General Notes on the Opus Dei-ish Roman Catholic Church in the United States
I am very excited about the any day now release of Gareth Gore’s new book Opus for many reasons, the greatest of which is that people do need to know not just about the political activity of Opus Dei adherents, members, cooperators and soft Catholic admirers, activity which will only continue to ramp up if/when Harris and Walz are elected. The American public needs to know, but also Catholics in the pews need to understand that “New Evangelization” in its current form, is, in a sense, of the poison tree of Opus Dei, the “pope saint” who legitimized the sect.
Opus by Gareth Gore, Simon and Schuster. October 1, 2014.
Pope Paul VI, moved by some of Josemaría Escrivá’s ideas about serving the poor, and the enshrinement of work as a mode for embodying holiness, developed an openness to Opus Dei during the mid 1960’s. For. those who remember this time in Catholicism this is understandable. “The prelature” (as Opus Dei is often called) was saying the right things for the time.
But it was John Paul II who got the canonization of the Opus Dei ball rolling. I’m boiling a lot down here , but it is important to know that much of the momentum for the rapid growth of the Opus Dei in the Roman Catholic Church in the Europe and the Americas had its genesis in Pope John Paul’s on the face apolitical “New Evangelization” project. That John Paul II was a former actor trained in Poland, a land that in the modern age has taken its thespians seriously, is everything. Some of John Paul II’s first moves after succeeding John Paul I, was to install state of the art television gear in the Vatican. The “New Evangelization” project was designed to. take preaching out of church and into the public square. With New Evangelization came increased expertise in the area of optics. The institutional Roman Catholic Church all over the world was encouraged to use media to preach.
The morphing of the image of Opus Dei started with the canonization of the founder of Opus Dei. Once a person is a saint, he or she is in the “Communion of Saints.” Celebrating his feast day, his bio is sanitized, blanket permission to worship him or her is granted to every Catholic. Think mainstream. No longer fringe. Catholicism signs on with that saint. Catholicism signs on with that saint.
Having rustled up some miracles — Escriva was credited with a couple of medical miracles — the Vatican / John Paul II pontificate sealed the deal. They fully legitimized Opus Dei by making a saint of the man who, with help from Spanish fascist dictator and ally of Adolf Hitler, Franciscoi Franco, founded Opus Dei.
The Roman Catholic Church is global, but in the United States Catholic Church— from whence much of the money that funds vocations overseas, missions, Catholic education comes — 2002 was a big year! The clergy child rape crisis via the John Jay Report and Boston Globe’s Spotlight report came to light, and some of the most implicated culprit bishops worked together to draft the Charter for the Protection of Young People (aka Dallas Charter) to respond to this public relations nightmare.
After the campaign rustled up some miracles — Escriva was credited with a couple of medical miracles and was canonized under the John Paul II pontificate in 2002. The Roman Catholic Church is global, but in the United States — from whence much of the money that funds vocations overseas, missions, Catholic education — 2002 was a big year for the Roman Catholic Church. In the United States, the clergy child rape crisis via the John Jay Report and Boston Globe’s Spotlight report came to light, and some of the most implicated bishops worked together to draft the Charter for the Protection of Young People (aka Dallas Charter).
After the campaign rustled up some miracles — Escrivá, the Spanish priest was credited with a couple of medical miracles and canonized under the John Paul II pontificate in 2002. The Roman Catholic Church is global, but in the United States — from whence much of the money that funds vocations overseas, missions, Catholic education — 2002 was a big year for the Roman Catholic Church. In the United States, the clergy child rape crisis via the John Jay Report and Boston Globe’s Spotlight report came to light, and some of the most implicated bishops worked together to draft the Charter for the Protection of Young People (aka Dallas Charter).
Anyone who has every observed the 700 Club in action knows how important this media development was. When President Biden waxed poetic about the godawfully catchy Eagles’ wings church hymn I cringed. (N.B. I sometimes teared up when singing that big “He will lift you up on eagles’ wings” at funerals.) Why? Because I knew how this sausage was made. I knew Catholic exceptionalism when I saw it. ( I wrote about Catholic exceptionalism as part of a look at the 2021 Midnight Mass series on Netflix. )
“New Evangelization” legitimized talking about religious life in the public square, and therefore paved the way for Catholics to both wax prosaic about their charms, and insist that non-Catholics be subject to their religious teaching. It is just a few short hops from “New Evangelization” to “They’ll know we are Christians by our love” to the kind of Catholic exceptionalism we see every day of late re: J.D. Vance’s white supremacist, neo-fascist pronouncements. “But he’s Catholic!” some Catholics exclaim, protesting the cruelty, the racism, the valorizing of greed.
But half of Catholics are likely with Vance, and the other half is, to varying extents, funding his campaign, literally and figuratively. Yes, Vance is Catholic. Half of Catholics voted for and their bishops supported Vance’s running mate, a sex-offending mobster man-whore swindler white supremacist birther who called for the execution of five teen-aged boys for a crime they did not commit — because he (Trump) was so-called “pro-life.”
