Opus dei tools

Other Opus Dei members defended the Carlist candidate. Under the democracy, a relatively small number of Opus Dei members hold leadership positions in national and regional conservative parties and in banks. Nowadays, members no longer act in a concerted fashion as in Franco's time, but pursue the normal goals of democratic capitalism and extract some benefit for their own objectives.

Since Spain lacks an extreme right wing party, it is not possible to measure the percentage of members with extremist leanings, but the sympathy of many Opus Dei officers and some civilians for the February 21, coup d'etat attempt was apparent.

Also the founder was beatified in a process whose flaws provoked sharp criticism even within the Curia. However, the most notable feature of the new stage is the transformation of Opus Dei into an organization primarily devoted to private education. It has thus assumed the care for sectors of the middle class that the Jesuits were abandoning. The energies set free by the abandonment of the politico-mercantile project were harnessed in a race to create primary and secondary schools and a few universities -- some directly under the jurisdiction of the "Work", while others belong to corporate intermediaries.

In , no Spanish city or Latin American capital lacks one Opus Dei school for boys and another for girls; coeducation is not allowed. Some cities have three or more. Although Opus Dei never discloses the numbers of its members by category and function, my guess is that the majority of the numeraries today are employed in education, ecclesiastical jobs and the internal bureaucracy. Opus has come to resemble teaching congregations, such as the Sallesians or Marists, who appeared in France in response to the secularization and anticlericalism of the Revolution.

The brothers were laymen with private religious vows; they acted and dressed like laymen, but gradually their practices and even their attire become uniform, a process observable among unmarried men and especially unmarried women of the Work. Little by little, Opus Dei has become clerical, and nowadays, the majority of its regional and national hierarchy are priests.

A kind of social endogamy and fortress mentality is experienced as protection by those inside, ghetto by those outside. Many of the numeraries come from supernumeraries' homes, attend Opus Dei schools, graduate to its universities, go to Rome, and once trained, are assigned to the internal bureaucracy or the educational network without exercising a secular profession or having worldly experience.

Observers agree that there has been a lowering of social and intellectual status of new members. Indeed one type of female members, who come from modest homes, were termed "servants" in the first edition of the Constitution.

The result of this setup is that the numeraries are the last remaining males in Western countries, especially in Spain, who enjoy the prerogatives of traditional gentlemen, who do not get involved in household matters because that is the business of the women of the family or, in the present case, of his sisters in the apostolate.

Still, a certain percentage of Opus Dei women have responded to the new educational imperative and run schools for girls. In any case, few of them exercise any secular profession independently or have university studies, something obligatory for male numeraries. Thus, among other things, women sleep on planks and used to have to ask permission to drink water between meals, although the latter rule was recently abolished. Needless to say, women count for little in internal government and limit themselves to applying the resolutions taken by male authorities.

The massive dedication to teaching produces a modification of foundational goals. No longer does one imagine the permeation of all sectors of civil society by Opus Dei members in the manner of an intravenous injection according to the founder's metaphor. Rather, efforts are focused on the education of children and adolescents. The control of so many educational institutions opens new avenues of influence.

For one thing, these centers are conceived as tools for indoctrination. Encouraged by a militant Pope and fed by cyclical Church conservatism, Opus Dei teachers work to convince their students of the importance of maintaining the hierarchical structure of a traditional family, principal cell of the desired organic society.

Anti-Communists during the Cold War, they are enthusiastic supporters of the pro-life movement. The head of the movement in Spain is a numerary. A new counter-reformation eases the Work's apostolates.

Some of its priests hold Church posts related to censorship and prosecution of excessively independent theological thinkers. This situation has rendered superfluous any specifically Opus Dei doctrine or theology, since the task becomes maintenance of the Tridentine message as currently reworked by the Vatican. Accordingly, the Prelature has few theologians worthy of the title. The world of Opus Dei has progressively more to do with group discipline, with control of behavior, and less with religion or theology, even though Opus Dei runs Theological Colleges in Pamplona and Rome basically specialized in moral theology and canon law.

After the fashion of Cardinal Lefevre and other traditionalist leaders, he laid down directives which lead to clear doctrinal fundamentalism and to an explicit or tacit alliance with ultra-conservative social forces. Before he died it seems that he declared to his "children" that, as things stood, Opus Dei was the only group faithful to the Gospel, that Biblical remnant of Israel to which God confided the mission of returning the flood waters to their channel.

Like other contemporary Catholic institutions, at a given moment Opus Dei posed the question of the clash between Gospel principles of charity and solidarity and the rules of capitalist society; Opus Dei chose the side of individual success in market competition.

For thirty years, its well known business school, the IESE or Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa, in Barcelona, with branches in Latin America, has trained carefully selected students in American management techniques to become managers and executives. The Work's schools have a good reputation among Spanish middle class parents for their competence and advising system.

Engel: As we near the end of this interview, tell me, how did you get from this spirit of adulation of the Father and everything Opus, to wanting to escape from the Work and all it stood for? Was this a gradual prompting or the result of a singular catastrophic incident?

Johnson: In truth, it was both. But at a deeper level I was in turmoil. I was having a more and more difficult time putting my conscience down. If there was a conflict between my conscience and official policy, I was told that my problem was due to pride.

We were required to exercise blind obedience to our Directors and also to the minutiae of all the many instructions from Opus Dei headquarters in Rome. He believed that the Prelature was in need of internal reform. By , I was so mentally and emotionally ill that I could not carry on with my work. I fell into a deep depression. Johnson: Yes and no. I was treated by a woman colleague from the Advisory, a qualified physician who treated us numeraries.

Objective medical professionals have pointed out that their treatment of me and many others involved a clear conflict of interest and a violation of the Hippocratic Oath. The woman physician in question presented me with prescription drugs Librium and Tofranil, plus Mogadon to sleep at night.

Over the next four years, I was treated and heavily drugged by a variety of doctors and psychiatrists — all members of Opus Dei. Neither I nor my Opus superiors ever told them about my condition. I remained brainwashed and entirely dependent on them till the day I left. Johnson: That was a cataclysmic event in my life. I had a complete breakdown. I loved my father deeply and my unresolved grief for him remained long after I left Opus Dei.

I only wish that he had lived long enough to witness my departure from Opus. It had not been my personal professional choice. But as I noted earlier, my Directress had already sown the seed in my mind soon after I joined, that I would make a good journalist.

When I returned to London, I was able to connect successfully with a handful of newspapers and journals. However, my health did not improve, and I was subjected to more medical treatments. I was still on drugs when a new Opus Dei psychiatrist, a male numerary based at Littlemore Hospital, Oxford, opened up the door for my escape from Opus by suggesting I might do better as a supernumerary, with the option of marrying, than as a celibate numerary.

He presented his suggestion to my Directors, who agreed to my leaving. However, I had no wish to remain in Opus Dei as a supernumerary either. I had been a valuable asset to Opus Dei mainly in terms of recruitment.

I loved people, and in return they seemed attracted to me, including our young numeraries and assistant numeraries. In hindsight, I suspect that another factor could have been that I knew too much about the inner workings of the Work as a member of the Advisory where I had access to many internal documents and sensitive private papers.

When I told him my story and suggested that Opus Dei was part of the problem, not in the least because their doctors had drugged me, he turned on me coldly and told me it was false pride that led me to criticize Opus Dei.

Opus Dei cut me off completely. I was financially destitute when I returned home to my widowed mother who welcomed me with open arms. Engel: But I think finances were the least of your problems. Do you mind repeating for our readers what your family physician said to you on your first visit to him after you left Opus Dei?

Johnson: Certainly. After his initial assessment of my health, he said that the only comparable case in his experience was that of a former prisoner of war. Johnson: Yes, indeed. I married and have been blessed with a wonderful family. I still teach languages and I have done a lot of dance teaching especially Scottish country dancing. Regarding Opus Dei, I had no contact with any ex-Opus members for many years. However, since going public, I have become friends with some, and their families.

We enjoy the friendship. It is a source of sadness to us that our genuinely warm links with our contemporaries in Opus Dei were severed.

Johnson: Randy, you say that those who leave Opus Dei should be absorbed back into the Catholic Church. This does happen to some, but very many lose their faith due to the treatment they have suffered from Opus Dei, and from Church authorities who have turned a blind eye to the wrongdoings of the Prelature.

What matters most to Opus Dei and to the institutional Church, is its image. The Prelature stands accused of inflicting spiritual abuse on many individuals. Until this reality is acknowledged by Opus Dei and the wider Church, protests and the resulting scandals will continue. You know, for many years after I left Opus Dei, I was afraid to speak out.

But I am no longer fearful. I want to continue to put my name to my testimony as a challenge to the Work and show my face publicly. It has been decades since Eileen Johnson left Opus Dei and became one of its most vocal public international critics, but I have to say, had she just left Opus today as an ex-numerary, there is almost nothing in this interview that I would have to change.

Which is a backhanded way of saying that the abuses of faith and power have not changed over a period of almost a half-century. Opus Dei needs to be disbanded and its members and priests absorbed back into the Catholic Church.

For as long as I can remember back in the s when I first encountered Opus Dei and recognized it as a destructive force within the Catholic Church, ex-members have been attempting to get a hearing from the Vatican on the numerous abuses suffered by many of its members, abuses which we have just touched upon in this interview. I hope that the door to an objective investigation of Opus Dei will one day be opened, and opened widely.

I would appreciate hearing from ex-Opus Dei members who wish to comment on our interview by writing to me at rvte61 comcast. Category : Testimonies. Introduction The following interview with ex-Opus Dei numerary, Eileen Johnson, was conducted over a period of several months in and Engel: Was the venture successful?

Johnson: As it turned out, I was invited to Manchester under false pretenses. Engel: What attracted you most to Opus Dei? Johnson: The degree of commitment. I should mention that there are celibate members who live at home. They are called Associates. Sometimes they have to care for aging or disabled parents. Engel : Did you take vows of any kind like religious do?

Engel: Was your family present at the Admission ceremony? Engel: And you? Engel: How did Opus Dei influence your academic and campus life?

Engel: At what point did you reveal your membership to Opus Dei to your parents? Johnson: Nothing. Engel: How convenient, I mean, for Opus. Engel: What about your family relations after your graduation in ? Visits with old friends were discouraged unless the motive was to recruit them. These programs of formation and mortification you described were in addition to… Johnson: … In addition to the other norms and requirements for a numerary that included two half hours — one in the morning and one in the evening — of mental prayer daily; Mass; the Rosary; the Angelus; the Preces; Opus Dei prayers and the examination of conscience.

I was not. I confided in her with total trust in confidentiality. Engel: You mean they are maids or servants? Engel: And you, what did you wear for casual light cleaning? Johnson: Numeraries wore chic white overalls. Engel: I see. Was there a rapid turn-over in Assistant numeraries? Engel: Was there any promise of upward mobility for them in Opus? Engel: Did you seek treatment? Engel: Was your family advised of your illness at any time?

What happened to you then? Engel: When did you finally leave Opus Dei? The cost of those processes are high, but it was not a problem for Opus Dei, because they have a lot of money. No reasonably Catholic can believe that such a monster can bring about miracles. Look out! Opus Dei has already cornered the canonization office in The Vatican! They need desperately to manufacture a saint. In the meantime his five disciples remained hidden in several places, they all risked to be jailed.

If what biographers said were true, we could ask ourselves: 1 How could his disciples survive the persecution in other places, that is, they did not need to hide in a psychiatric clinic? Being liars the heads of OD, we should also have doubts about that story. About his madness, we can remember some things, according to his official biographers:.

They were strengthened because of their adulation and the juncture of the age: Opus Dei was searching to staff positions in the main universities of Spain. Many of the professors were executed during the civil war, others departed to exile. The situation was so serious that these universities could no longer work. Afterwards, he obtained from Franco a privileged budget for the education institutions controlled by Opus Dei, and for all the education, and, because of his powerful influence, he did with it as he pleased.

Instead of selecting the best professors, he hired Opus Dei members. It was a disgrace for science in Spain, it is plain to see that in the second half of the XXth century there were not important scientists in Spain, despite the fact that all their efforts were for the education of bourgeoisie. However, Opus Dei was always manufacturing phony fame for middling individuals. Even now, incompetent people can obtain a Ph. Opus Dei also let the needy in the ignorance or semi-ignorance, because they feared that they would become a thinking and vocal rights-claiming class.

When students composed verses to protest against favoritism to Opus Dei members, this sect used to respond with violence and destruction. In addition of education, Opus Dei infiltrated into all the immense beaurocracy of the Spanish state, in key posts. The members were involved in corruption and immoral practices. This is why they throve during the Franco, Pinochet and Videla dictatorships; and in Peru they had a great influence under the Fujimori-Montesinos dictatorship, headed by cardinal Cipriani.

Their secret nature makes them deny to others their totalitarian ideology. Opus Dei is characterized by:. Briefly, they obtained recognition from the Vatican because they wrote only the most acceptable in their constitutions. Their sinister side is handled in the shadow of secrecy.