"We Came, We Saw, God Conquered." Do Leonard Leo and the Opus Dei New Evangelizers Believe in Jesus At All?
Leonard Leo
Doctrine over Person. Do Opus Dei Pols Have Any Interest in Jesus. or is Jesus a Means to Their End?
As I looking over some of what I have written on the various incursions of Opus Dei into mainstream Catholicism, United States government and our educational institutions this week and these questions arose: Do Opus Dei adherents in politics who militate to impose their Roman Catholic doctrine and worldview on the people of the United States actually devout? Or do they perform devotion in the service of achieving political ends? Is Christ central to their project or a means to an end? Do the United States bishops submit to Opus Dei for the (literal) payoffs alone? Do Catholics in the pews care about the fascist origins of the sect (Opus Dei) which has managed to command so much control over their / our nation and church or is it political apathy which leads them to submit uncritically to the increasing domination of the main of their church by Opus Dei? Is Leonard Leo a Christ follower at all? Or is he making use of Christ?
Leonard Leo gave the speech (below) in September of 2022 on the occasion of his receiving a “New Evangelization” award from the Catholic Information Center (CIC), an Opus Dei outpost located in Washington D.C., a ten minute walk away from the White House. The Catholic Information Center is D. C.’s Opus’ Dei headquarters, in a sense. It’s “St. Josemaría Escrivá Chapel is the closest Tabernacle to the White House,” and operates a “Catholic intellectual hub that serves professionals in and around the DC metro area” and offers
”Catholics spiritual, intellectual, and professional formation to the women and men working in our nation's capital.”
The Vibe is More Caesar than Christ.
Leo did not win that “New Evangelization” prize for beatitudinal conduct. He won it for filling the right-wing Catholic crusade coffers with cash, for overturning Roe v. Wade, and for using that cash to stack the Supreme Court of the United States with justices with Roman Catholic integralist leanings who would in time roll back other reproductive rights, target marriage equality, “woke ideology” etc. Leo’s short speech (below) is worth watching because it offers clues about the way this integralist brigade lies about its projects, whitewashes both American and world history, fetishizes imperialism, whinges hysterically about anti-Catholic persecution, fantasizes about its esoteric and unique access to God’s moods and desires, and cuts the Christ out of Christianity.
One of the reasons there’s so little talk of Jesus in this and much of their talk is that for many of these filthy rich little men, Jesus is both an asset and a liability. This contingent is all about Holy Crusades church not Sermon the Mount church. Leo drops the word “Gospel” in this speech, but integralist Catholics are much more interested Medieval Catholic law than in the substance of Jesus of Nazareth’s preaching. In Leonard Leo’s “New Evangelization” acceptance speech (below), the name of guy at the center of Christianity and Catholicism barely comes up.
Truly, the vibe is far more Caesar than Christ.
“New Evangelization” was “Saint” Pope John Paul II’s “baby.” New Evangelization makes use of new means to increase the fold. John Paul II was a telegenic Polish thespian who knew the value of performance and mass media. He knew that television, films, and radio could reach more Catholics than priests at Sunday pulpits could. John Paul II was also the first pope since Pius XII to give Opus Dei a really big boost. John Paul II normalized Opus Dei, and in a sense, Opus Dei ran with the “New Evangelization” ball because “New Evangelization” campaign and Opus Dei were mission-aligned. The cause for beautification of Josemaría de Balaguer y Albás, Opus Dei’s founder, began during John Paul II’s pontifcate and Escrivá was made a saint in 1992. The manner of this cannonization was questioned, seen as suspect and coercive even by Opus Dei leaders, but John Paul II loved Opus Dei and his bishops went along.
The United States Bishops, for reasons economic glommed right onto “New Evangelization.” They believe New Evangelization can help to stanch the hemorrhage of Catholics from the pews. Bringing up the number is important also, so using “New Evangelization” modalities to transmit more sophsticated messaging cradle Catholics who have gone astray to return to the pews is a good game plan. That the term is signals Opus Dei integralism doesn’t seem to matter. The Unite States Bishops and Opus Dei are pretty much mission aligned: grow the customer base, and accumulate wealth.
