Posted on 01/29/2005 7:44:55 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
The dictator, the saint and the minister After weeks of speculation, the education secretary Ruth Kelly admitted this week that she receives 'spiritual support' from the secretive Catholic sect Opus Dei. But even if reports of bizarre rituals are exaggerated, why would she be involved with the controversial group in the first place? Andy Beckett investigates
Andy Beckett
Friday January 28, 2005
Guardian
Just over half a century ago in Spain, a new kind of politician began to appear. As government ministers, they were young, energetic and highly competent. They were confident without being overbearing. And they seemed relatively free of fixed political ideas, except for a general desire to turn their old country into a modern, business-driven one.
During the 50s and 60s they opened up its economy to foreign trade and its poor southern coastline to lucrative tourism. They made themselves potential role models - complete with a suggestive group name used by some of their associates: the"third force" - for future generations of reforming European politicians.
Yet two things about the Spanish modernisers have hindered their reputation since. First, they did their work as part of the dictatorship of General Franco. Second, many of them were members of a new, highly conservative and highly controversial Roman Catholic movement: Opus Dei.
Since 1997, Ruth Kelly has been a similar modernising presence in British politics. As a Labour MP, Treasury minister, and now education secretary at the precocious age of 36, she has been busy, effective and - working closely with both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - seemingly undogmatic. But being a British social democrat is rather different from being one of Franco's lieutenants. And so the revelation over the past five weeks, via a series of distinctly grudging admissions, that Kelly is also "in contact" (the organisation's words) with Opus Dei, and (in her words) receiving "spiritual support" from them, has been one of the stranger political shocks of recent British history.
All this has happened, moreover, at a time when, for non-political reasons, the notoriety of Opus Dei has been massively magnified. In Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, the organisation is famously portrayed as a murderous secret society whose crimes include concealing the truth about the Holy Grail. For all the exasperated reminders on the Opus Dei website that the book is "a work of fiction and not a reliable source of information on these matters", it is now even more awkward for Kelly to be the organisation's sole known representative in the House of Commons. As a prominent woman, with an assured manner, unmarked until now by any hint of political vulnerability or scandal, Kelly has had to watch her religious leanings being probed and dramatised with a certain relish in some quarters.
But a more interesting question perhaps than whether Ruth Kelly chafes herself with metal instruments or follows other Gothic-sounding practices ascribed to Opus Dei, is why a clever young politician, whether in modern Britain or Spain under Franco, would join the movement at all.
Before she became an MP, Kelly worked as an economist at the Bank of England and as a financial journalist at this newspaper. She studied at Oxford and the London School of Economics. Such a background in rational inquiry and the ambiguities of statistics, you might think, would not make someone receptive to a particularly unquestioning form of Roman Catholic faith.
Yet Opus Dei was founded, at least in part, to attract the ambitious professional classes. In Spain in the early 20th century, as in similar Roman Catholic countries, the church was anxious about a growing anti-religious scepticism. "Their great fear was losing the bourgeoisie," says John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, one of the few relatively balanced authorities on Opus Dei. Around 1928 (the date is disputed), Josemaria Escriva, a young priest and law student with a pale, intense face and wire-rimmed glasses, decided to start a new Catholic movement. Opus Dei was not the first of its kind - new Catholic groups combining traditional theology with modern methods of spreading it already existed in Spain and France - but Escriva's scheme had a novel element. Opus Dei would, as its website puts it, promote "holiness in and by means of one's ordinary work".
Members of the movement would not withdraw from everyday life, like monks, but would pursue their secular careers - only now they would be "working according to the spirit of Jesus Christ". And Escriva had a particular kind of career in mind. "He wanted to reach the elite, those who shape culture," says Allen.
In 1939, Escriva published a book to guide these converts called The Way. It remains an intriguing read. Arranged in 999 short fragments, each a saying or instruction, its tone is by turns intimate, fierce and stiffly formal. How to behave at work is one preoccupation: "25 - Avoid arguments." "343 - Work! When you feel the responsibility of professional work, the life of your soul will improve." How to behave towards Opus Dei is another: "941 - Obedience [is] ... the sure way. Blind obedience to your superior ... the only way." "627 - Yours should be a silent obedience."
