Costa Rican Government Invades Churches, Closes 80

From: lunarii
Date: (Date unavailable)
Subject: The Truth About Opus Dei lunarii@mailvault...



Since we have previously revealed that the mysterious Catholic
organization Opus Dei is running things in the present Costa Rican
administration, I thought that it would be appropriate to share with
you
the facts about this group.

Note that this group was started 80 years ago in Spain by the fascist
dictator Francisco Franco. This group has its tentacles throughout
Latin America, but at the moment, it appears that only in Costa Rica
have they gained so much power.

They moved fast to punish their enemies here, starting in the first
months of the Pacheco regime, they moved to close down The Brothers,
which had done the most abhorrent thing imaginable to them: The
Brothers
had built a nice new Baptist church, which is an affront to this
group.

They were punished by being shut down and raided on trumped up
charges.

But they weren't done yet by a long shot. They have brought down their
most hated rivals in the PUSC party, including former party leader and
powerhous Calderon. Then, they brought down former President Rodriguez
at the most embarrassing time possible.

This is nothing short but civil war and open warfare in the party. It
has nothing to do whatsoever with an "anticorruption campaign." That
is
merely a smokescreen for their real motives, which are to gain
absolute
an total power, and establish Costa Rica as a Dark Ages style
theocracy.

And never mind that Pacheco and his cronies probably have more
skeletons
in the closet than the former presidents sitting in jail, and the
third
in exile in Switzerland. These skeletons will never see the light of
day unless brave journalists refuse to knuckle under to death threats
and intimidation which this group gratuitously throws around like
confetti.

WHY DO YOU THINK THERE HAVE BEEN GUN SHOTS AT LA NACION? AND WHO DO
YOU
THINK IS BEHIND THIS, AND WHAT NEWS ARE THEY TRYING TO SUPPRESS? By
the
time you finnish this report, you will know who the most prominent
suspects are, and have an idea of what kinds of atrocities they are
trying to hide from public view.

But, we here at Lunar News have news for these thugs and criminals. we
will not stop digging until we get to the truth and broadcast it far
and
wide for all to see. This group was started by the Nazi Franco in
Spain
80 years ago for the express purpose of supporting the Vatican in its
secret war to return us to the period of the Dark Ages when this whore
ruled supreme. Make no mistake about it. Unless protestants raise an
outcry worldwide along with other freedom loving people, you will not
only have no religious freedoms left, but you will have no other
freedoms left at all that this new Church/State combine on the rise
permits you, the peasants, to have.

And, they appear to be starting their assent to power in Costa Rica
and
Argentina, from all indications, and only in Costa Rica have they
managed to gain control of the government.

This is a dire warning to the people of both countries that this must
not be allowed to continue if you love freedom and prosperity.

Believe me when I tell you that the closure of 80 + protestant
churches
for "noise pollution" and other fantasy charges are only the
beginning.

Believe me when I tell you that government invasions of churches of
which the government does not approve during church services, and
ordering the people to leave their own church, and then locking the
door
behind them is only the beginning of what they plan to do if allowed.

And now they have dared to even close down a Catholic Church, the
priest
of which they do not like because they disagree with his policies.
Yes,
they plan to "purge" and "purify" the Catholic Church as well of all
doctrines and beliefs contrary to their own.

This is a warning of things to come in this world, unless the cold
light
of truth is shown brightly and clearly upon this evil, which will
cause
it to slink back under the rock from which it came.

And so now, here are the details on this radical fascist gang that has
gained control of a small defenseless country.

[Opus Dei]
Secretive sect dubbed 'Mafia shrouded in white'
The Scotsman, UK
Jan. 21, 2005
Stephen McGinty
news.scotsman.com
. More news articles on Opus Dei
ReligionNewsBlog.com . Item 9983 . Posted: 2005-01-22 12:47:04
It sits on a hill, a villa of honey-coloured stone in a leafy suburb
on
the south side of Glasgow, and gives no hint of what goes on behind
its
sturdy walls.