The stealth goal of “New Evangelization,” as integralists see it, is to bring secular and civil law into line with Roman Catholic religious law and teaching. The ultimate aim — don’t expect “New Evangelization” zealots to admit this ! — is for all people, in “the fullness of time” to be Roman Catholics serving God. A great deal of pewsitters’ Sunday collection money helps to pay for “New Evangelization” promo and flackery. Archdioceses and dioceses led by Opus Dei bishops have New Evangelization offices. The one in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles operates as de facto Opus Dei center.
In his “New Evangelization” award acceptance speech Leo defines “New Evangelization” thus: “proclaiming Christ to all people.” He adds that Pope Benedict XVI ‘deepened” it (theologically). and Pope Francis “broadened its outreach to the peripheries of the world.” Who are the people at the peripheries? Women, queer folks, and progressives who embrace woke ideology — Leonard Leo’s targets. Because even “vile secularists’” money is green.
New Evangelization: Code for a Call to Arms
For several years now, on various Indie Theology platforms I have argued that the term “New Evangelization,” which to the ordinary Christian can certainly seem a benign enough term, is not benign at all. It’s code. It’s a call to arms. Leonard Leo’s September “New Evangelization” talk is worth watching, for it summarizes well summarizes bill of goods integralist Catholic politicians are hawking. It also reveals, in a way I find surprising every time I encounter it, the extent to which the integralism crusade is not about God. It’s more worldview and empire.
Leo et al are interested in domination. They militate to use Catholicism to justify unrestrained greed, white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia. It is a mistake, however, to think that integralists don’t want women, Black folks, gay people and the the folks Leo describes as the “progressive KKK” in the pews. Even these folks bring up the number.
The stratification and two faces of Opus Dei figures into this also. As with many cults, Opus Dei embraces extremes of domination and servitude. Some Opus Dei adherents are encouraged to accumulate and enjoy great wealth. Opus Dei’s Caucasian caste of educated men in positions of power, men like Newt and rapey Justice “I Like Beer,” aren’t giving up their lives to clean Opus Dei offices. They aren’t giving up all income, save but what they need to survive, tothe Prelature.” They’re the generals. This is how fascism works. Opus Dei has its roots in literal fascism.
There’s a reason Leonard Leo is a “behind the scenes” guy.
There’s a reason Leonard Leo is a “behind the scenes” guy. Much of his “New Evangelization” Award speech is a giant, artless whine: We, and not members of other faiths than our own, know exactly what God’s desires are. Barbarians, secularists and bigots are mean to us. Much of his assailing of “liberals” takes a “I’m rubber, you’re glue” form. Critics of Catholicism, even conscientious ones are “Progressive KKK.” It’s full-on cringe to hear billionaire Leo whinge about people protesting outside his house given the violent agenda he peddles. But even the whining is strategic. Leonard Leo and his brothers in Christofascism may have enough money to buy the Supreme Court of the United States, but Leo makes clear in this particular address, that he knows the value of pretending to be the David in this David and Goliath struggle. He’s smart enough to see that in many ways the mainstream institutional Roman Catholic Church is imploding, so he is careful to remind his audience that the Latin Church has come up from behind before. He points to the Polish King John Sobieski III who, after having defended Vienna against Muslims 1863, said: “We Came, We Saw, God Conquered.”
King John Sobieski III
Leo signals to the base: We have God’s private number.
In this short video about the “New Evangelization” prize and Leonard Leo, traitorous former Attorney General William Barr is prominently featured in this chilling footage: He praises the New Evangelization honoree for his fatherly devotion to one of his children, a child born with a serious and, tragically so, ultimately fatal, disability. Barr’s description of Leo’s devotion to her — and Leo’s putative belief that people with disability deserve to live full, happy lives would have been powerfully stirring were it not Barr waxing poetic about Leo.
As I watched and listened, I remembered that Leo and his ilk have led the charge to slash federal food programs for indigent children; have targeted public schools, which are often the best and only affordable resource for children with disability; have sought to slash federal disability programs; have forced disabled children who become pregnant via rape to give birth; and have militated to cut social programs for veterans and the aged. The integralist argument, is that “charitable organizations” and the private sector can take care of folks in need, that we can rely on “the church” — the same Roman Catholic church that is currently defending a church wide clergy child rape crisis and cover-up. That church. What Leo really believes think wealthy children with disability should lead full happy lives.