Opus Dei has always insisted that its teachings do not have political implications for its members. But sections of The Way seem to contradict this. There is 353: "Have you ever stopped to think how absurd it is to cease being a Catholic on entering a university, a professional association ... or parliament, like a man leaving his hat at the door?" And there is 46: "Don't you think that equality, as it is understood today, is synonymous with injustice?"
In truth, the context for Opus Dei's creation was as much political as religious. In Spain in the 30s, hostility between the Catholic church and the left was one of the causes of the civil war; Escriva spent the war on the run from leftwing forces. When Franco and the right emerged victorious, Opus Dei survived the bloodletting and paranoia that followed - fighting off allegations that it was a Jewish sect with links to the Freemasons - to work its way steadily into the upper levels of the dictatorship.
This involvement remains a sensitive subject. "Opus Dei is filed under F for Franco," concedes Jack Valero, the organisation's spokesman in Britain. "Some members worked in Franco's Spain, became ministers of his. But Opus Dei people are free to do whatever they wish politically. Other members were against Franco." He cites the dissident Rafael Calvo Serer, who was driven into exile in the early 70s and saw the newspaper he published closed by the government.
Allen confirms that by the latter stages of the Franco era, Opus Dei in Spain was divided "50/50" over the regime. Yet during the same period, Opus Dei was less than critical of other dictatorships. Escriva visited Chile in 1974, only months after Pinochet seized power, at a time when most international figures were staying well away. From Chile to Peru to Venezuela, allegations have followed Opus Dei, as it has recruited across south America, that its members have been senior participants in authoritarian coups and governments.
A charitable interpretation of these associations is that they are a consequence of Opus Dei's practice of seeking converts among "the elite", who are more likely to side with the generals when social turmoil threatens. In Britain, the movement opened its first "residences", for recruiting and supervising members, in university towns and cities in the 50s. Escriva, an Anglophile, saw the country as an international crossroads from which his message could be widely disseminated. He had a particular fondness for Oxford; a residence was established there in 1958. Kelly went to Oxford University from 1986 to 1989.
According to The Way, "the search for fellow apostles ... is the unmistakable sign of true zeal". One favoured method is to invite likely converts to a meeting. The Anglo-Italian writer and cartoonist Barry Fantoni has attended several. It started on the way to a restaurant one evening in Salerno in southern Italy, when a colleague at the university where Fantoni teaches part-time asked him if he wanted to go to an unspecified meeting. Intrigued, Fantoni agreed.
He found himself in a flat owned by a local lawyer. Sitting on chairs were "30 to 40 doctors and lawyers ... the influential people of the city of Salerno", and a young Spanish priest. There was no food or drink. For the next two hours the priest gave strident, conservative answers to questions from his audience about abortion and homosexuality and sex before marriage. "Some of the people there were not convinced by what the priest said," Fantoni remembers, "but there were no sharp intakes of breath."
The priest also mentioned repeatedly that "more people are needed". It gradually dawned on Fantoni that this was an Opus Dei meeting, and that his colleague was already a member. Although Fantoni did not speak at the gathering, he was invited again. "I'm thought to be influential, especially as I live in England."
He decided not to join. But he could see the draw: "If you're intellectual, it's appealing on paper. You're being called on to do the work of God. And if you're an active English Catholic, there isn't really that much [like it] for you to do."
Father Alban McCoy, the Roman Catholic chaplain at Cambridge University, sees "an appeal for certain temperaments. People with high energy levels, ambitions. Sometimes they want to channel these. Opus Dei gives them a clear identity, a disciplined approach to life." The religious historian Stephen Tomkins adds: "There is an element of flattery in being asked to join a group of intelligent, successful people." The fact that membership involves "many commitments", in Valero's words, gives Opus Dei further status. "Part of the appeal," Tomkins says, "is that it is demanding."
The movement currently has about 80,000 members. Its value to the Vatican can be gauged by the fact that Escriva was canonised in 2002, barely a quarter of a century after his death, an exceptionally short interval in the view of many commentators, and despite vigorous protests. The internet teems with assertions, often backed up with convincing evidence, about the extent of Opus Dei's financial and political leverage.