This is the Scottish headquarters of Opus Dei, which translates from
the
Latin as "God's work", a term familiar to the 120,000 Scots who have
bought copies of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's global bestselling
novel. The thriller centres on a search for the Holy Grail which is
hampered by a villainous member of Opus Dei.

Dunreath, the house in Glasgow, is not home to a murderous monk,
though
self-flagellation, as featured in the novel, is practised here.

The Catholic organisation, founded in Spain in 1928 by Josemaria
Escriva, has long been mired in controversy. It has been described by
critics as a cult and dismissed by one theologian as "the Mafia -
shrouded in white". Yet its members enjoy the personal favour of Pope
John Paul II, who made its founder a saint in 2002, in spite of his
close ties to the dictator General Franco.

In recent weeks, the media spotlight has focused on Opus Dei after the
appointment of Ruth Kelly as Secretary of State for Education.

While Ms Kelly has refused, as recently as this week, to confirm or
deny
her involvement with the group, The Scotsman has established that she
is, indeed, a "supernumerary", as married members of Opus Dei are
described.

Last week, the Archdiocese of Westminster announced that a parish had
been entrusted to an Opus Dei priest, evidence of a thaw in relations.
The late Basil Hume, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, viewed
the
group with deep suspicion.

His concern centred on what he believed to be the group's manipulative
recruitment techniques. His official biographer, Anthony Howard, said
this week that Hume regarded them as he would the 'Moonies'.

Yet Opus Dei has recently embarked on a PR offensive, using The Da
Vinci
Code and the appointment of Ms Kelly to promote its agenda.

Jack Valero, Opus Dei's British press spokesman, is upbeat. He says:
"Ten million people have now heard of Opus Dei thanks to The Da Vinci
Code. That can only be a good thing - 2005 is going to be the year of
Opus Dei."

Ronnie Convery, the director of communications for the late Cardinal
Thomas Winning, and now for Mario Conti, the Archbishop of Glasgow,
was
a member for many years before leaving after he found it too
demanding.

"As a student, I was quite taken with the idea that you could have a
vocation to work in the world, and not flee from it, which is a
central
plank of Opus Dei's message," he says.

"So it seemed an obvious step to take to join in 1990. Over the years,
I
found the long daily list of prayers, devotions and customs too
demanding for me. So I left after eight years. I had read horror
stories
of people being pressurised to stay in. Instead, the guy with whom I
discussed it said simply: 'Better to be a happy former member of Opus
Dei than an unhappy member'."

The question is: what is Opus Dei's role in Scotland, where they have
three large properties, all in Glasgow? In order to dispel the image
of
a shadowy organisation, the group, when approached by The Scotsman,
opened its doors.

"We've really nothing to hide," said Dermot Grenham as he sat in a
comfortable armchair in one of the many elegant rooms at Dunreath,
Opus
Dei's centre for men, where, until this week, he was the director.

"Opus Dei's role is to do God's work out in the world. We are here to
help people become saints," he said.

The Church's philosophy is that every man, woman and child - priest
and
laity - has a universal calling to holiness and the capability to
become
a saint. In Opus Dei, unlike many Catholic institutions, the power
lies
with the laity. The group's global membership is about 85,000, only
2,000 of whom are priests; the remainder are different types of
members.

While the organisation is most powerful in Spain and Latin America,
where prominent politicians are among its number, in Britain there are
only 520 members, of whom about 50 are based in Scotland.

It is an extremely wealthy body, with a net worth in Britain of about
?20 million, largely due to its property and a chain of student halls
of
residence, which help recruitment.

Tommy Burns, the former Celtic player, has, in the past, attended Opus
Dei meetings, while Archbishop Conti dined at Dunreath before
Christmas.

There are four types of Opus Dei member:

. A numerary, such as Mr Grenham, is a celibate member who lives in an
Opus Dei house, segregated by gender, and donates his or her full
salary
to the group, retaining only what is required for clothes, etc, to
carry
out the daily "civilian" job.