On one hand, this billionaire Holy Crusades fetishist’s whining about the “vile secularists” protesting outside his mansion is bizarre and paradoxical, especially given Leo’s medieval vision of of imperial Catholicism and affiliation with a Catholic cult that enshrines self-mortification, submission and corporal sacrifice. On the other hand, Opus Dei is stratified. Billionaries sit fat and happy in the higher levels of the Opus Dei hierarchy. They may or may not get up in the morning and strap on the cilice as they utter the word “Serviam” (Let us serve), but they aren’t cleaning Opus Dei offices for 12 hours and not getting paid.
Trafficking, Misogyny, Greed
In 2021, 42 women who claim to have been exploited by Opus Dei filed a case against Opus Dei in the Vatican. Lucia Gimenez one of the claimants, who said the following, got it right:
“They say, ‘we are going to help poor people,’ but it’s a lie; they don’t help, they keep (the money) for themselves…”
These women, who claim they often worked 12 hour shifts in Opus Dei cleaning ministries in Argentina, Paraguay and Kazakhstan and weren’t fairly compensated, weren’t given the educational opportunity they were promised, and appear to have been trafficked by Opus Dei. They likely saved prelature a lot of money on cleaning costs, but were not enjoying much of of a taste of “the prelature’s” enormous wealth. “In Christ,” they were deceived. They were paid in the currency of “sacrifice.” Exploitation was their fascist supervisors’ charism.
AP, November 12, 2021 AP piece, a spokesperson for Opus Dei admits that in the past, pay schedules for Opus Dei workers were informally arranged as such arrangements might be in a family, but the truth is Opus Dei doesn’t really have an “orphans and widows” ethos. Money given to “the Prelature” for the most part goes back into “the Prelature” to finance the growth of “the Prelature.” Once one begins to notice this feature, one sees it in many Opus Dei oriented organizations. Bishop Robert Barron’s Word on Fire offers a good example of this.
Opus Dei does not really hide its disinclination to fund anything but itself. Contributions to Opus Dei go to schools, public relations, and causes for canonization of Opus Dei favorites, and opening new Opus Dei “study centers.” With respect to schools: Watch this compelling, horrifying ABC Australia footage about schools that use stealth Opus Dei’s teachers to recruit teen girls to serve as numeraries, to discourage them from obtaining the HPV vaccination and to maintain secret files about the children and adolescents in the schools.
God Taps Trump for Theocracy Team
I discovered Leonard Leo’s existence quite accidentally while beginning about eight years ago to sort out the Catholic involvement in (what we then called) “alt-right” politics. I had never heard of him but it seemed like every conservative Catholic group I probed had Leonard Leo on their board, or forum speakers schedules. I was active in a fairly progressive, ethnically and racially diverse, relatively “gay friendly” Roman Catholic parish at the time, but became interested in Opus Dei when it became clear that the bishop of my diocese and his secretary were Opus Dei adherents.
When I began to poke around online at Catholic and right wing political organizations during the first Trump presidential campaign, I sightly surprised to see that so many of my fellow Catholics groups were on Team Trump. I was focused more at the time on “trad” (Traditional Latin Mass) Catholics and other fringe groups than on Opus Dei, but started to notice that while Opus Dei shared some of the spirit of trad Catholic groups, Opus Dei was on a different track. There is some overlap between Opus Dei and other traditional Catholic groups, but Opus Dei casts a wide Duc in Altum net. Opus Dei neither protests nor goes to the mat for Traditional Latin Mass, never goes against the pope, and has little interest in the smaller, purer church many for which many doctrinally and politically conservative Catholics yearn. Opus Dei wants money and to increase the fold. They are not really interested in glory; they’re interested in power.
In recent years I have noticed that even Jesuit and Franciscan orders often join forces with Opus Dei under the banner of unity. (I hope to write about this in more depth soon.) University of Stubenville, Ohio is a good place to begin to notice the Opus Deification of an Order. Some liberal Catholics studying Opus Dei downplay their pernicious character. Some have succumbed to their optics campaign. Some embrace denial, seem to get paid off, hoodwinked or seduced into thinking “the Prelature” is benign — a new, kinder and gentler, and a little bit less fascist, Opus Dei. Even “liberal” Pope Francis has given at least three bishops I can think of, off the top of my head, and likely more, dioceses to run.
