The Coordinated Global Assault on Opus Dei

Opus Dei critics are obsessed with corporal mortification, the practice whereby Catholics embrace sufferings large and small for the sake of spiritual advance. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Leave that tiny morsel on the plate no matter how much you love it. Pause for 30 seconds before digging into that plate of steak and potatoes.

They especially recoil in disgust at certain instruments of mortification, specifically something called the cilice, a small chain with inward-facing tines that some in Opus Dei wrap around their thigh for a few hours a day. The cilice does not puncture the skin. It is a matter of discomfort, the purpose of which is to offer a sacrifice for yourself and others. It is also to train the mind mastery over the body. 

Even the unchurched know there is a battle between spirit and body and that we cannot give in to the animal urges of the body. Otherwise, we’d be fat sybarites lounging on couches, eating bonbons, and being stroked by concubines. Maybe not that, but you get the idea; the body seeks satiation, but the mind knows what is better—which, in this case, is rising in interior perfection. 

The unreligious or the anti-religious are appalled when religious folk make the body suffer for something greater. These same folks think it heroic when people work out hours a day to get in shape. They think it is amazing that someone will hit a tennis ball for hours until their fingers bleed. We thought it was pretty cool when Ringo Starr shouted at the end of “Helter Skelter,” “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!” They marvel at long-distance runners who collapse after a marathon, muscles twitching. They respect professional cyclists whose legs excruciatingly burn and burn and burn as they climb 14+ miles per hour straight up the Alpe d’Huez at theTour de France. 

After intense practices in high school basketball, we ran wind sprints back and forth, back and forth, 20 times. Guys vomited into trash cans. We thought nothing of it. 

But as soon as a spiritual athlete dons the same practice—physical suffering, no matter how minor, for a spiritual advance, suddenly it is strange, freakish, wicked, medieval, and cultish.

There is a coordinated global attack on the Personal Prelature of Opus Dei for these practices and much else. One book has appeared; two or three more are on the way. 

The leader of the pack seems to be formerly respected financial journalist Gareth Gore, who has made Church- and Opus Dei-hate something of a cottage industry. His 𝕏 feed is nothing but Opus Dei hate. At roughly 7,000 copies, his book appears not to have made back his sizable advance from Simon and Schuster, but there he is on 𝕏, orchestrating people all over the world to tell of their disappointments and hurts at the hands of the evil cult, Opus Dei. 

Any field of endeavor across the world will have former adherents bitter that things did not work out for them. Horror stories abound about marriage, the military, government service, pop stardom, and political movements. We live in an age of complaint and victimhood with an eager industry of gossip ready to publish all of it, no matter how outlandish.  We live in an age of complaint and victimhood with an eager industry of gossip ready to publish all of it, no matter how outlandish. Tweet This

A largely out of work middle-aged actor named Tim Pocock appeared 16 years ago as Scott Summers in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. After that, he has mostly done television. Even that is drying up. On the cusp of 40, his career may be petering out. Time for a tell-all about his school years as a gay boy in an evil school run by Opus Dei. 

Pocock said he was made fun of because he was gay and because he was a singer, which is weird because Opus Dei schools put great stock in singing. He said his time at Redfield school in Australia was a “living hell.” His complaint is lodged equally against the school and his parents. Sound familiar? 

He explains, “Confession was part of our religious periods, with each child being sent off one by one to make their reconciliation.” The horror. The horror. However, anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with Opus Dei knows that confession is not forced. He says the priest behind the screen tried super hard to figure out who was confessing. This does not pass the smell test. 

One woman complains that an Opus Dei school taught her that masturbation is bad and that pornography can “put holes in your brain.” Without a doubt she is referring to scientific studies that show how the brain pathways are changed by heavy viewing of pornography. None of these people seem to care that children in public schools are taught perverse sexual practices, often with illustrations. They would probably approve. After all, it is basic Christian ideas they are rejecting, and they most likely accept the dogmas of the new Church of Sexual Desire. 

There is, in all this, a full-scale assault on the utterly beautiful vocation of Numerary Assistant. These are the women who take care of Opus Dei centers for men and women, cooking and cleaning. Their vocation is no different than any other in Opus Dei: to find God in everyday life and help others to find Him, too. In their case, this is done through the home arts. 

The amazing thing about their work is that it is totally hidden. They do not wear habits like nuns because that is not what they are. They are utterly unidentifiable as they move through their day. Other than passing notes of requests and instructions, there is no contact between them and the residents. They do this work without praise; they do it for their love of Christ alone. The vicious critics call this slavery; they say these amazing, holy women are not paid, which is false. 

Critics say that these women are conned into this vocation. A former Numerary Assistant from Ireland has a new book coming out in which she makes these preposterous charges. She says she was forced into this vocation. She makes the now familiar complaint about corporal mortification, which, by the way, is an ancient practice in the Church. 

This woman came out of an Opus Dei home arts school. These, according to critics like Gareth Gore, are no more than grooming factories for slave labor and trafficking. These schools for the home arts exist all over the world. They teach young women in need marketable and marriageable skills in cooking, cleaning, and keeping a home. Their graduates go on to cook in Michelin-star restaurants. Others go on to marriage and family. And some get the call to become members of Opus Dei. 

Gore and others have made the charge that these women have been “trafficked.” That loaded word often means trafficked by cartels, and this is what they want you to think. And are members of Opus Dei sometimes assigned from city to city and even country to country? 

I dare say that hardly any of the Numeraries at our local center of Opus Dei in Reston, Virginia, are actually from Reston or even from Virginia. They are from all over. Go down to any local corporation and ask those who work there if they are from the area where they work. You will, not surprisingly, find that people move. Companies move people. The military assigns people around the world. The idea that a person moving is tantamount to trafficking indicts our entire society because we live in a highly mobile world. This is not “trafficking.” Rather, it is moving to fill a need or a desire. 

But any stick is sufficient to bash Opus Dei. 

The critics are hoping against hope that the new pope will throttle Opus Dei. As proof, they show that one of his first meetings was with the prelate of Opus Dei. “New Pope Orders Opus Dei to Reform,” screamed the headlines. 

Critics may be disappointed. Pope Leo knows Opus Dei very well. The two previous bishops in his Peruvian diocese were Opus Dei. Opus Dei bishops founded the seminary in his diocese. For the past five years, he presided at the annual Mass in his diocese for St. Josemaría Escrivá. His two private secretaries were priests connected to Opus Dei. He knows Opus Dei as a treasure to the Church and the world. And it is.