. An associate is, again, a celibate member but who, for personal
reasons such as looking after an elderly parent, does not live in
community. Such members continue to donate any unrequired income to
the
organisation.

. A supernumerary is a married member, such as Ruth Kelly, many of
whom
make a monthly donation, though no amount is prescribed, and follow
Opus
Dei's spiritual formation on a daily basis.

. A co-operator is not a proper member. Instead, he or she is a
registered supporter who, in exchange for services, receives
"indulgences", or spiritual benefits.

All official members follow a prescribed process of prayer, meditation
and daily mass, and regularly read The Way, a book of 999 maxims
written
by St Josemaria Escriva.

While supernumeraries offer small "mortifications", or discomforts,
such
as keeping the heating low or forgoing sugar in their tea, numeraries
of
both sexes induce physical discomfort by wearing a cilice - a wire
band
round the thigh which irritates the skin - often for an hour each day,
and by whipping themselves with a knotted rope, known as "the
discipline", once a week.

"It may seem very strange to the outside world, but these
mortifications
have been a part of the Catholic Church for centuries," says Mr
Grenham,
who insists they are optional and do not draw blood.

In the past, one controversial aspect of Opus Dei's work has been
among
the young. The late Cardinal Hume issued instructions that Opus Dei
should not permit anyone under the age of 18 to join and, even then,
any
admissions should be only in consultation with the parents.

In Scotland, both the male and female centres in Glasgow operate sport
and activity clubs for children. The Dunreath Club has a junior
section
for boys aged between ten and 12 and a senior section for those 13-16.

Many of those who attend are the children of members, and those who
are
not require parental permission. The centre's library is available to
pupils for private study, which encourages teenagers to become more
involved with the group.

However, the parent of one teenage boy, who was pursued to join Opus
Dei, described its methods as "spiritual grooming". The man, who did
not
wish to be named, said he had felt compelled to contact an Opus Dei
priest and insist he no longer contacted his son.

"I'm very uncomfortable with their methods," he said. "They are
extreme
in their behaviour, in their practice, and I remain very suspicious of
them."

In Glasgow, as in Opus Dei across the world, the men and women are
separated by more than the River Clyde.

In the drawing room of a West End town house that is home to seven
female numeraries, Eileen Cole, a member for 27 years, explained that
the sexes rarely meet and are content to proselytise among their own
gender. However, female members are expected to organise all the
cooking
and cleaning for the men. This is in keeping with the founder's view
of
the role of women, which many people find deeply sexist.

"If we didn't do it, they would be living like savages," says Ms Cole.
"Women are simply better at these things than men."

She describes her vocation as rewarding and says: "The Work [as
members
describe Opus Dei] has made me less self-centred. It helps you to
spend
your life being of service to others."

The vast majority of members of Opus Dei, however, are
supernumeraries.
There are 21 female supernumeraries in Scotland, such as Clare
McDonald,
42, a mother of six children.

The former GP says: "We live in an utterly secular society today, and
I've found Opus Dei a tremendous help in maintaining my own moral and
spiritual values. It's something you can do quietly. You can turn your
daily tasks into a prayer."

Unlike many members who are angry at their group's portrayal in The Da
Vinci Code, Mrs McDonald thinks it "cool". She jokes: "Now, if people
ask about Opus Dei, I tell them, 'I could tell you, but then I'd have
to
kill you'."


WOMEN OF GOD

When Josemaria Escriva founded Opus Dei in 1928, "God's Work" was
strictly for men only.

Two years later, however, the Spanish priest changed his mind and
permitted women to join. The sexes were to be kept strictly separate,
and there is no doubt which was to be the dominant partner.

Yet the organisation has more women in its number because, as one
explained: "We've got to look after the men."

Women in Opus Dei, as in the upper echelons of the Catholic Church,
remain second-class citizens.

Deportment and modesty are among the subjects on the curriculum for
female members of Opus Dei, while there is no equivalent for men. Opus
Dei's new $50 million headquarters in New York has separate entrances
for men and women.