The Million-dollar Blue-eyed Lens Louse Baby Priest
The blue-eyed lens louse priest who converted the execrable Newt Gingrich to Catholicism ran the Catholic Information Center about 1998 and 2003 caught my attention long before he was forced out following a sex abuse case that cost the prelature almost a million dollars. I knew every time I saw him on Meet the Press he was a sychopant, as secular media “go to” priests so often are. I noticed that he had studied/worked in banking before becoming a priest. I still believe / believed that was generally a bad sign in a priest — as well it was something of an Opus Dei tell. Evangelization at any cost is generally their game. McCloskey talked about his free market economic philosophy in a 2015 New York Times interview:
Then, when it was over, Father McCloskey surprised me by asking that I not quote him. Opus Dei would not let him speak on the record.
In 2019, news that McCloskey had groped a woman he was counseling and thereafter absolved her for those sins. McCloskey’s misconduct cost the prelature almost a million dollars.
Opus Dei was founded by Spanish priest Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás in 1928. In 1933, God, according to Josemaría Escrivá, informed the man who started “The Work” that women could belong to Opus Dei. While some Opus Dei Catholics deny this, Opus Dei came to prominence under (Hitler ally) Francisco Franco’s 34-year dictatorship in Spain. Franco himself was an adherent. About a decade after the Spanish Civil War ended, Pope Pius XII gave Opus Dei headquarters in Rome. Opus Dei remained somewhat fringe until Pope John Paul II began to legitimize and normalize the prelature. This while almost ignoring the mass clergy child rape and the coverup thereof happening under his watch. One third of John Paul II’s bishops voted to canonize the founder of “The Work.”
They’re Everywhere
The optics strategy in the last few decades has been designed to debunk the image of Opus Dei as a fascist elitist religious organization. “New Evangelization” has been critical to this rebranding, and has helped the “new” Opus Dei to spread. The Eternal World Television Network is now lousy with Opus Dei. Several Catholic news outlets are either dominated by Opus Dei orientation or have begun to lean right so as to get heir mitts on Opus Dei coin. Catholic University which used to be a legitimate university when it not serving as a diploma mill for bishops, is permeated by Opus Dei. The Franciscan University of Stubenville is a bastion of Opus Dei influence. The Hallow App is lousy with Opus Dei crusaders. Opus Dei and other traditionally-minded Catholic groups seem to be concentrating, rapidly infiltrating University of Notre Dame at present. I could go on and on, and one can believe me or not, but the truth is that, in part because the United States is so hospitable to greed and neofascism, the United States provides fertile ground for the growth of Opus Dei. The entire institutional Roman Catholic Church in the United States is a frog that’s been to simmering quite a while in the Christofascist flavors of Opus Dei soup for the past 40 years.
Opus Dei emerged out of the shadows under John Paul II and began the work of bring about a City of a Roman Catholic God on earth by infiltrating financial institutions, elite universities, Catholic media and the institutional Roman Catholic Church itself.
Opus Dei in recent years has become both more secretive and more open. When rumors that William Barr was an Opus Dei adherent leaked out around the time after he boiled the 448-page Mueller Report down to four pages, Opus Dei issued an announcement by which they announced that Barr was not a member of Opus Dei. Opus Dei was not necessarily lying about Barr. Its membership structure is designed to protect members and make it impossible to ascertain who the Opus Dei pols, judges, professors, bishops and media professionals are. There are several ways to be associated with Opus Dei. Opus Dei has categories of belonging for “associates,” “numeraries,” “supernumeraries,” and “cooperators.” Co-operators need not even be Christian! The cooperator category of belonging is interesting, because it is an outward sign of “the Prelature’s” “No scruples ethos.” Even someone who hates our Christian mission can be our friend if they stake us. A cooperator need not have any strong religious feeling at all.
