Opus
Dei in the United States
From February 25, 1995 On
A Guest Article by
James Martin, S.J.
To
translate this text into any
major language Click Here
INTRODUCTION
by The M+G+R Foundation
This article, which appeared in "AMERICA
- The Jesuit Review", was published before Cardinal Bergoglio,
S.J. became who most believe is the current Pope.
Because it is based on material written by Opus Dei and its critics, as
well as on interviews with current and former Opus Dei members and with
priests, religious, lay persons, campus ministers, scholars and
journalists who have encountered Opus Dei in the United States, we
believe that it gives an evenhanded review of the Opus Dei, in spite of
the fact that we consider said organization to be the launching pad for
the falsification of the Second Coming of Christ.
We believe that the author has done an excellent job and the article is
being reproduced below without any editing by our part, except for our highlighting in bold
in order to allow an streamlined reading.
INDEX OF SECTIONS
Opus Dei is the
most controversial group in the Catholic Church today. To its
members it is nothing less than The Work of God, the inspiration of
Blessed Josemaría Escrivá, who advanced the work of
Christ by promoting the sanctity of everyday life. To its critics it is
a powerful, even dangerous, cult-like organization that uses secrecy
and manipulation to advance its agenda. At the same time, many
Catholics admit knowing little about this influential group. Moreover, because of the
dichotomy of views on the group, and perhaps because of its
influence in Vatican circles, it is difficult to find
balanced reporting on Opus Dei.
This article is a
look at Opus Dei’s activities in the United States. It is based on
material written by Opus Dei and its critics, as well as on
interviews with current and former Opus Dei members and with priests,
religious, laypersons, campus ministers, scholars and journalists who
have encountered Opus Dei in the United States.
Any look at Opus Dei must begin with Msgr. Josemaría
Escrivá de Balaguer, the Spanish priest who founded the group
on Oct. 2, 1928. On that day, according to Opus Dei’s literature, while
on a retreat in Madrid, “suddenly,
while bells pealed in a nearby
church, it became clear: God made him see Opus Dei”. Monsignor
Escrivá, invariably referred to as The Founder by members,
envisioned Opus Dei as a way of encouraging lay people to aspire to
sanctity without changing their state of life or occupation. Today Opus
Dei sees itself as very much in line with the Second Vatican Council
and its renewed emphasis on the laity.
Some of the group’s spirituality can be gleaned from Escrivá’s
numerous writings, most notably his 1939 book, "The
Way". The book is a collection of 999 maxims, ranging from
traditional Christian pieties (“The
prayer of a Christian is never a
monologue”) to sayings that could easily have come out of "Poor Richard’s Almanack" (“Don’t
put off your work until tomorrow”).
His group grew rapidly, spreading from Spain to other European
countries, and in
1950 received recognition by the Holy See as the first “secular
institute”. Over the next two decades The Work, as members call
it, moved into Latin America and the United States.
In 1982 Pope John
Paul II granted Opus Dei the status of “personal prelature”, a
canonical term meaning that jurisdiction covers the persons in Opus Dei
rather than a particular region. In other words, it operates
juridically much as religious orders do, without regard for
geographical boundaries. This unique recognition —it is the only
personal prelature in the church— demonstrated the high regard in which
it is held by John Paul II as well as Opus Dei’s standing in Vatican
circles. But it also prompted critics to ask why a professedly lay
organization would need such a status. Today Opus Dei counts 77,000
members (including 1,500 priests and 15 bishops) in over 80 countries.
Further evidence of Vatican favor —and added legitimacy— came in 1992
when Escrivá
was beatified in a ceremony attended by 300,000 supporters in St.
Peter’s Square. But coming only a few years after
Escrivá’s death in 1975 and leapfrogging over figures like Pope
John XXIII, the beatification was, to say the least, controversial. “Is
Sainthood Coming Too Quickly for Founder of Influential Catholic
Group?” read a January 1992 New York Times headline, echoing
other
critical articles appearing around the same time. An article in The
London Spectator, for example, included allegations by former close
associates about Escrivá’s less than saintly behavior. “He had a
filthy temper”, said one, “and
pro-Nazi tendencies, but they never
mention that.”
Kenneth Woodward, religion editor of Newsweek and author of the book
Making Saints, also pointed out irregularities in
Escrivá’s beatification in a 1992 article. One of Mr.
