Opus Dei Bought SCOTUS, Are Buying the US Catholic Church, and Catholics in the Pews Are Helping

Last night I wrote about how the majority of Mass-attending Catholics helped to fund the reversal of Roe v. Wade. I noted also a feeling that the religious freedom arguments used to dismantle the constitutional right to an abortion wouldn’t hold up against challenges made by religious groups that favor pregnant individuals’ right to a safe, legal, medical abortion. Religious freedom does not apply to Roman Catholics and conservative Christian evangelists alone.

The Opus Dei factor is alarming, because their central aim when it comes to government is to bring secular law in line with religious law. The “no scruples” “ends justify the means” ethos — e.g, Amy Coney Barrett’s pre-appointment dishonesty relative to her wish/hope/determination to overturn Roe — is viewed as necessary for salvation. Non-Opus Dei Catholics in the pews have helped Opus Dei to rise both within the Roman Catholic Church by looking away from the menace they pose, maintaining a Catholic “all sides” unity (at any cost) perspective towards the cult that makes it possible for Opus Dei bishops to rise, and allowing Opus Dei clerics to collect their funds on the parish level.

While it is mostly through the the reports of those who escaped from the clutches of Opus Dei that we learn about this no scruples orientation, one can see glimpses of it through Opus Dei’s public presence. Their elevator pitch is “everyone can be a saint.” Josemaria Escrivá, the founder of Opus, placed great emphasis on the “sanctification” of work. Josemaria Escrivá emphasized the “sanctification” of work and the goal of expressing devotion through secular work and a strong work ethic. Opus Dei members are urged to attend daily mass, attend retreats and exhibit discipline in secular work and worship.

Josemaria Escrivá ‘s optics suggest humility, devotion and concern for the vulnerable. This might explain, for example, Archbishop Oscar Romero’s affinity for Opus Dei’s founder (The author of this piece and the publication itself are allegedly an Opus Dei affiliated and run, respectively.) Opus Dei’s public relations materials boast of a good and gentle “work is holy” game, but when it comes to their praxis, Opus Dei is on the side of any anti-Marxist campaign, and on the side of the rich in almost any conflict with the poor. Despite their great wealth, Opus Dei reserves most of its charitable support, for schools founded for the purpose of indoctrinating Opus Dei converts and cooperators. In the United States, Opus Dei dollars underwrite the reshaping of politics. Their promo features women, moms even, working in professions, ethnic diversity, and fresh faced joyful children of all races; but within the cult/prelature, broadly speaking, men govern, cash is king and women who are not at the top of the (unofficial) caste are subjugated for Christ.

Many Opus Dei Catholics in the United States enjoyed a double celebration this weekend: the forced-birth triumph coincided with the feast day of Opus Dei’s founder, ”Saint” Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás. (Yes, John Paul II made him a saint in 2002.) Josemaria Escrivá. Some think of Opus Dei as the weird sect to which the self-flagellating zealot assailant in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code belongs. Although self-mortification is part of the Opus Dei adherent’s private prayer, it may be the more conspicuously tempered conduct of Opus Dei members, cooperators and other adherents to Opus Dei that is the real “crazy.”

Opus Dei is global. All races are represented. All professions are represented. Pierce the surface, however, and one learns that there are various levels of membership (this, to allow Opus Dei adherents to claim non-membership or distance) and involvement. Opus Dei is a lay prelature but many members live in a manner we (outside of Opus Dei) might see as similar to that of men and women religious living in community.

“Numeraries” are unmarried/celibate and work in secular jobs professions but spend much of their time working with and for Opus Dei itself.

“Supernumeraries” are free to marry and have families and support “the work” financially. “Cooperators” need not even be Christian. They are often sources of financial support to Opus Dei. While Opus Dei claims to require priests to identify publicly as members of Opus Dei, lay members are encouraged to keep their affiliation secret. Opus Dei bishops in the United States tend not identify as members of Opus Dei because bishops have only one superior, the pope. Unlike other conservative and orthodox Catholic groups, Opus Dei emphasizes their full allegiance to the pope.

Josemaria Escrivá. founded Opus Dei (“The Work") in 1928. The cult came to prominence and during the 34-year dictatorship of Opus Dei adherent Francisco Franco, Opus Dei lost some ground during parts of the 34-reign of Franco due to the violence of his Nationalists and the lost children of the Franco regime.” Courtesy of Franco’s fascist Catholic Church, thousands of children were removed from their families placed with Nationalist families .

The cult remained marginalized until the “Pope saint” John Paul II purged them of their faintly schismatic taint in 1982, assigning them the designation of personal prelature. The “pope saint” ( John Paul II) saw Opus Dei’s wealth and message as being compatible with his “New Evangelization” vision.

L>R Opus Dei devotee Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler

One core tenet of Opus Dei belief is that Catholic belief should not evolve. Opus Dei promo makes much of their unwavering allegiance to the pope, but they otherwise favor a somewhat more traditional liturgical style.

Opus Dei has infiltrated elite universities (I learned my first semester that Harvard is crawling with Opus Dei.) financial institutions, select Roman Catholic media outlets including EWTN (the Eternal World Television Network) and all three branches of the United States government (if one includes Donald Trump —and one should— even though Trump was more likely some kind of cooperator implement/pawn than a believer or adherent. So strong were the rumors that Trump’s Attorney General William Barr’s was a “member” of Opus Dei that the prelature issued a formal announcement indicating that he was not. William Barr’s not being a member does not rule out his being a “supernumerary” or “cooperator.”