Allen says all this can be overplayed. "The Roman Catholic diocese of Hobart in Tasmania has more members than Opus Dei. There are 19 members of Opus Dei in the Curia [the powerful Vatican bureaucracy] out of a total of 2,600." These are statistics that Ruth Kelly may find herself deploying in the future.
Her voting record in the House of Commons on matters likely to be of interest to Opus Dei is ambiguous. Usually loyal to the government, she did not vote on a government proposal for unmarried and gay couples to be allowed to adopt, nor on two government-sponsored motions to lower the age of consent for gay sex. But she did not vote against them.
In a sense, all the mists of rumour and menace around Opus Dei, however troublesome for its members from time to time, are actually useful for the movement. "The magic is destroyed if they lose their secrecy and mystery," says McCoy. Then Opus Dei would be just one religious subgroup among many. I suspect they're not ready for that role quite yet.
I haven't read Mein Kampf or the Koran but I still have a negative opinion of Hitler and Muhammad. I have the same feeling about Escriva and Opus Dei.
Someones writings and slick PR campaigns are not indicative of the underlying organization. Infomercials on how to get rich working at home come to mind.
How anybody can favorably compare this "Saint" to St. Francis or St. Benedict is proof that there is "one" born every minute.
How about the question you are refusing to answer re: your actual knowledge of the life and works of St. Josemaria Escriva?
As for "you couldn't", I did respond by explaining further. I suggest you re-read the posts and realize your mistake, since I never claimed that St. Benedict preached anything that was un-Catholic, but in fact wrote If you applied the same hermeneutic of suspicion to St. Benedict that you apply to St. Josemaria, you'd end up with the same conclusion about how he's a preacher of revolutionary doctrines. Obviously the point here is regarding your extremely deficient methodology (which you apply inconsistently), which seems rightly termed a "hermeneutic of suspicion", not regarding any claims on my part that St. Benedict preached non-Catholic doctrine.
Hitler was responsible for starting history's most horrific war and murdering 12 million non-combatants. Muhammad is the founder of a belief which encourages killing innocents for religious glory. What is it about Opes Dei that upsets you?
And you should at least try to read Mein Kampf & the Koran. They can be found on the web albeit I merely skimmed Mein Kampf & couldn't finish the Koran.
Your (correct) "negative opinion of Hitler and Muhammad" is certainly based on reliable reports, however. But isn't the difference clear when compared to St. Josemaria? Is your negative opinion of him based on serious, reliably, scholarly work, or on fringe rants from biased sources? Remember, you are contradicting a definition of the Roman Pontiff - doesn't that deserve at the very least a closer look?
And just think,he started out with a book and an zealous cadre of brownshirts. "We're just here to show you the way it should be."
I'm not positive that guy caught as a spy in VA was working entirely on his own. I think Opus Dei is a political entity using religion as a cover and a means of recruiting zealous members to achieve their ends. Where they have their fingers no religious order should tread. They are in and of the world, and sane people should have warning bells going off and give them a wide berth.
I ran across a letter he sent in 1958 to the fascist Spanish dictator, Franco. It's not especially damning, but neither is it especially reassuring:
To his Excellency Franciso Franco Bahamonde, Head of State of Spain Your Excellency:
I wish to add my sincerest personal congratulation to the many you have received on the occasion of the promulgation of the Fundamental Principles.
My forced absence from our homeland in service of God and souls, far from weakening my love for Spain, has, if it were possible, increased it. From the perspective of the eternal city of Rome, I have been able to see better than ever the beauty of that especially beloved daughter of the church which is my homeland, which the Lord has so often used as an instrument for the defense and propagation of the holy, Catholic faith in the world.
Although alien to any political activity, I cannot help but rejoice as a priest and Spaniard that the Chief of State’s authoritative voice should proclaim that, “The Spanish nation considers it a badge of honor to accept the law of God according to the one and true doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church, inseparable faith of the national conscience which will inspire its legislation.” It is in fidelity to our people’s Catholic tradition that the best guarantee of success in acts of government, the certainty of a just and lasting peace within the national community, as well as the divine blessing for those holding positions of authority, will always be found.