As Escriva wrote: "Wives, you should ask yourself whether you are not
forgetting a little about your appearance. Your duty is, and will
always
be, to take as good care of your appearance as you did before you were
married - and it is a duty of justice, because you belong to your
husband." He also preached: "Women needn't be scholars - it's enough
for
them to be prudent."

The most damaging charge against him was that he doubted the number of
Jews killed in the Holocaust. This charge is dismissed as a lie by his
followers.

Escriva was canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2002.


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A FOLLOWER

AM: Rise exactly when alarm goes off. Get out of bed. Kiss the bedroom
floor and say: "Serviam" - Latin for "I will serve."

Morning prayers followed by 30 minutes prayerful meditation.

Noon: Say the Angelus, followed by a particular "examination of
conscience". For example, "am I being lazy?" or "am I humble enough?"
etc

Daily Mass is mandatory for members, and many fit this in during their
lunch hour. After Mass ten minutes is spent in "thanksgiving".

Evening: Five decades of the Rosary, ten minutes of spiritual reading,
five minutes of gospel reading, 30 minutes of spiritual meditation.

Before bed: General examination of conscience, followed by an Act of
Contrition.

Final prayer before sleep called the "Preces".

Weekly: Confession, evening prayer meeting called "the Circle".

Monthly: Evening event of reconciliation.

Annually: Five-day spiritual retreat.

Read news.scotsman.com online

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Opus Dei

Everything you need to know about the conservative Catholic
organisation

Simon Jeffery
Wednesday December 22, 2004

1. For some, 2004 was a bad year - for others, it was a good year.
Sometimes, the two were related. Take the author Dan Brown and Opus
Dei.
Brown's novel Da Vinci Code was a runaway success but, in casting the
conservative Catholic group as its main villain, it perhaps made life
a
little bit harder for them.

2. Devoted readers of the thriller will no doubt think Opus Dei
deserve
it for the depicted peculiar devotion to self-flagellation and an
intent
to suppress the secrets of the early church, but the group feels a
little misrepresented.

3. A section on its website addressed to loyal Da Vinci Code readers
(who are presumably in shock that a such secret society is online)
tells
them: "These topics are important and valuable to study, and we hope
that interested readers will be motivated to study some of the
abundant
scholarship on them that is available in the non-fiction section of
the
library."

4. Founded in 1928, Opus Dei has around 80,000 members in Europe,
North
and South America and elsewhere. Its invite-only members are asked to
promote traditional Catholic values and prayer.

5. It is not being the sect in Brown's bestseller, but its power in
the
Catholic church (Joaquín Navarro-Valls, the pope's spin doctor, is a
member), and links to General Franco, the ultra rightwing Spanish
dictator, make it an intriguing body to outsiders.

6. Its founder, Josemaría Escriv´, became Saint Josemaría. He died in
1975, but the speed of his beatification and canonisation (the process
of becoming a saint) was contested by left-leaning Jesuits, who feared
Opus Dei's growing influence in Rome.

7. So it not the type of organisation one necessarily associates with
the Blair government, and today's report in the Times that Ruth Kelly,
a
former Guardian journalist and the new education secretary, is a
member
seems sure to raise eyebrows.

8. The newspaper says scientists are alarmed at the impact that Ms
Kelly's beliefs may have on her job. The mother of four has
responsibility for a £1bn research budget, and is believed to follow a
strict Vatican line on contraception, embryo research, cloning and
abortion. She reportedly told Mr Blair she could never support stem
cell
research.

9. Such positions, are of course, possible to hold without being a
member of a "mysterious" religious organisation - a significant number
of those who voted for George Bush in the last US presidential
election
would endorse them - but, as Brown knows, a Latin name and hints of
secret societies have a strange compulsion to them.