Woodward’s more serious charges was that Opus Dei prevented critics of
Escrivá from testifying at the church tribunals deliberating on
his life. In a recent intervˆew, Mr. Woodward said: “It seemed as if
the whole thing was rigged. They were given priority, and the whole
thing was rushed through.”
Countering these
claims, Opus Dei’s director of communications in the United
States, Mr. William Schmitt, defended the speed of the beatification by
pointing to streamlined Vatican procedures and the exemplary life of
Monsignor Escrivá. “Just
look at the
facts”, he said.
But even with Escrivá’s beatification, controversy dogs the
group. In 1992 Michael
Walsh’s book, Opus Dei: "An Investigation into the Secret Society
Struggling for Power Within the Roman Catholic Church",
engendered such a negative reaction from Opus Dei that they published
their own book, "Opus Dei: An Open
Book", to rebut Walsh’s claims.
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Opus Dei in the United
States
There are over
3,000 Opus Dei members in the United States, with 64 centers, or
residences for members, in 17 cities: Boston; Providence, R.I.;
New York; South Orange, N.J.; Princeton, N.J.; Pittsburgh; Washington;
Delray Beach, Fla.; South Bend, Ind.; Chicago; Milwaukee; Urbana, Ill.;
St. Louis; Houston; Dallas; Los Angeles and San Francisco. This is up
from eight cities in 1975. Many of the centers are located near large
college campuses, where Opus Dei attracts new members. (For example,
the Leighton Studies Center for men and the Petawa Center for women are
located in Milwaukee near Marquette University.) Each center typically
houses 10 to 15 members, with separate centers for women and men. Opus
Dei also sponsors other programs, such as retreat houses, programs for
married Catholics and outreach programs to the poor, like its education
program for children in the South Bronx. Other activities are run in
Syracuse, Philadelphia, Miami, San Antonio, Minneapolis/St. Paul,
Denver and Phoenix.
Opus Dei operates
five high schools in the United States: The Heights (for boys)
and Oak Crest (girls) in Washington, D.C., the Montrose School (girls)
in Boston, and Northridge Prep (boys) and The Willows (girls) in
Chicago. Their retreat houses include Arnold Hall in Pembroke, Mass.,
the Fetherock Conference Center near Houston and Trumbull Manor near
San Francisco.
In light of their growing presence in this country, I contacted each of the
seven U.S. cardinals and one archbishop requesting comments on Opus Dei
for this article. I had hoped in this way to gauge the opinions of the
U.S. Catholic leadership. None would comment
—either positively or negatively. The majority said they had either no
substantial knowledge or no contact with them, though Opus Dei is
active in nearly every large archdiocese in the country.
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It is difficult to read anything about Opus Dei without running across
accounts of its
alleged secrecy. (“Pope
Beatifies Founder of Secretive,
Conservative Group” ran a New York Times headline in 1992.)
Indeed,
while a few members of Opus Dei are well known, like the Vatican press
officer Joaquín Navarro-Valls, M.D., most are not. Critics also
point out that most of Opus Dei’s organizations are not clearly
identified as being affiliated with Opus Dei.
Opus Dei denies
all this. “It’s not secret”, says communications director Bill
Schmitt, “it’s private. Big
difference.” Mr. Schmitt describes the
vocation to Opus Dei as a private matter, a personal relationship with
God. The members are known by their friends, their families, their
neighbors, their colleagues at work. Even Escrivá in a 1967
interview said, “The members detest
secrecy.”
But most critics are not concerned about whether members publicly
announce their affiliation with Opus Dei. After all, many members of
other lay organizations work without broadcasting their affiliations. When critics speak of
“secrecy”, they refer instead to frustration in their efforts to
get answers about
the basic corporate activities and practices of Opus Dei.
Two priests I interviewed (who asked to remain anonymous) came into
contact with Opus Dei while studying at Princeton in the mid-1980’s. In
the course of their work with campus ministry, a divisive conflict
arose between an Opus Dei priest and other members of the team. “Opus
Dei was rather defensive about being secretive”, said one. “They’d say,
‘No, we tell it like it is’. And, yes, they’d answer your questions,
but it was like peeling away an onion. But if you didn’t ask the
right question to peel away the next layer you simply weren’t told. You
just never had the full picture. And I suppose it wouldn’t have
been so annoying if they hadn’t been saying all the time how open they
were.”