I ask God our Lord to bestow upon your Excellency with every sort felicity and impart abundant grace to carry out the grave mission entrusted to you.
Please accept, Excellency, the expression of my deepest personal esteem and be assured of my prayers for all your family.
Most devotedly yours in the Lord,
Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer
Rome, May 23, 1958
Opus Dei's goals require power and control in the Church and secular world. They like money, lots of it, and people in high places. Opus Dei is the first and only Catholic "order" to recruit non-Catholics and non-Christians as members. One has to ask what a non-Catholic would benefit from such an association. The idea they "just want to help" is ridiculous. The organization exudes a "one world religion" mindset. Blind obedience is essential to maintain control over workers who might otherwise question erroneous ideology.
Escriva himself was a modernist revolutionary who masqueraded under the aura of conservatism. His canonization is null under Pope Urban VIII's decree that if the position of devil's advocate was removed from the canonization process, no canonization would take place. This was first done specifically for Escriva's canonization. Under Urban VIII's decree and the 1917 code of canon law, his sainthood is non-existent. The 1983 code of canon law did not abrogate prior law but simply ignored it. This is the modernist tactic: to ignore truths of the Faith without denying them and committing outright heresy.
.......and for those aberrations, and radical departures from Canon Law - which are now in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, we have none other then my great buddy (sarcasm to the max!) Edward Cardinal Egan of NY to thank for it!
He was one of the cheif canonists repsonsible ofr the revision of the code.
Fast Eddie strikes again!
NO! I think They all started out the same way, probably with all good intentions.
"Is your negative opinion of him based on serious, reliably, scholarly work, or on fringe rants from biased sources?"
Admittedly from reports from people who are much more familiar with him than I ever intend to be. How scholarly they are I don't know, but the ones I believe are cetainly biased. Their anecdotal, first hand knowledge is good enough for me.
That being said, I have read snippets of his writings on different topics, (not enough to make me knowledgeable) and I have no doubt that what is written is passable as Catholic tradition and teaching, if not examined to closely. And I am sure that is what ensnares the gullible.
From reports I have heard and read and my own gut instincts based on those reports, Opus Dei reminds me exactly of the same hierarchal makeup as the Masons. I don't mean to say it is the same people, or that they are Masons in drag, but their organization is modeled after it. People at the lower levels have no idea what the higher levels are up to.
For all I know the Opus Dei may be the Vaticans antidote to the Masonic Lodge, but even that is no reason to draw in unsuspecting pilgrims under the guise of religion. The words are good - the application is subversive. I don't mind subversive for a good cause but I don't want anybody manipulating my spirituality to achieve it.
"Remember, you are contradicting a definition of the Roman Pontiff"
Yes, scary isn't it? Nobody with half a brain thinks this is just an organization to help people cope with the workaday world, but the Pope has given his imprimatur as if it is in spite of the public outrage.
Ex cathedra definitions of the Roman Pontiff, such as a canonization, cannot be annulled by previous disciplinary decisions of a Pope.
The 1983 code of canon law did not abrogate prior law but simply ignored it.
Been reading another SSPX tract, eh? Actually, all the prior law was abrogated.
His Holiness Pope John Paul II, in an Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation on the 7th day of February in the year 1983, approved and ratified these norms, ordering that they be published and take effect from this very day, and are to be duly and conscientiously observed by all Bishops who instruct causes of canonization and by all others whom they concern, notwithstanding anything to the contrary, even those things worthy of special mention. (New Laws for the Causes of Saints)
The second,took place in the Garden of Eden where again we find disobedience the first sin,this time in the natural world. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God. God told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; they disobeyed. Now we come into the world tarnished with that Original Sin. Disobedience,don't you think?
Could you cite the source of the information you offered about obedience being a part of justice. I've never heard that before and to be quite honest,it makes no sense to me,so I would like to read it in context. Thanks.
Oh, and if what I quoted above doesn't convince you:
CONSTITUTIO APOSTOLICA
DIVINUS PERFECTIONIS MAGISTERJohn Paul, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God, for an everlasting memorial.
