October, 1979, he received anonymously through the post documents he could identify as genuine relating to OD’s campaign to enhance its standing in the Church. They set out the case for a "personal prelature" for the President-General of OD, who would then become a bishop while Opus Dei became an international diocese.

Father Hernando set about writing a very long article on “the transformation of Opus Dei” which was to form an eightpage pullout. The issue dated November 3, 1979, had already gone to press when Father Hernando had unexpected visitors. “Two characters came into my office, a priest and a layman... They said they were from the secretariat of Opus Dei in Spain,” Father Hernando told us.

They tried to persuade him to withdraw the already printed article, saying it would be bad for the Church, unethical and contrary to the Pope’s wishes. He refused. Shortly afterwards his superiors in the publishing company which owns the paper ordered him to withdraw it. “Under heavy pressure” he agreed, provided he could explain what had happened in the next issue.

The November 3 edition duly appeared with the article signalled on the cover but with the eight pages on which it had been printed missing. A łoose slip of paper in each copy said: “The section ... has had to be torn out of the magazine when it was already printed and bound. The Director and editors of Vida Neuva express their sorrow at this higher decision which they saw themselves obliged to observe.”

The incident backfired horribly by causing a scandal which led not to suppression of the documents but to far wider publication. Other people had copies of them and the widely read Madrid daily El Pais printed them. The story went round the world.

Structurally Opus Dei comes in threes. At the top are three priests, the President general (known simply as el Padre, the Father), the Secretary-general and the Counsellor-general. Escriva died in Rome on June 26, 1975, and was succeeded as President-general by Father Alvaro del Portillo.

The order as a whole is divided into three vertically and horizontally. There are three entirely separate sections for priests, laymen and women, the vertical division. Horizontally, there are three levels of membership. The most important is the numerary, itself made up of three grades which may be called inscribed electors, inscribed non-electors and simple numeraries. Only electors have access to the inner circles, the regular general councils (one for each vertical division) and the very occasional congress, (the last known met in 1975 to choose Escriva's succeśsor).

Numeraries must conform to three requirements : they must take the three monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience ; they must be of high intellectual calibre and they must live in OD residences. They form the kernel in which priestly numeraries dominate : lay order or no, the clergy dominates OD.

Then comes a much larger number of supernumeraries who lead ordinary lives and follow a much simpler set of rules without vows. They are important because they embody OD’s temporal influence and raise its funds. The third category comprises the associates (formerly oblates) who are to be found living in OD residences and doing the menial work. OD’s "membership" of 75,000 also includes a speciał category of "cooperators", people regarded as sympathetic to its aims who may not even know they are so regarded and play no active part at all.

OD's experience, especially since the internal tension arose between the spiritually minded and the materialist element who went for temporal influence in the 1950’s and after, has been that the older the numeraries are when recruited, the more likely they are to defect (many of our sources bore this out).

In recent years therefore, the emphasis has shifted to recruiting numeraries not at undergraduate level but at the minimum age allowed by the rules, 14 years six months. With six months’ probation and six years’ training in an OD house, the recruit can become a fully-fledged numerary at 21.

What most disturbs observers, critics and lapsed members of OD is the effect of the old-fashioned and strict quasimonastic regime in an OD numerary residence on immature young people. Numeraries are expected to wear the Cilis, a strip of metal rather like chainmail with the points of the links bent inwards, for two hours a day, usually around the top of one thigh so it (and the resulting contusions) cannot be seen.

Once a week, numeraries are required to apply the Discipline, a whip with five or six thongs, to their own buttocks in private for the length of time it takes to say the prayer Salve Regina. With special permission, they may increase the frequency to a maximum of three times a week.

These practices were once commonplace in monastic communities but have virtually died out. Several sources told us that these implements of self-mortification are given to recruits within weeks of joining, whatever their age. A member is expected to discuss all aspects of his life with his lay director, a senior Opus Dei numerary, in an intimate session known as a "confidence" once a week. This is in addition to regular confession of sins to a priest ; and confession to a priest outside Opus Dei is discouraged.

During his time as a member, Dr John Roche collected a number of Opus Dei documents, made detailed notes, and photocopied many pages of the internal confidential journal named Cronica. This the basic spiritual reading of an Opus member, was kept in a locked cupboard and released for study under the supervision of a director. Dr Roche had held the rank of director, the most senior position open to a lay Opus Dei member.

Several senior Roman Catholic clergy have seen some or all the material in The Times’ possession. One was a member of the English hierarchy; one an academic theologian and a member of the Theological Commission of the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference; and one holds a senior position in the Benedictine Order. Their views coincided, that it was “unhealthy ” and psychologically and spiritually harmful. Doubts were raised about the orthodoxy of some of the doctrine. They were satisfied that it was in the best interests of the Roman Catholic Church that it should come to light.

From the pages of Cronica it is possible to deduce the internal philosophy and self-image of Opus Dei, and its relationship to the Church. The Church, Cronica makes plain, has fallen away from its true path, and the destiny of Opus Dei is to spread itself throughout the world by every means. The Church appears to have no other role than to be a vehicle for this process, the ultimate priority. No other means of salvation exists.

A characteristic teaching is "divine filiation", a doctrine repeatedly elaborated in Cronica. By God's direct appointment, Mgr Escriva had become the true earthly father of all Opus Dei members, and this was not to be understood as a sentimental metaphor. Cronica quotes from Eccelasiasticus, applying to Escriva the Passage: “When tested he was found loyal. For this reason God promised him with an oath that in his descendants the nations would be blessed...” It is a reference to Abraham.

Cronica is not ashamed to interpret Biblical passages as prophecies of Opus Dei's destiny, and uses for Mgr Escriva such Biblical images as Father, Shepherd, and "he who spends his life so that we, his children, may have it in greater abundance”. Traditional spiritual ideas are frequently taken over and re-applied in this way, both to Mgr Escriva and to Opus Dei itself. Cronica describes Opus Dei as sinless, perfect, "our Beautiful Mother", and as Christ's "Mystical Body ”.

"On inspiring Opus Dei", Cronica states, "God our Lord wanted to base the spiritual physiognomy of the Work on divine filiation. Thus He invited us to imitate Him as His most beloved children, and brothers of His only begotten son. Furthermore He gave our Founder a spiritual fatherhood, which is a consequence and a channel of this divine filiation." This will fuse persons of every age and race into one great family, “a supernatural family through whose veins flows the same blood, that of Christ”.

In a typical reinterpretation of the classical Christian tradition, Cronica states : "At His Last Supper Our Lord prayed his priestly prayer for the unity of his Mystical Body: "ut omnes Unum sint". And he wanted to seal this strong indestructible unity of Opus Dei with a spirit of filiation to the Father, which is our best defence...” (Throughout, references to the "Father" are to Mgr Escriva though Cronica sometimes leaves unresolved the ambiguity that Father may also refer to God.)

Filiation to the Father is not "an occasional overflow of affection" but belongs to “the most profound depths of our spirit”. The organization he founded is described in the words of the Song of Songs: Tota pulchra est, amica mea, et macula non est in te. (All is beautiful, my love, and there is no fault in thee.) In contrast the Roman Catholic Church is described, in direct quotation of Mgr Escriva, as contaminated with evil. Using the expression Mystical Body in its traditional sense to refer to the Church, but ironically, Mgr Escriva declares in Cronica: "There is an authentic rottenness, and at times it seems as if the Mystical Body of Christ were a corpse in decomposition, that stinks".

Opus Dei, on the other hand, is holy, unchangeable, everlasting ; it will never die or grow old; it contains everything necessary for salvation, and no point of this "internal law" can ever be changed, Opus Dei could never need reform. In one of the very few references to the Second Vatican Council, Cronica states that Mgr Escriva anticipated the council in his creation of Opus Dei, and therefore Opus Dei has no need to turn to the council's decrees for its own guidance. It has spread everywhere, affirming the reign of Christ forever. It is the context of “God’s work” — Cronica often plays on the words “Opus Dei” — and its vocation is universal.

Recruitment to Opus Dei, called Proselytism, is the highest priority of every member: it is “the way, precisely the road, to reach sanctity”. Not to proselytize is to be dead; members should hunger and thirst for proselytism. "Holy shrewdness" and "holy coercion" should be used to win recruits, who should he "pushed little by little, but constantly". It is taken for granted that candidates are already devout Roman Catholics, and Cronica does not use proselytism to refer to gaining converts for Christianity or Catholicism. In the material available, this is not discussed.