I encountered perhaps one example of this difficulty in the course of
my research. Early on, I asked Bill Schmitt for a copy of Opus Dei’s
constitutions. I thought that by reading them I could better understand
Opus Dei and lay to rest some misconceptions. He gave me a copy of
the 1982 statutes. But they were in Latin, and a technical
“church” Latin at that. Could
I have a copy of the English translation?
There was none, he said. Why not? First he said that Opus Dei had not
had sufficient time to translate them. I replied that this seemed odd,
given that the statutes had been around for 12 years and that The Way
had already been translated into 38 languages.
When I pressed him, he provided a second explanation, and I was
reminded of the comment about peeling an onion. “It’s a church
document”, he said. “We don’t
own them. The Holy See wants them in
Latin.” Perhaps, he added, the Vatican wants to prevent other
groups
from applying for the status of personal prelature. But how could
English-speaking members study their own statutes? The members
study them in depth, he explained. “All
of it should be clear to them
in their formation.”
Opus Dei member James Gabriel seconded this, explaining that the
statutes were also available in Spanish. “I can look things up
in a Spanish dictionary if I want to. But you receive so much
formation that I don’t have any questions that I would want to go over.”
Nevertheless, it still seemed odd, so I asked Mr. Schmitt again. I received the same
answer: “The document belongs to the Holy See and the Holy See does not
want it translated. I’m sure
there’s a reason.”
I asked three experts in canon law what
that reason might be. One
canon lawyer said, “Property
of the Holy See? I’ve never heard of such
a thing.” Another, John Martin, S.J., professor of canon law at
Regis
College in Toronto, noted that religious orders and lay associations as
a matter of course publish their statutes in local languages, and as
far as he knew, “there is no general
ecclesiastic prohibition against
the translation of documents of religious orders.” Or of
personal
prelatures, for that matter. Richard Hill, S.J., of the Jesuit School
of Theology in Berkeley, Calif., agreed, saying “there is no canonical
reason” why Opus Dei should not be allowed to translate their
own
statutes. So it
appears to be Opus Dei, not the Holy See, that is
keeping the statutes from being translated.
Ann Schweninger is a 24-year-old former Opus Dei member now living in
Columbus, Ohio, where she works with the Diocese of Columbus. She was
not surprised when I told her of my difficulty in making sense of all
this. “Opus Dei plays by its own
rules”, she said. “If they
don’t want
to have something out in the open, they won’t make it accessible.”
Referring to her
own
time in Opus Dei, she said: “The statutes were never shown to me nor
were they available. They are
mentioned but not discussed.”
According to Ms. Schweninger, the only official
document available is the catechism of Opus Dei, which even
members can read only with the permission of the house director. “It’s
kept under lock and key.” She also mentioned that during classes
on the
catechism, she
was encouraged to take notes “in code” in case non-members should read
them.
Opus Dei members frequently mention that they feel unfairly maligned. I
asked Bill Schmitt if this might be partially a result of
misunderstanding about the privacy they insist on. “Well, we’re in the
phone book. I don’t understand your question.” I suggested, for
example, more publicly identifying a school as a work of Opus Dei.
“That’s not our charism. We have an institutional barrier to that.
There’s no dissimulation going on.
We’re not trying to hide.” But how,
I asked, is such public identification against Opus Dei’s basic charism
of spirituality of the laity? “Other
people do that. We don’t. We don’t
advertise. It’s not our way”, he said. “Our way is a personal way of
friendship. People think we’re secret and we’re not. We’re trying to
make ourselves as open as we can.”
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To encounter Opus Dei is to encounter dedicated, energetic Catholics
engaged in a variety of occupations. It is also to encounter a
sometimes bewildering array of priests, numeraries, supernumeraries,
cooperators, associates, directors and administrators. Opus Dei
describes the various
types of membership as different levels of availability for their
mission. Critics maintain that Opus Dei, with its emphasis on
hierarchy as well as celibacy and obedience, merely replicates religious
life while professing lay spirituality. “And they’re really
priest-ridden.” claims Newsweek’s Kenneth Woodward.
A few basic terms: Numeraries
are single members who pledge a “commitment” of celibacy and normally
live in “centers.” Numeraries turn over their income and receive
a stipend for personal expenses. Numeraries (accounting for roughly 20
percent of the membership) follow the “plan
of life”, a daily order
that includes Mass, devotional reading, private prayer and, depending
on the person, physical mortification. Numeraries also attend summer
classes on Opus Dei. Every year an oral
commitment to Opus Dei is made, and after five years the “fidelity” is
made, a lifetime commitment. There are separate
centers for men and women, each with a director. Male numeraries
are encouraged to consider ordination to the priesthood. After 10 years
of training, those who feel called are sent to Opus Dei’s seminary in
Rome, the Roman College of the Holy Cross.
Most members are supernumeraries,
married persons who contribute financially and sometimes serve in
corporate works like schools. Associates are single
people who are “less available”, remaining at home because of
other commitments, such as responsibilities toward aging parents.
strictly speaking, are not members because “they do not yet have the
divine vocation.” They Cooperators, cooperate
through work, financial help and prayers. Opus Dei also includes
the Priestly
Society of the Holy Cross, an association of diocesan priests
who receive the spiritual help that Opus Dei provides. They remain
incardinated in their own dioceses. Numeraries or associates who are
ordained priests also become members of this society. The head of Opus Dei,
or “prelate”, is currently Bishop Javier Echevarría, who
works out of its headquarters in Rome.
Critics contend that numerary life is
anything but lay, particularly in what they see as its replication of
religious life, with emphasis on “commitments” (Opus Dei does
not use the term “vows”),
life in common, a daily order and, at least
for some of the men, eventual ordination. Many of those in authority
are clerics —the director of their national headquarters in New
Rochelle, N.Y., is a monsignor; their prelate was recently ordained a
bishop. “If this is a lay
organization, I’d hate to see a clerical
one”, said one of the priests from Princeton.
Another common criticism is that men and women
numeraries are separated not only in housing but even in work.
Numerary Jim Gabriel, who lives in Opus Dei’s Riverside Study Center in
Manhattan explained: “There is
pretty much no interaction. They do
things that they have to do and we do what we have to do.”
According to two former numeraries, women numeraries are
required to clean the men’s centers and cook for them. When the
women arrive to clean, they explained, the men vacate so as
not to come in contact with the women. I asked Bill Schmitt if
women had a problem with this. “No.
Not at all.” It is a paid work of
the “family” of Opus Dei and
is seen as an apostolate. The women more
often than not hire others to do the cooking and cleaning. “They like
doing it. It’s not forced on them. It’s one thing that’s open to them
if they want to do it. They don’t have to do it.”
“That’s totally wrong”, said
Ann Schweninger when she heard that last
statement. “I had no choice. When in
Opus Dei you’re asked, you’re
being told.” According to Ms. Schweninger, it is “bad spirit” to
refuse. Women are
told that it is important to have a love for things of the home and
domestic duties. “And since
that’s part of the spirit of Opus
Dei, to refuse to do that when you’re asked is bad spirit. So nobody
refuses.”
For numeraries
living in the centers, mail —incoming and outgoing— is read by the
director. But for most numeraries this is not a problem. “If
you’re in an organization and part of the group, where you go to the
priest in confession and tell him everything that’s on your mind, what
could you possibly receive in a letter that would matter?” said
one.
But he also admitted that he wasn’t sure if his friends knew their mail
was being read. “But they never say
anything that couldn’t be read by
other people.”
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But it is Opus Dei’s way of attracting new members that comes under the
most vigorous attack by its critics. Opus Dei contends that their
distinct brand of spirituality fills a need in society and that, as a
result, Americans are naturally attracted to it. Others disagree,
speaking of overly
aggressive recruiting tactics. “I
call them the Catholic
Mormons”, says Kenneth Woodward.
One man who attended Columbia University in the early 1980’s, who asked
not to be named, described the process of being
recruited by Opus Dei. “They had someone become my friend”, he
said bluntly. After Mass one day he was approached by another student,
with whom he soon became good friends. Eventually he was invited to the
Riverside Study Center near Columbia’s campus. He was not certain
exactly what it was. “I thought it
was a group of students that were a
think tank or something.” After dinner a priest gave a short
talk. He was
later invited to
join a “circle”, which he described as a sort of an informal
prayer group. Soon afterwards Opus Dei suggested that he take one of
the priests at the center as his spiritual director.