Some reports in the wake of the publication of the Mueller Report suggested that Robert Mueller might be a member of Opus Dei as well. Trump’s lawyer Pat Cippolone is allegedly Opus Dei. John Eastman, the lawyer who tried to help Trump steal the 2020 election is Opus Dei. Rick Santorum is Opus Dei. Steve Bannon is probably not a member of Opus Dei but shares some the “no scruples,” integralist ethos its neofascist politics Opus Dei leaders favor.

Clarence and Ginny Thomas appear to be Opus Dei adherents. Antonin Scalia was Opus Dei. Amy Coney Barrett appears to be a member of two cults, one them Opus Dei. Brett Kavanaugh may also be Opus Dei — or maybe Opus Dei just paid for his house. Newt Gingrich was converted by his devout Opus Dei Catholic woman on the side (later his wife and an ambassador to the Vatican) with help from telegenic lens louse priest John McCloskey for whose sexual misconduct the prelature had to fork over more almost a million dollars in damages, at Washington D.C.’s Opus Dei outpost Catholic Information Center.

As for the United States Bishops who are Opus Dei: Cardinal Timothy Dolan appears to be is an adherent but is too mendacious and venal to announce it. He’s certainly a de facto cooperator of some kind. Mediocre intellectual and grifter at the helm of Word on Fire, Robert Barron is Opus Dei. Have a look, here, at the praise priests like Cardinal Wilton Gregory and other bishops (including the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin) have heaped upon Opus Dei. Why? Opus Dei is where the money is in the United States Catholic Church.

Former FBI head, Italian National and lawyer to Russian oligarchs Louis Freeh, whom Dolan contracted to “clear” his friend Nicholas DiMarzio of multiple child rape allegations, is reputed to be an Opus Dei Catholic. DiMarzio, the emeritus bishop of Brooklyn in New York City may have been brought into the Opus Dei fold by his allegedly Opus Dei bestie Monsignor Kieran Harrington who runs DiMarzio’s expensive vanity project (second) cathedral in Brooklyn and holds a communications post in the Vatican.

Jose Gomez, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and prelate in charge of the Diocese of Los Angeles is an Opus Dei bishop. This vicious, racist address Gomez delivered in Madrid in November of 2021 well encapsulates his Opus Dei politics. Diocese of Rockville Centre (New York) top bishop, John O. Barres, like Gomez, attended the Opus Dei seminary in Rome. The Vatican Secretary of State (considered a papabile — in line to perhaps become pope) is likely Opus Dei. There are at least three prelates in the College of Cardinals who admit to being Opus Dei adherents and probably several who do not. Just about a week after news of allegations of sexual harassment in the Word of Fire operation broke, Pope Francis the promoted the softly white supremacist Word Of Fire youtube sensation-cum-huckster Robert Barron. Barron is thought to be an Opus Dei adherent. (Listen to his youtube talk on “taking the dicipline.” ) Pope Francis, being South American himself might be expected to be more responsive to the menace Opus Dei is given the damage the prelature’s disregard for the poor and damage the wealthy prelature has done to both Catholics and the Catholic Church in Latin America, but he has not shrunk from appointing Opus Dei bishops.

Discipline props

Despite that the public face of Opus Dei optics incorporates women in professional guises, the complementarity message in Opus Dei is strong. Women are supported to some degree in working outside the home — e.g. Callista Gingrich and Amy Coney Barrett — but a kind of patrician-plebeian-slave kind of of hierarchy appears to characterize the way Opus Dei members, women included, are managed. It was in Opus Dei that a practice called “cleaning ministries” for women which has taken hold outside of Opus Dei appears to have been gestated. In these ministries women clean churches and priests offices and residences as offerings to God. Cleaning ministries have taken hold throughout churches in the United States. These “cleaning ministries” have been a boon to. those men who must otherwise pay women to clean their churches and residences.

In the United States, the Opus Dei’s focus appears to fall less upon converting individuals and more upon building a world wide-team that works to bring secular law in line with Roman Catholic religious law. The prelature in the United States has slowly, steadily, and quasi-stealthily played the long game for the past twenty years. Opus Dei wants unrestricted capitalism, an end to marriage equality, contraception made illegal, religious schools supported by governments, and women subordinated, handmaid-style, to men.

With respect to the Supreme Court of the United States, Opus Dei’s “eyes” have been on the “prize” of overturning Roe v. Wade for a long time, but “the Work” is unlikely to stop now, engineers of the Opus Dei political project, e.g., Leonard Leo are smart enough to know that the religious freedom arguments will not hold and the theocracy Opus Dei hopes to establish will not be achieved unless the Supreme Court of the United States remains as duplicitous and corrupt— corrupted by neofascist appointees such as those Leonard Leo helped to install in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Opus Dei and the Federalist Society are thick as the thieves they are (I started to write about this alliance on Indie Theology about seven years ago when I noticed the overlap in their boards) Opus Dei has the support of many of the most powerful prelates in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. They control the most powerful Roman Catholic media outlet in the world. The Ivy League is crawling with them. They are on the wrong side of environmental issues, they champion unrestrained capitalism. They do little to contribute to the suffering of the poor. Worst of all, Catholics in the pews have been elevating them and amplifying Opus Dei as they overtake the Roman Catholic Church itself.

The water isn’t boiling yet, but it won’t be long until the frogs are well-done. American Catholics should refuse, in Christ, to be complicit in fascism. Mass is free. Boycott the Basket until they cleanse the temple.

MMS

June 25, 2022