10. For its part, Opus Dei is not playing along. The handy FAQ insists
it is nothing more than a group for those with a similar spiritual
mindset. "For the most part [ordinary members] do their job and live
their family and social lives like everyone else, doing exactly what
they would do if they were not in Opus Dei," it says.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/netnotes/a...378794,00.html

================================

Now, here is more. It gets better, believe me:

Subject: colman from ireland.

Dear brother Eric, I hope you are good today, i have found 2 great
websites
dealing with Rome and her great corruption, the first site is,
www.blessedquietness.com which has some great pictures of Hitler
with
the
pope and Opus Dei. The second website is, www.odan.org which deals
with
Opus Dei alone. The former members of this Cult describe Jose Maria
Escrivas
demonic ramblings and his woman hating arrogance. Did you know that
he
said
he could dishonour anyone he wanted to in the press. God Bless
fornow,
Colman.


===================================

Opus Dei]
The Dei today
The Independent, Jan. 17, 2005
Peter Stanford
news.independent.co.uk
. More news articles on Opus Dei
ReligionNewsBlog.com . Item 9936 . Posted: 2005-01-17 03:15:58 .
It wields huge influence in the Vatican yet is condemned as a sinister
and ruthless Catholic sect. Now the fundamentalist group is taking
control of a British parish for the first time - and one of its
members
is in the Cabinet. Peter Stanford gains rare access to the closed
world
of Opus Dei


From the outside, Netherhall House in Nutley Terrace is a bland 1960s
student block, tucked away in one of the maze of streets that tumble
down the hill from London's leafy Hampstead Heath to the A41 dual
carriageway. But behind the unassuming facade, Netherhall House is one
of the few public faces of Opus Dei, the secretive Catholic sect
regarded by many outsiders as sinister and misguided.

Last week, for the first time since the organisation was founded in
1928, Opus Dei was given its own parish by Cardinal Cormac
Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster. And in April, Father
Gerard Sheehan - one of 17 British Opus Dei priests in Britain - will
take over pastoral care of St Thomas More Church in Swiss Cottage,
north
London.

But this respectability within the Catholic Church has been achieved
against a background of controversy. With the publication of Dan
Brown's
bestseller The Da Vinci Code last year, Opus Dei emerged as less
trustworthy than Satan and about as welcome in the wider church as the
serpent in the garden of Eden. The publicity helped to transform this
corner of north-west London into a tourist destination. You can now
book
(for around $3,000 including flight from the States and accommodation)
Da Vinci Code tours.

"We've had coaches of Americans turning up outside, standing there
staring through our windows," says Jack Valero, a Spaniard with a
Kilroy
tan in his early forties. Valero is the public face of Opus Dei in
Britain. "You can imagine what they must think is going on inside, but
I'm afraid they'd be very disappointed if they could see what you're
seeing."

Valero is taking me on my own private tour of Netherhall House, and,
as
he implies, there's not a dead body, a scheming albino monk to rival
The
Da Vinci Code's Brother Silas, or a lost descendant of Mary Magdalene
in
sight. Indeed there are no women at all because this is an all-male
facility. Opus Dei likes to keep the sexes apart - save for when
Netherhall needs cleaning, when female members are permitted to come
in
to tidy up after the chaps.

What you do see a lot - in the chapel, in the library, in the meeting
room - are sugary portraits of Opus Dei's founder, Monsignor Josemaria
Escriva de Balaguer, a Spaniard who died in 1985 and was declared a
saint by Pope John Paul II in 2002.

The Polish pontiff evidently has a very different impression from The
Da
Vinci Code readers of this 85,000-member-strong international
organisation started by Escriva in the time of Franco. For John Paul
it
is a bastion of true Catholicism, accorded by him the unique status of
a
personal prelature, putting it in effect above Catholic law and
structures, dependent solely on the Pope. There is an irony in an
organisation that prides itself on following to the letter Catholic
teaching being in effect given its own Get Out of Jail Free card.