After becoming
more involved —at this point meeting with the group frequently—
he decided to investigate on his own. He spoke with a few priests and
professors at Columbia and was surprised at how little he really knew:
“I didn’t know anything about the
secrecy, the numeraries,
supernumeraries, any of that. And I didn’t know there were people
taking vows of celibacy. I felt kind of upset that I didn’t know much
about them. I
didn’t think they were honest or straightforward about who they were.
I felt very indignant.”
At the next circle meeting he raised some questions
about issues that troubled him —for example, women and minority
presence in Opus Dei. “They really
didn’t have any answers and asked me
not to return.” And more disturbing for him: “I never heard from my
friend again. I
was totally cut off.”
According to two former numeraries, if this man had stayed in the
circle Opus Dei would have confronted him with a decision to join. Tammy DiNicola
talked about her experience. “They staged a vocation
crisis for me”, she said. “At
the time, I didn’t realize they
had staged it. But it’s
standard practice. The person that’s working on you is
consulting with the director, and the two of them decide when is the
best time to propose the question of vocation to the recruit.”
Why is it a crisis? “Well, they make it a
crisis for you!” said Ann Schweninger. “And it’s totally orchestrated.
They tell you it’s a decision you
have to make now, that God is
knocking on the door, and that you have to have the strength and
fortitude to say yes.” Tammy DiNicola was told that it was her
only
chance for a vocation. “Basically
it’s a one-shot deal —if you don’t
take it, you’re not going to have God’s grace for the remainder of your
life.”
I asked if they were surprised at hearing that the man at Columbia had
been cut off by his friend. “No”,
said Tammy recalling her own
recruiting days. “They
use friendships to get people to join. They call it an
apostolate of friendship and confidence, but it’s certainly not
confidence —because everything that you
talk about with your recruit is discussed with your director.”
Even personal matters? “Especially personal
matters, because those are
the things that you can use so that a
person would think about joining Opus Dei.” She was also advised to recruit only
“select” people —intelligent and physically attractive— since
they would be more likely to attract others once they were members.
Opus Dei looks at
it differently, stressing the fact that any relationships are entered
into freely. “There is no
recruitment to Opus Dei”, said Bill
Schmitt. It is not in Opus Dei’s interest, he explained, to have anyone
as a member who does not freely understand and embrace their vocation.
Jim Gabriel agreed. “The word
recruiting sounds so bad”, he said. “Like
we peg people and then try to get people to join The Work.” He
spoke of
helping people to come to know Opus Dei through friendship, and had had
no experience of coercion.
Still, even Escrivá’s
writings emphasize at least the idea of recruiting. In the
internal magazine, Cronica, he wrote in 1971: “This holy coercion is
necessary, compelle intrare the Lord tells us.” And, “You must kill
yourselves for proselytism.”
Ann Schweninger finds this closer to her experience: “Whenever you’re in
Opus Dei, you’re recruiting.”
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Opus Dei is an increasingly strong presence on U.S. college campuses.
Traditionally, their
efforts to attract new members has led them to colleges and
universities. And it has sometimes led them into conflict with
other groups.
Donald R. McCrabb is executive director of the Catholic Campus Ministry
Association (C.C.M.A.), an organization of 1,000 of the 1,800 Catholic
chaplains in the United States. What was he hearing about Opus Dei from
his members? “We are aware that Opus
Dei is present at a number of
campuses across the country. I’m also aware that some campus ministers
find their activities on campus to be counterproductive.” One of
his
concerns was Opus Dei’s emphasis on recruiting,
supported by an apparently large base of funding. “They are not
taking on the broader responsibility that a campus minister has.”
He
had other concerns as well. “I have
heard through campus ministers that
there’s a spiritual
director that’s assigned to the candidate who basically has to approve
every action taken by that person, including reading mail, what
classes they take or don’t take, what they read or don’t read.”
The former Columbia student echoed this: “They recommended I not
read some books, particularly
the Marxist stuff, and instead use
their boiled-down versions. I thought this was odd —I was required to
do
it for class!”
Susan Mountin, associate director of Marquette University’s campus
ministry, saw two sides of the issue. “My
own sense is that there
probably is a need for many people to experience some sort of devotion
in their lives. So the quest for spirituality is a very important thing
—that part I’m fine with. What I worry about is the cult-like behavior,
isolation from friends —and
students talk about it. One student,
in fact just this week, described being invited to a dinner and felt
that she was being badgered by the individual to accept some sort of
commitment to Opus Dei that she wasn’t willing to accept.”