An interesting facet of New Evangelization is its reliance of what I have dubbed its Catholic exceptionalist “Bells of Saint Mary” strategy. This packaging or selling of Roman Catholicism highlights and emphasizes the charm of our sect over its bellicosity in the public square. Bells of Saint Mary optics focus on our tradition of works of mercy, charming neighborhood priests, feisty sentence-diagramming nuns, our “here comes everybody” Catholicity. There’s a dark side to “Bells of Saint Mary” promo. It minimizes and covers over all of the bigotry, corruption and crime the Roman Catholic Church promulgates, but selling itself as the one true church.
This dynamic applies both collectively and to Catholic individuals. Just look at very adult conversions in the news. The Roman Catholic Church has the power to erase It is a means for some who need a reputational cleanse and reset. It is a ticket to heaven for others. It is a credential in United States politics. I’m not claiming all conversions are this. Rather I am noting that transactional and neurotic Catholic conversions and Opus Dei theological thinking are compatible. The means justify the ends. When Roman Catholics convert others, they use their own Roman Catholic inside line to bring about both the City of God on Earth and they fulfill the Opus Dei imperative of helping people get into heaven.
One of the chief theological irregularities of Opus Dei is its commitment to a “no scruples” approach to moral ethics. Because Opus Dei has been so successful at paving over its literally fascist roots, selling its fresh-faced new brand and bought its way into the three branches of United States government, elite universities, banks, and the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and academies (all the way to the Curia, I believe) the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is becoming an Opus Dei, “no scruples,” ‘ends justify the means’ church. That means Catholic pew-sitters, whatever their views on the prelature, are indirectly funding Opus Dei-esque causes and initiatives.
Refresher: All parishes kick back to their dioceses. Ordinary bishops (the ones who run dioceses) have no supervisors other than the pontiff. Only God governs how they spend Catholics’ dollars. They can do whatever they want with money they collect from parishes. Catholics in the pews have paid for lobbying against Marriage Equality and overturning Roe without even knowing it. Parishes do not own themselves. Their dioceses (or orders) own them. How many pro-life dollars have been directed to candidates who would help Leonard Leo stack the Supreme Court of the United States with neo-fascist, misogynist justices? It is hard to say. Catholics just have to trust their bishops to tell them the truth.
So Catholics in the pews have zero say on where their money goes. The global Roman Catholic television station (Eternal World Television Network) is Opus Dei-saturated. At least two of the most powerful television priests are Opus Dei clerics. Many of the Catholic media outlets are owned by Opus Dei. Catholic University of America is permeated with Opus Dei. University of Notre Dame is not an Opus Dei academy yet, but some of its think tank activity is Opus Dei friendly. Pope Francis is ordaining Opus Dei seminarians. There is at least one papabile on the list I believe may be full-Opus Dei. The Hallow App, a for-profit “New Evangelization” phenom and Opus Dei-flavored sleep app / conversion tool whose chief investor angels were Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance, offers a great example of New Evangelization in its most despicable form. This dangerous project has been given away, sold and otherwise implemented in many parishes throughout the United States, yet has been largely ignored by the mainstream media.
One of the more disturbing Opus Dei developments is that under the banner of the New Evangelization-inflected Catholic unity banner (Other names for this campaign are “civilize it” and “anti-polarization.”) Opus Dei is infiltrating members of religious orders, by bailing them out, I fear.
The United States Bishops threaded the needle on boosting Trump, doing it in ways that kept their 501(c)(3) tax exemption well protected, but the presidents of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops during the years leading up to Trump’s election were, even by Catholic bishops’ standards, have been very politically conservative. The president between 2019 and 2022 was a full-on Opus Dei priest. Opus Dei is in ascendance among the bishops, on parish levels all over the nation and I am seeing its ramification via the posts of young priests and seminarians on social media, many of whom do not follow civil politics and therefore do not understand the extent to which they are exposing the neo-fascist leanings of their superiors, bishops and orders.
As I see it, the Roman Catholic Church is already in a kind of schism, a schism that has been in the making for a while. The “Premier See” Archdiocese of Baltimore is closing 2/3 of its parishes to pay for its child sex trafficking. There is a priest shortage. Moderate Catholics are continuing to leave because they can’t continue to countenance the clergy child rape cover-up. Some “liberal” Catholics can’t bear to support a church that promulgates homophobia, transphobia and misogyny.
Who’s not leaving? Traditional, conservative and Opus Dei Catholics.
What about orders that depended upon “liberal” Catholics to buy their publications, worship in their churches? They’re running out of money. Who has money? Opus Dei. One example of an order that seems to be struggling financially as well as public relations-wise is the Jesuit order. To my dismay, and the chagrin of many progressive Catholics, the Jesuit publication, America, some prominent Jesuits, and a number of seminarian naifs are throwing in with “the prelature.”
I’ll follow up on that more very soon.
MMS
Sept 19, 2024
Read my some of posts on Opus Dei here: