Lee
Penn Evaluates Opus Dei
Originally published on January 26, 2007
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 errors in the way that The Da Vinci Code portrayed Opus Dei
- The history of Opus Dei and its founder, Josemaria Escriva
- The rising power of Opus Dei in the Catholic Church
- The political influence of Opus Dei – including the Republican
establishment in Washington
- The cultic practices of Opus Dei: underhanded recruitment, control of
members, difficulties faced by those who leave the movement, secret
documents, censorship, and (for the inner circle) flagellation
- The teachings of Escriva – and their opposition to the Christian
Gospel
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 pride, wrath, and love of luxury
by Opus Dei’s founder, who was declared a saint in 2002
- The alignment of Opus Dei with fascism and the extreme right, from
the Franco era onward
- The role of Opus Dei in the Catholic clergy abuse scandal (as
excerpted in the link above)
- The case of Robert Hanssen, a devout Opus Dei member – and a Soviet
spy who did severe damage to the US
- Opus Dei members’ role in financial scandals, arms deals, and
political dirty tricks
- The broader context: the rise of other cultic “new eccelesial
movements” within the Roman Catholic Church
- The Opus Dei vision of the future, for the US and for the Catholic
Church
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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