The director of
campus ministry at Stanford University from 1984 through 1992,
Russell J. Roide, S.J., initially approached Opus Dei with an open
mind. However, students began coming to him complaining about Opus
Dei’s recruiting. “They just didn’t
let the students alone. Students would come to
me and say, ‘Please get them off our backs.’” He felt his only
recourse was to pass out information to these students about Opus Dei,
including critical articles. This prompted Opus Dei numeraries to visit
Father Roide to tell him that he was “interfering
with their agenda.”
Eventually, because of continued student complaints about their
recruiting, “I
decided not to let them anywhere near the campus.” He now describes
them as “subtle and deceptive.”
The two priests mentioned earlier, who studied at Princeton University
and worked with campus ministry, described Opus Dei’s involvement there
in the 1980’s. According to both men, an Opus Dei priest, the
Rev. C. John McCloskey, presented himself to the campus ministry group,
which welcomed his offer to assist with chaplaincy duties. Soon after
beginning his work, Father McCloskey presented to the other chaplains a
list of the number of communions he had distributed and the number of
confessions he had heard —as an objective way of measuring whether a
priest was doing his job. Said one of the ex-chaplains, “He came to the
rest of us and said, ‘I don’t think the chaplaincy program is doing
this work. You should be doing what I’m doing’.”
Later, Father
McCloskey began interviewing all entering Catholic freshmen, over the
objections of some of the staff. It was at this time that the
problems began. According to both sources, Father McCloskey asked
questions about students’ sexual practices, among other things, and
about their parents’ religious activities. In addition: “Some of the students
claimed he coerced them into having the sacrament of reconciliation,
or confession, as he called it. He
would say, ‘You really need to go to
confession. The chapel’s right around the corner and I’m available
now.’ Now I can’t cite you a line in canon law, but one is never
coerced into a sacrament. I found it outrageous, and a lot of other
people did, too.”
C.C.M.A.’s Mr. McCrabb added, “It is
my understanding that one of the most
controversial aspects is their insistence that their members go to
confession only to Opus Dei priests. I think that campus
ministers have seen it as a way of controlling, manipulating or
coercing a student. That’s the worst interpretation. The best is that
it is discounting the ministry performed by other priests.”
After students were recruited, said one former chaplain, they would
disappear from the regular campus chaplaincy functions at Princeton,
“because it was seen as not being
truly Catholic.” Father McCloskey also
wrote a letter instructing students to avoid certain professors:
“If [a course] is given by an
anti-Christian its impact is
counter-productive.” This led some students
to circulate a petition claiming that Father McCloskey’s work was
detrimental to the welfare of the university.
Father McCloskey
denied coercing students into the sacrament of reconciliation
but added, “I might have told people
they need to go to confession
—that’s the duty of the priest at times.” He denied asking about
sexual
activities. Nor, he said, had he ever recruited for Opus Dei. “I rarely
if ever talked about Opus Dei with students.” As for presenting
the
other chaplains with the list of objective measures, he termed it a
“lie”. He also noted that his
list of courses were only
“recommendations” to Catholic
students.
In 1990 a new chaplain took over and dismissed Father McCloskey. Opus Dei has since
opened a center in Princeton called Mercer House, three blocks from the
campus ministry office.
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A visit to the
Riverside Study Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side provided
an opportunity to meet a few numeraries. The center houses 17 men, some
studying at nearby Columbia University and other schools, some working
in Manhattan. Two Opus Dei priests also reside there. It is a very
large but not lavish house, with an ornate chapel, comfortable living
areas and medium-sized bedrooms. Dinner was served family style, with
much conversation.
After dinner I met with the center’s director and three numeraries,
along with communications director Bill Schmitt. The men seemed
genuinely content with life at the center. Their descriptions of
how they were drawn to Opus Dei sounded like any vocation story, and none mentioned any
coercion. One, in fact, said that any coercion would have turned
him off to Opus Dei and made him less likely to join.
After a while, I brought up some of the criticisms I had heard.
One young man studying at Cooper Union in Manhattan laughed at the
accusation that Opus Dei isolates one. Going to classes all the time,
he said, he regularly socializes with his classmates. “How could I be
isolated?”
What about their recruiting?
“Recruitment is the farthest thing
from reality”, said one. “People
are
looking for something. It’s very easy to misunderstand, of course.
People who are critics just won’t make the effort.”
Is there a lack
of freedom in the life of a numerary? “They have to form us. You
can’t become a saint alone.” As far as work goes, “You’re free to go in
and say, I’d like to work here.” Why the need for priests in a
lay
organization? “You need priests for
practical matters, with women and
men working separately, you need someone to coordinate that. That’s
just the way it is.”
I asked one man about
going to confession to non-Opus Dei priests. “I must admit it
would seem strange. The spirituality of The Work is pretty specific. If
a priest doesn’t know what you’re going through in the context of your
vocation… it could make it real difficult. And it could lead to
misunderstanding, plus, they can give you totally different advice. And
it’s really frustrating. I think it would be strange, not bad. No one’s
going to say don’t go.”
They all felt that
Opus Dei is unfairly maligned. Part of the reason, they said,
has to do with their
“unique” charism —the spirituality of everyday life. Though lay
spirituality has long been a Catholic tradition (St. Francis de Sales
wrote his Introduction to the Devout Life [1608] with laypersons in
mind), members say there
are still many who do not understand their charism. “Opus Dei
represents a new concept in the church”, said Bill Schmitt, “and this
has given rise to misunderstanding, even, in some instances…slanders.”
But he added, “A lot of it comes
from bad will.”
Are there problems with Opus Dei? “We’re
not holy enough”, said one
member. And what would they change if they could? “The spirit has been
given to us and there’s nothing for us to change”, said another.
“We are good sons and a faithful son
is not an innovator. The
essentials will not change.”
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Opus Dei Awareness
Network
Dianne DiNicola,
Tammy DiNicola’s mother, knows some things about Opus Dei that
she would like to change. In 1991 she started the
Opus Dei Awareness Network, a self-described support group concerned with outreach
to families with children in Opus Dei.
A few years ago Mrs. DiNicola noticed that Tammy, then an undergraduate
at Boston College, “seemed
to be going through a personality change.” According to Mrs.
DiNicola, she became “cold and
secretive”, not wanting to spend time
with the family —which had not been the case before. “I just had the
feeling something was wrong.”
When Tammy wrote
a letter saying that she would no longer return home, Mrs.
DiNicola grew more worried. She eventually found out that Tammy had joined Opus
Dei as a numerary, living in one of their centers in Boston.
“Our daughter”, she recalls, “became totally estranged from us. I can’t
tell you the turmoil that our family went through. We tried to keep in
touch with her, but it was like she was a completely different person.”
Initially trying to accept her daughter’s decision, she met with Opus
Dei officials and diocesan officials to obtain more information. “I was
just trying to feel good about Opus Dei. I love my religion. I mean,
you’re not talking about the Moonies. This is something within the
Catholic Church.” But the situation deteriorated, and Mrs. DiNicola felt that
the church either was not in a position to help or did not want to do
so.
Finally, Mr. and Mrs. DiNicola enlisted the help of an “exit counsellor”
and asked Tammy to come home for her graduation in 1990. They later
discovered that this would have been the last time she would have come
home, since she had already been told to sever contacts with her
family. According to both Mrs. DiNicola and Tammy, the counselling enabled
Tammy to think about Opus Dei critically for the first time.
After the 24-hour
counselling session Tammy decided to leave. Mrs. DiNicola
described the scene: “My husband is
a very, very good man, and
throughout all the turmoil, I would cry and my other daughter would
cry. We were losing our daughter —it was like she had died. For 24
hours we talked to her, without a break. When we did break early in the
morning, my husband was over in the corner of our bedroom weeping
softly. There was only one other time I saw him weep —that was when his
father died.”
“It was pretty tumultuous”, recalled Tammy,
now 26. She said that since
Opus Dei “shut
down” all of her emotions, she experienced a flood of emotions
after she left. Now
Mrs. DiNicola runs the Opus Dei Awareness Network (ODAN), which
she says enables her to help to spare others the pain that her family
went through.
Ann Schweninger
was a numerary
living at the same center with Tammy and remembered the day of
Tammy’s departure. “The whole house
was so upset, with everyone crying.
The directors were hysterical, too. They told us that we had to pray
hard for Tammy since this was her soul at stake and that we would
really have to mortify ourselves.” Ann eventually decided to
leave on
her own, over the opposition of the center’s director, who said that
her doubts would blow over.
