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Let there be light: a look inside the hidden world of Opus Dei

Washington Monthly, Oct-Nov, 2005 by Paul Baumann

Opus Dei: The First Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church

John L. Allen, Jr.

Doubleday Religion; $24.95

Some know it as the diabolical secret organization of monkassassins depicted in the The Da Vinci Code. Others recall it in vague connection with Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who spied for Russia. Those inside the Beltway may be familiar with the role it played in the conversion to Catholicism of Sen. Sam Brownback, Robert Bork, and syndicated columnist Robert Novak--though apparently none of them numbers himself among the roughly 3,000 members the group claims to have in the United States. (Nor, despite rumors, do Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, former FBI director Louis Freeh, or Sen. Rick Santorum.)

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Opus Dei has unquestionably gotten a lot of bad press, originally because of the prominence of some members in Franco's cabinet toward the end of his regime. But the group has also been accused of, among other things, obsessive secrecy, an authoritarian ethos, being in cahoots with right-wing forces in Latin America, accumulating an indecent amount of wealth, and brainwashing its members. The organization denies all these allegations.

Whether Opus Dei's adepts ultimately strike one as saintly is, as John Allen might say, "a matter of interpretation." Allen, the Vatican correspondent for the liberal National Catholic Reporter, a contributor to CNN and National Public Radio, and most recently author of Opus Dei: The First Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church, has earned a reputation for balanced, informed reporting. He does not simply reflect the leanings of the liberal weekly paper that is his primary outlet. Here, that reputation gives credence to much of what Opus Dei members tell him in defending the group's philosophy and practices. In that sense, Allen may be too liberal for his own good.

What is Opus Dei? First, it is not the nefarious secret society portrayed in The Da Vinci Code. It is a mostly lay group of both men and women devoted to spiritual excellence, although several thousand priests belong. The movement was founded in Madrid in 1928 by Josemaria Escriva (1902-75), a charismatic Spanish priest whose 1939 book, The Way, is considered a spiritual classic by his devoted followers. From the beginning, Escriva targeted top students at universities, and Opus Dei (which means "the work of God") soon acquired a reputation for elitism. (Today, there are 15 Opus Dei universities, including some of the finest in Spain.) Escriva claimed that God revealed to him the way for ordinary people to become saints, not by renouncing the world, but by excelling in it. The group purports to school members in spiritual practices that enable them to sanctify their lives and their secular work. In being the best laundress or surgeon or lawyer you can be, you are doing God's work, not just pursuing worldly goals. Opus Dei's avid proponents believe that shirt collars are more diligently laundered in Peru, and toilets more faithfully scrubbed in Indiana because of the difference the conservative religious organization makes in the lives of its 85,000 adherents worldwide.

Idealism should not be discounted as the secret of the movement's appeal. Aspirants join because they have discovered a religious vocation: They want to become saints. As a Catholic organization, Opus Dei is somewhat anomalous. In many ways, it is structured like a religious order (such as the Jesuits or Franciscans), and it is led by clerics. Like those in religious orders, members take a vow of obedience, which Opus Dei calls a "contract." Much of the group's spiritual discipline--including daily Mass and prayer, regular instruction from a spiritual "director," weekly confession, and, for some, "mortifications" (self-flagellation)--evokes the stringency common in religious orders before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). And like priests and women religious, Opus Dei's core adherents, who are called "numeraries" and number roughly 16,000, are celibates who live segregated by gender in Opus Dei residences. At the same time, however, the group thinks of itself as a lay movement--most of its members, whether celibate or not, are not ordained and continue to pursue secular occupations--and the movement criticizes the "clericalism" of Catholics who expect the clergy to do the heavy spiritual rifting for them. Opus Dei claims to have anticipated the Second Vatican Council's "universal call to holiness," a dramatic shift away from the Church's historical emphasis on the superior spiritual dignity of the ordained priest in contrast to that of the layperson. Yet skeptics argue that the group, whose piety and theology are very traditional (celibacy is rarely a secular vocation), operates like a sectarian movement, or even a cult, and has set itself up, with the connivance of the Vatican, as a "church within the Church."

Let there be light: a look inside the hidden world of Opus Dei

Washington Monthly, Oct-Nov, 2005 by Paul Baumann

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