About Opus Dei - let's consider some popular beliefs about them:

[hedgehog]

Based on what I've read:

1. Members of the group are expected to obey their superiors absolutely.

2. Women are relegated to subservient roles because "that's what they like and are best suited for".

3. Access to outside information is strictly limited, including a list of banned books that would do the Inquisition proud.

4. Many have charged that Opus Dei recruits and controls young people using the same methods cults do.

5. Members are discouraged from talking to outsiders about what goes on at Opus Dei because outsiders don't understand.

6. There is a lot, I mean a lot of money sloshing around.

7. Opus Dei members are encouraged to engage in acts of physical atonement such as self flagellation, sleeping on boards, etc.

So, is there any way this doesn't end badly?

[FarLeftRage]

1. What a bunch of unChristian rules to follow...

First, look at who is in opus dei... How many followers do they have?

Next, what kind of influence do they have on the Church?

Lastly, what are their political beliefs? I'd have to say very conservative, exclusively before Vatican 2 viewpoints...

This probably will end badly... for them.

[rug]

2. I don't think any of them are true except for #6.

Maybe #7.

[demosincebirth]

3. Hard to beleive.

[Matilda]

4. Think about old-style pre-Vatican II very devout Catholics

and you've got it.

So there is a basis of truth in most of those things, except perhaps 5. I don't believe that's part of it, because
one thing they do believe in is adding to their numbers, and if they don't talk about it, they won't gain new
recruits.

So they do practise mortification of the flesh; have lots of babies and believe women should stay home and look
after them; take a very strict line on traditional Catholic thinking; they say Mass in Latin and follow the pre-
Vatican II guidelines for fasting and abstinence, especially during Lent. They have missionary and charitable
groups, but unlike modern Catholic thinking, their principal aim in conducting these charitable works is conversion,
not sustaining life.

They're hardline, right-wing, traditional Catholics. To me, their great failings are that they want to force their
views on all other Catholics, and have no tolerance for other faiths, or even for more modern Catholic thinking.
I can respect their love of Christ, but not their narrow minds and doctrinaire attitudes.

[hedgehog]

5. Various sources have different views:

From Opus Dei:

http://www.opusdei.us/


a group that thinks they're a cult:

http://www.odan.org/

A group that thinks they're the anti-Christ:

http://www.opusdeialert.com/


A Jesuit's view:

http://www.americamagazine.org/content/articles/martin-opusdei.cfm

and a collection:

http://www.rickross.com/groups/opus.html




I should add, that up recently, admirers and detractors were saying much the same things about the Legion of Christ and Fr. Marcial Maciel.

[Matilda]

6. I found Fr. Martin's article particularly illuminating.

I wasn't aware of their structure, with all their different grades of membership - they sound a bit like Scientology,
and that can't be good!

They are also active here on university campuses, but that's hardly surprising. They get people when they're at a
vulnerable stage in their lives - many living away from home for the first time in their lives and searching for a
sense of identity. Other churches and the political parties also do a lot of recruiting at universities, and it
might be a good idea if authorities kept a more watchful eye on some of these organisations.

I do feel that there's a danger of a real cult growing around Escriva, if we go by the definition of a cult as an
organisation that is centred upon one person as its ideal, and one can't help feeling that devotion to Escriva is
as strong as devotion to Jesus. This has been fuelled, I believe, by the Vatican's fast-tracking of Escriva's
sainthood, unheard of in modern times. I was most interested to read this by Fr. Martin:

"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.”

I think for John Paul II and Benedict, this rush to sainthood is connected to their desire to roll back Vatican II,
but have they ignored all the negatives associated with the movement and only seen the end result? How very
convenient for proponents of Escriva's canonisation that the post of Devil's Advocate has been abolished, because
the issues mentioned by Fr. Martin are the sort of things that would have been brought out in the investigations
into his life.