Ann’s own departure was equally painful. After she left, Opus Dei
persisted in trying to re-establish contact, calling her at work,
sending plaintive letters, notes and Christmas packages. At one point,
Opus Dei members —thinking that Ann was staying at a friend’s house—
began driving by the house looking for Ann. “It was ridiculous”, said
Ann. Eventually, she
had a lawyer write to Opus Dei threatening a court order to cease
contact with her.
“The suffering I
went through when I left”, says Ann, “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
If ODAN is alarmed by Opus Dei, Opus Dei is alarmed by
ODAN. “Let me stress that no
one is ever counselled not to speak
to their parents.” said Bill Schmitt. “Please keep in mind that some
parents do not accept the faith or have had ‘other’ plans for their son
or daughter. I do not need to point out to you that the methods these
people use are highly objectionable. But we have not pressed this.”
Mrs. DiNicola responded that she would have been powerless had her
daughter decided to stay in Opus Dei: “We
certainly weren’t going to
hold her physically.”
At Riverside one numerary said his blood boils when he hears about
ODAN, “We are
approved by the Holy See! We are not cult-like. Those people
[who were counselled] were just violated. We do pray for them, of
course. But there is a lot of misunderstanding, and parents become
irrational.”
“It was very difficult for me”,
recalled Mrs. DiNicola. “I mean,
here I
am trying to justify all of this. How could this happen
in the Catholic Church? Here’s
this organization with the
approval of the Pope, Escrivá beatified, and there’s such
destruction that’s happening to families because of this organization.
So how to come to peace with that is
so difficult.”
Newsweek’s Kenneth
Woodward agrees, “The bishops have been
pastorally irresponsible in
not paying more attention to the
claims of parents who feel their children have been seduced into
joining something that is not good for their spiritual health…. That’s
not to say everybody, but there’s enough of this sort of thing that it
really bears investigation. And just as they owe an obligation in the
very difficult case of someone who claims to have been molested by a
priest —protecting the priest and the victim as equal members of the
church— I
think
they have to pay pastoral attention to these people regardless
of what kind of canonical status the organization has.”
Outside the United
States, some bishops have already reacted. In December 1981,
after a highly critical feature about Opus Dei appeared in The London
Times, Cardinal
Basil Hume, O.S.B., issued public guidelines for Opus Dei in his
diocese. He instructed Opus Dei not to recruit anyone under 18,
to ensure that parents were informed, not to exert pressure on people
to join, to respect the freedom of members to leave and to allow
members to freely choose spiritual directors. He also required Opus
Dei’s activities to carry a “clear
indication of their sponsorship and
management.”
Back
to INDEX
Whether Opus Dei will continue to grow in the United States is
difficult to predict. Its critics, including ODAN, are gaining a voice.
But Opus Dei’s
widely acknowledged Vatican influence seems to provide a degree of
protection, and its attraction for some, especially among
college students, is a reminder of the desire for spirituality among
Americans.
David J. O’Brien
is Loyola Professor of Roman Catholic Studies at Holy Cross and author
of the recent book "From the Heart
of the American Church: Catholic Higher Education and American Culture".
He is of two minds about Opus Dei in the United States. While he admires their
approach—drawing idealistic people together in a concerted
manner —he thinks their appeal might be self-limiting. “They are so
negative toward American culture that they can’t understand
how deeply our notions of freedom and individualism can go.”
Members are completely devoted to The Work. “I think it’s
wonderful”, says numerary Jim Gabriel. “Belonging to Opus Dei is living the Catholic
faith to its fullest”, said one supernumerary.
“Opus Dei has been approved and
repeatedly encouraged to expand its
apostolic outreach”, said communications director
Bill Schmitt, “precisely because
it has practices
that
have proven to be sound.”
But their critics are equally adamant. “I think they’re very
surreptitious, very ill”, said the man from Columbia University.
“They don’t really believe in the
world”, said Kenneth Woodward.
“They deceive
people. They’re not straightforward”, said former numerary Ann
Schweninger at the end of our long interview. “I can attest to that.”
Back
to INDEX
— End of The Article —
Note:
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avoid any distraction from the author's even handed presentation, we
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Original
Source - by James Martin, S.J.
in "AMERICA- The Jesuit Review", Feb. 25, 1995
[NOTE: As of
May 15, 2021, the original link redirects to a new
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Published at this Site on
September 14th,
2018 - The Triumph of the Cross
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