Yet from the Vatican's point of view, it represents an extremely good
deal. In Opus Dei it has found, to its evident relief, a strong,
mainly
non-clerical (only two per cent of members are priests) voice echoing
its own opposition to contraception, sex outside marriage, abortion,
condoms and stem-cell research amid a chorus of indifference or
downright opposition to such teachings from most Western Catholics.
When
these a la carte Catholics demand reform of the official line, the
Pope
has only to point to Opus Dei to show that not everyone rejects the
set
menu.

And John Paul is not alone in his appreciation. Ruth Kelly, the new
Secretary of State for Education, is reportedly an associate of Opus
Dei. She is certainly listed (alongside William Dalrymple, Rocco Forte
and Stephen Pound MP) as one of the guest speakers in the Netherhall
House annual report.

In the face of protests that her links with such a conservative
religious body make her unsuitable to be Britain's headmistress, Kelly
has so far remained silent. Opus Dei meanwhile refuses to give out
information about its members - exacerbating the impression of a
Mason-like secrecy - but those who have met Kelly in private confirm
that she is enthusiastic in her praise for the organisation, anxious
to
put her associates in touch with it (part of the duties of members is
to
recruit among their social contacts) and utterly humourless when
challenged about its more bizarre practices. Some numinaries, as
members
are known, choose for example to wear a medieval metal chain with
spikes
round their thigh, with the spikes sticking into them, as a way of
mortifying their sinful flesh.

Part of the extreme reaction to Kelly's connection to Opus Dei recalls
the suspicion that lasted long after the Reformation that Catholics
can
never be loyal servants of the crown, that they are in hock to an
overseas power with an agenda to force their extreme views on the rest
of society. Today, a mention of Opus Dei, thanks in no small measure
to
The Da Vinci Code, plays readily to those age-old fears. It is
foreign,
Spanish to boot, so virtually a second Armada. It is secretive. It is
part of the Pope's inner circle. And it has an apparently bottomless
purse for buying up prime locations around London.

It all chimes with the worst stereotypes of Catholic subversives from
Guy Fawkes onwards. In his obituaries, it was claimed that Cardinal
Basil Hume, the gentle Benedictine monk who was head of the English
Catholic Church until his death in 1999, had lain to rest such ghosts,
but the Kelly affair shows they still seem to have some life in them.

However, it is around Opus Dei's recruitment measures that the most
pressing concern is felt. Netherhall House, opened in 1967, offers
upmarket accommodation to male students at London universities. Its
residents come from 30 countries and only half are Catholics, Valero
tells me proudly, as if producing the killer fact that disproves every
allegation against Opus Dei. Yet this is accommodation with strings
attached. First, there's the sort of Catholic regulations in force
that
turned Ireland against the church in the 1960s. No girls above the
bottom stair (unless they've got a mop in their hand).

And then there's the odd, antiseptic feel to the place, as if all life
has been drained out of it. Given that this is a student hostel, it is
unnaturally quiet and tidy. I can't help thinking that it looks as if
it
has been arranged to look normal when really it is concealing terrible
secrets. But I've clearly been reading too many Dan Brown books.
Valero,
for his part, makes no bones that the hostel is a kind of bait.
Fishing
is a term commonly used within Opus Dei for its crusade to attract
young
Catholics into its arms. Give them a comfortable place to live, show
them Catholicism at its best and hope that the experience will inspire
grateful residents to join up. "We hope simply being here and living
as
we do will enthuse them," is how he puts it.

For Opus Dei this is simply good old-fashioned evangelisation and they
have no intention of apologising for it. Catholicism, they point out,
was founded as a missionary faith, even if most modern mass-goers
overlook the imperative to spread the Good News. For others, though,
such activities are what gives the organisation, and by association
the
rest of the church, a bad name. Cardinal Hume was so concerned at its
activities in Westminster diocese in the 1980s that he issued it with
four recommendations. These demanded that no one under 18 should be
allowed to join, that all recruits should discuss fully their decision
beforehand with parents or guardians and be free at any time to leave
without pressure, and that all Opus projects be clearly identified as
such. Hume was a cautious man and would only have risked such a public
clash with the papal cheerleaders if he had clear evidence that Opus
Dei
was doing all the things that he outlawed. My own experience in the
1980s was of meeting several youngsters who had arrived in the big
city,
felt utterly lost and were therefore vulnerable enough to rush into
the
arms of the Opus Dei student who had befriended them and offered them
a
friendly place to live, only later to regret it and embark on a
damaging
struggle to get free. It turned them off Catholicism for life.