... The instruction of causes of canonization, which Our Predecessor Sixtus V entrusted to the Congregation of Sacred Rites, which he himself had established,(3) was, with the passage of time, always improved by new norms. Worthy of special mention are those of Urban VIII,(4) which Prosper Lambertini (later Benedict XIV), drawing upon the experiences of time past, handed down to later generations in a work entitled De Servorum Dei beatif?catione et de Beatorum canonizatione. This work served as the rule of the Sacred Congregation of Rites for almost two centuries. Finally, these norms were substantially incorporated into the Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1917.
Since recent progress in the field of historical studies has shown the necessity of providing the competent Congregation with an apparatus better suited for its task so as to respond more adequately to the dictates of historical criticism, Our Predecessor of happy memory, Pius XI, in the Apostolic Letter Già da qualche tempo, issued motu proprio on February 6, 1930, established the "Historical Section" within the Sacred Congregation of Rites and entrusted it with the study of "historical" causes.(5) On January 4, 1939, the same Pontiff also ordered the publication of Normae servandae in construe?dis processibus ordinariis super causis historicis,(6) which made the "apostolic" process no longer necessary so that a single process would then be conducted with ordinary authority in "historical" causes.
In the Apostolic Letter Sanctitas clarior, given motu proprio on March 19, 1969,(7) Paul VI established that even in recent causes there would be only one cognitional process for gathering proofs, which the Bishop conducts with previous permission, nevertheless, from the Holy See.(8) The same Pontiff, in the Apostolic Constitution Sacra Rituum Congregatio(9) of May 8, 1969, established two new Dicasteries in place of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. To one he gave the responsibility of regulating divine Worship and to the other, that of dealing with the causes of saints; on that same occasion, he changed, somewhat, the procedure to be followed in these causes.
Most recent experience, finally, has shown us the appropriateness of revising further the manner of instructing causes and of so structuring the Congregation for the Causes of Saints that we might meet the needs of experts and the desires of Our Brother Bishops, who have often called for a simpler process while maintaining the soundness of the investigation in matter of such great import. In light of the doctrine of the Second Vatican Council on collegiality, We also think that the Bishops themselves should be more closely associated with the Holy See in dealing with the causes of saints.
Therefore, having abrogated all laws of any kind which pertain to this matter, we establish that these following norms are henceforth to be observed.
... Moreover, we wish that these Our statutes and rules should be, now and hereafter, binding and effective and, insofar as is necessary, we abrogate the Apostolic Constitutions and Regulations published by Our Predecessors and all other rules, including those which are worthy of special mention and derogation.
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on the 25th day of the month of January in the year 1983, the 5th of Our Pontificate.
IOANNES PAULUS PP II
Ping to #54.
Do you really think that St. Josemaria can be compared to a genocidal maniac and the false prophet who founded the world's largest false religion? Come on. No matter what you've read about St. Josemaria, it wasn't anywhere near that bad.
That being said, I have read snippets of his writings on different topics, (not enough to make me knowledgeable) and I have no doubt that what is written is passable as Catholic tradition and teaching, if not examined to closely.
Would you be willing to provide some "close examination" of his writings? For instance, his homily The Supernatural Aim of the Church?
Nobody with half a brain thinks this is just an organization to help people cope with the workaday world,
And you say this based on what? Name some names, cite some sources. These are major allegations and if you are going to make them you have the obligation to back up what you say.
Think about it,,Jesus Christ,Peter,the Apostles,the disciples and the multitudes. Peter was told to follow Christ and all others should follow Peter.
Even the communications were addressed. See today's Gospel from the 1962 Missal. (AAABest has it posted.
Toward the end of the Gospel,Jesus explains more to his Apostles and says the others (multitudes at least) are not yet ready for the fullness of the parable.
Opus Dei is not a coping mechanism,it is dedicated to evangelizing the world,by example.
When you post comments like this I want to ignore you all together. No, it did not come from a SSPX source. If you have something which states in the 1983 canon law that the 1917 law which specifically requires a devil's advocate has been eliminated, post it.
It makes the situation even worse, but post it anyway.
I figured that since you obviously hadn't read the relevant decrees you must have been citing another source. Guess I was wrong.
All the previous laws were abrogated. See the Apostolic Constitution of JP II I posted above.
Are you going to say what books by St. Josemaria you have read to judge his sanctity?
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