It is easy to see how lawmakers, policy makers, judges etc. might find this category of belonging ideal. There’s no way to know whether Trump was an Opus Dei cooperator, but he could certainly have been one. If we learned anything from the involvement of Christofasists in the Trump presidency, it is that neofascists who have no interest in God can still be useful members of Team Theocracy. The cooperator designation is for them.
Shiny Happy Catholics. The Opus Dei Optic Plan Works! Get rid of those scruples
In August of this year, via a Motu Propio, Pope Francis tweaked the relationship of “the prelature” to the Roman Catholic institutional Church proper. Francis put the top Opus Dei cleric under the authority of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Clergy, and perhaps slightly weakened the power of that of the person in that position. Although it seemed to be a bit of gentle demotion and power reorganization, Opus Dei leadership may have been pleased with this shift, because their public relations campaign very much wants to recast “the Prelature” as seriously devout (versus fascist freaky and elitist). Pope Francis, despite his so-called “liberal” character, has not had an adversarial relationship with Opus Dei and appears to be undaunted by scruples when it comes to appointing Opus Dei bishops to run dioceses.
The Opus Dei optics strategy has been highly effective. It is warm and friendly by design. I think the depiction (TRIGGER WARNING) of the Opus Dei zealot in (the film) the Da Vinci Code catalyzed this. And the shift was good for business.
The testimonies individuals sharing stories of their fulfillment as Opus Dei adherents generally tend to be faintly ecstatic, and imprecise about what course exactly they are following, and how they know it’s the Jesus course. Over and over again in the The Way Escrivá stresses the need for believers to embrace a kind of “Nada te turbe” (First line of Teresa of Avila’s poem “Let nothing disturb you.”) There is plenty that is valuable to the seeker in the Teresa’s work, but the exhortation to forfeit control in The Way infantalizing is not about “giving it all up to God”; it’s about giving up discernment, conscience and “giving it all up” to the men at the helm of “the Prelature.” Escrivá writes: “Get rid of those scruples that deprive you of peace. — What takes away your peace of soul cannot come from God.”
Opus Dei stresses “Doctrine over person.”
“Obey, as an instrument obeys in the the hands of the artist, not stopping to consider the why it does this thing or the other.” The Way, Point 617.
It may seem puzzling to figure out how “devout Catholic” men like Barr and Leo found themselves helping to install and further empower a thieving, whoring, murderous insurrection-detonating, war wimp, baby-caging, democidal tax cheat traitor, with no genuine interest in God whatsoever but Escrivá No scruples, doctrine before persons covers it. Donald Trump was a person who possessed the means for pushing doctrine back into secular law. It was not necessary that Trump believe in that doctrine. He just had to be the willing instrument.
More On Opus Dei Misogyny
It goes without saying, perhaps, that the group which used its obscene wealth and muscle to strip so many, even non-Catholic, women, and women whose religions hold the right to obtain an abortion as sacrosanct, of their medical rights has a misogyny problem. Like any contemporary neofascist group smart enough to know that any good business model requires front office and “tokens” (women in professions) in order to appear just and up-to-date. You might see a mom in a lab coat on the cover of an Opus Dei publication, but that’s just optics. Opus Dei is sexist and misogynistic in the extreme.
Opus Dei admits freely that they have women whose whole, often celibate, lives are consecrated to cleaning Opus Dei premises:
Some women numeraries, called numerary assistants, choose to dedicate themselves professionally to housekeeping services in the centers of Opus Dei. Their work helps create a warm and inviting family atmosphere. St. Josemaría often stressed the importance of the work of the numerary assistants, because it contributes immensely to the fruitfulness of the apostolic activities carried out in Opus Dei centers.
“The Vocation to Opus Dei” December 2 2005
Ginny Thomas’s appreciation of her hubsand’s praying the Litany of Humility is said to have moved Ginny Thomas to convert to Catholicism. Opus Dei is her second experience of membership in a cult. Wouldn’t it be fine to see her relinguish her home and most of her possessions to strap on an apron every morning and clean for 12 hours each day for Jesus? It might even be enough, if she did it for the rest of her life, to clean up her soul.
MMS
Cambridge, MA
September 21, 2023
N.B. This is not an especially time-sensitive piece; however I want to note that I made an error in posting it about 2 weeks ago— failed to hit the final send button. I apologize. MMS