Valero pooh-poohs such tales. He is a polished PR man. Before
dedicating
himself full-time to Opus Dei, he ran a successful computer company.
He
insists that all the mistakes of the past are now history, that Opus
Dei
has changed, but the opportunism certainly remains. So, for instance,
when the Da Vinci Code trippers turn up outside, they are now invited
in
for tea. Officially it is to dispel the caricature of Opus Dei
produced
by Dan Brown - the courts might have been a more effective route - but
you cannot help but see the potential for a bit of fishing in such
apparently casual encounters.

Tour over, Valero ushers me into a side room with plush green leather
chairs, and produces coffee and biscuits while swatting away with a
smile the list of charges made against Opus Dei. I state these boldly,
just in case he has his fishing rod hidden anywhere. It is said, I
suggest, that you have too much money. He hands me a set of published
accounts for one of the Opus Dei trusts in the UK showing receipts of
?2.5m last year and reserves of ?12m. It is a lot, he admits, but
there
is a lot to do.

What about the $50m office block you have just built in downtown New
York with separate entrances for men and women, I ask. Nothing very
secret about that, he counters, and looks straight into my eyes.

Only twice during our conversation does he avert his gaze. The first
comes when we get on to the founder. Some who knew him say that he was
a
fraud who lied about everything from his real name to the extent of
the
Holocaust. His diaries, they say, were written with a view to
presenting
himself as saintly when the reality was that his actual interest in
life
was power and advancement in the church, a process completed by his
followers after his death when they spent a lot of money on
fast-tracking his cause for canonisation in record time.

"Nothing makes me angry any more," Valero says, staring out of the
window, "but this thing about the Holocaust still does. It is all
based
on the account of one man. I don't know of anyone else who heard the
founder say such things. It is a lie." The one man, it should be
pointed
out, is an ex-Opus Dei member who left and is now a senior priest in
Westminster diocese. And one reason why the charge has stuck down the
years is the context of Escriva's life and work. Opus Dei rose to
prominence first in Spain under Franco's Fascist regime. Several
ministers were closely linked with it.

Later I ask Valero about his own route into Opus Dei. His father was a
member, he says, and at 15 he visited Rome and heard Escriva speak. It
made such a powerful impression on him that at 18 he joined. He is not
a
priest, but has taken a vow of celibacy. Why, I ask. Again he is
staring
out of the window. "Because it leaves me free to travel where I am
needed." But couldn't you do that with a family? "Not at short
notice."

I cannot decide if my questions are unnecessarily prying, or perfectly
reasonable in an effort to understand the strange world of Opus Dei.
Its
very name means work of God, and for members, life, work and
relationships are all tools of evangelisation. Every encounter is a
chance to make a new convert. You can see how a family would get in
your
way. And how prized a Cabinet seat will be.

So, saints or schemers? Good people under attack for being out of step
with an increasingly secular society, or a cult-like sect with an
ever-increasing network of well-placed members aiming to subvert the
church and society? It may disappoint the sightseers, but it's
probably
neither.

Manipulative? Yes, especially in recruitment. Zealous? Undoubtedly,
and
that always unsettles us in such live-and-let-live times. Sinister?
Probably more like unpleasant and sly in its casual sexism and
determination to convert. Dangerous? Only in the same way that an
overactive teenager is dangerous. Too much enthusiasm, too many
black-and-white answers, too little tolerance. But teenagers grow out
of
it, and compared to the Opus Dei I knew back in the 1980s, there are
certainly fewer pimples.

Peter Stanford was editor of 'The Catholic Herald' from 1988 to 1992


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