INTRODUCTION

Mr. Lee Penn, of False Dawn (1) fame, has sent the following communication to a number of professional anti-Cult Internet Sites. We thought its contents would be of assistance to our readership, thus, with his permission, we are reproducing the entire text of his communication below.


Lee Penn's Communication

I am sending you this e-mail to offer you new information about Opus Dei, a movement that I believe to be a spiritually hazardous cult within the Catholic Church.

By way of introduction: I am a California-based journalist, and have been writing about religious and cultural affairs from an orthodox Catholic perspective since 1998. My work has appeared in New Oxford Review (Catholic), the Journal of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project (an Evangelical anti-cult ministry), The Christian Challenge (Anglican), and Touchstone (ecumenical, traditionalist).

Here are some stories that you may quote and link:

I did a 2- part series on Opus Dei for the Journal of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP) in the fall of 2005 and the spring of 2006.

1.  The first part (fall 2005) of the SCP series is on the Net, in its entirety, at this link:

http://www.scp-inc.org/publications/journals/J2902/index.php

The article covers:


The article has abundant footnotes, so that anyone may follow through and check the sources.

2.  The second part of the SCP story (spring 2006) is not on the Net; it exists only as a hard copy story published in the magazine.

Here is a link to an excerpt from that article, pertaining to Opus Dei’s role in the scandal of sex abuse by Catholic clergy:

http://www.mgr.org/ODSexAbuseResponse.html

Opus Dei claims to be "clean" with regard to the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.  But it is not.  One of its own bishops was an abuser, and the movement is a proponent of the secrecy-and-obedience mind set that keeps the abusers in power.

The second article covers:


The SCP issue with this entire article may be ordered by calling the SCP office at 510-540-0300 (9am-5pm, Pacific time) or by visiting their web site, http://www.scp-inc.org/

3.  Cardinal Bernard Law, formerly the Archbishop of Boston, never faced any Church punishment for his role in the pederasty scandal coverup.  Instead, he got a cushy retirement post in Rome, as Archpriest of one of the Church's most prestigious basilicas - and he still is a member of Church departments that are involved in selecting bishops and setting Vatican policy.

It turns out that there is an explanation for Cardinal Law's rise, and for his protection from punishment: he has been friendly to Opus Dei since the 1950s.  See this article:

http://www.mgr.org/Law.html

4.  To read more about my background as a journalist, go to this page, a bio sketch on the web site for my book, False Dawn:

http://www.leepenn.info/FalseDawnauthor.html

5.  The book, False Dawn: The United Religions Initiative, Globalism, and the Quest for a One-World Religion, was published in 2005 by Sophia Perennis.  It criticizes the interfaith movement, the New Age movement, and totalitarian forms of globalism.  As part of its critique of the New Age movement and other anti-Christian movements, False Dawn debunks Wicca, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Theosophy, and the best-selling writings of Neale Donald Walsch (author of the Conversations With God books).

Excerpts from the book are here:

http://www.leepenn.info/FalseDawn.html

6.  The final chapter of False Dawn, which warns against extreme-right utopianism (including the ideology of Opus Dei) is on-line here:

http://www.mgr.org/LP-FalseDawn-CH25.html

7.  False Dawn is available in several ways:

Directly from the publisher:
http://www.sophiaperennis.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SP&Product_Code=1-59731-000-X

Via Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159731000X/ref=pd_rvi_gw_3/104-2178582-2835114?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155
(or go to Amazon.com, and search for the author “Lee Penn” and the title “False Dawn”)

Or from SCP, by calling them at 510-540-0300 or visiting
http://www.scp-inc.org/

8.  Other critiques of Opus Dei may be found at:

Opus Dei Awareness Network, which assists movement survivors and their families:
http://www.odan.org/

and

The MGR Foundation, a Catholic site which opposes cultism, has an in-depth collection of articles about the movement here:
http://www.mgr.org/OpusIndex.html



NOTES              

(1) False Dawn



Published on January 26, 2007

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