{"id":6801,"date":"2012-01-08T20:03:07","date_gmt":"2012-01-08T20:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=6801"},"modified":"2012-01-08T20:03:07","modified_gmt":"2012-01-08T20:03:07","slug":"rick-santorum-opus-dei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/rick-santorum-opus-dei\/","title":{"rendered":"Rick Santorum & Opus Dei"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I touched the other day<\/a> on the fact that Rick Santorum had included Opus Dei in the list of organizations he chose to praise for the \u201cnew evangelization\u201d (he also included Regnum Christi, a group of which I had never previously heard, of which I\u2019ll write something in a later post), and I drew some criticism from one reader from saying that Opus Dei rang a \u201csomewhat sinister\u201d bell. His suspicion, quite clearly, was that I had been influenced by Dan Brown\u2019s distinctly dodgy narratives. Nothing could be further from the truth.<\/p>\n

Opus Dei certainly has some fine people in its ranks, but, as this recent post <\/a>from the Daily Telegraph<\/em>\u2019s Damian Thompson (a former editor of the Catholic Herald) demonstrates, there is something about this organization that does not feel, well, quite right:<\/p>\n

With all this phone hacking around, I think it\u2019s time electronic eavesdroppers had their own patron saint, don\u2019t you? As it happens, I have the perfect candidate: St Josemaria Escriv\u00e1, founder of Opus Dei, who died as recently as 1975 and was canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2002.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, I interviewed a distinguished priest who, as a young man, had been a member of Opus Dei and close associate of Escriv\u00e1. My jaw dropped when, half way through our conversation, he mentioned casually that \u201cThe Father\u201d had installed bugs in Opus\u2019s Rome headquarters in order to tape-record the conversations of visitors waiting to see him. I asked him how he knew.
\n\u201cBecause I helped him do it,\u201d came the reply.<\/p>\n

The Vatican refused to hear this priest\u2019s testimony when Escriv\u00e1 was being assessed for sainthood; conveniently, the role of Devil\u2019s Advocate had been abolished. Of course, all saints had flaws. It\u2019s just that you don\u2019t expect them to share the same ones as Richard Nixon (a far more sympathetic character than Escriv\u00e1, in my book).<\/p>\n

Anyway, the reason I\u2019m bringing up Opus Dei is that this controversial organisation \u2013 comically misrepresented in The Da Vinci Code but still secretive and slippery \u2013 is planning to open two independent secondary schools in south-east England.
\nOr, to adopt the official party line, a group of parents, some of whom happen to belong to Opus Dei, are opening schools \u201cinspired by the teachings\u201d of St Josemaria. Hmm. Don\u2019t get me wrong, Escriv\u00e1 was undoubtedly holy, but he was also vain, a snob and a spiritual control freak. While some of his followers are exemplary Christians, the saturnine ethos of Opus bothers many Catholics, including some outstanding clergy.<\/p>\n

A priest I know used to hear the confessions of primary school children at an Opus Dei school. \u201cIt was disturbing,\u201d he told me. \u201cI\u2019d hear seven-year-olds riddled with adult scruples, worried that their disposition towards the sacrament wasn\u2019t sufficiently pure and their sin wouldn\u2019t be forgiven.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that a teacher at an Opus school had boasted to him that she\u2019d persuaded a little boy to give up his teddy bear for Lent. \u201cHow on earth is that going to help the child \u2013 to take away something so comforting and normal as part of his so-called spiritual development?\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed. And one might also ask: how are Opus Dei \u201cnumeraries\u201d (full members) supposed to develop healthy relationships with the opposite sex when men and women are forbidden to travel in the same car? Even if the man is a priest? One Opus centre has installed two sets of sliding doors between the kitchen and the dining room. This allows serving women to leave food in the small space between the rooms so male diners aren\u2019t \u201cdistracted\u201d by female flesh.<\/p>\n

Opus Dei in England has taken advantage of the bumbling of the Catholic bishops. (Think L\/Cpl Jones in a mitre.) Its fingerprints are all over a new PR outfit called \u201cCatholic Voices\u201d, it has a growing presence in a certain seminary, and before the papal visit it even managed to appoint a thickly accented Spaniard as spokesman for the beatification of John Henry Newman.<\/p>\n

Opus always hits back when it\u2019s criticised, so no doubt there will be the usual carefully worded and disingenuous denial of everything I\u2019ve just told you. Meanwhile, its recruiters will keep gatecrashing smart Catholic parties, scanning the crowd for attractive young professionals who can be invited to \u201cinformal\u201d drinks and then plugged into E-meters. No, sorry, that\u2019s the Scientologists. But it\u2019s an easy mistake to make.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Rick Santorum\u2019s support for Opus Dei is more than a matter than one line in a problematic article. If, for example, we turn to a 2002 repor<\/a>t from the National Catholic Reporter we find this:<\/p>\n

The extent of the power and prestige of Opus Dei in today\u2019s Catholic church was on full display during a high profile Jan. 7-11 congress here marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of founder Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer.<\/p>\n

The event drew 1,200 people from 57 countries, with an impressive number of church and state VIPs on hand, and was streamed live on the Internet. It occurred less than a month after Pope John Paul II recognized a miracle that clears the way for Escriva to become a saint.<\/p>\n

One point that became clear during the Congress was how Opus Dei-inspired politicians tend to apply Escriva\u2019s emphasis on finding holiness in work. A key theme of the gathering was the need for \u201ccoherence\u201d between faith and politics, which in practical terms means taking one\u2019s cues from the Catholic church on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and cloning.<\/p>\n

American VIPs included Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J., a member of Opus Dei\u2019s Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, and U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania. Santorum told NCR he is not a member of Opus Dei, but an admirer of Escriva…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Santorum is, of course, fully entitled to those views, but the electorate is fully entitled to ask how they would affect his behavior as president. Writing in the 2007 article I cited in a previous post<\/a>, Santorum argued as follows: <\/p>\n

[Romney] also said that \u201ca person should not be rejected . . . because of his faith.\u201d His supporters say it is akin to rejecting Barack Obama because he is black. But Obama was born black; Romney is a Mormon because he accepts the beliefs of the Mormon faith. This permits us, therefore, to make inferences about his judgment and character, good or bad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fair enough, and the same can be said about Santorum\u2019s admiration for Opus Dei. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I touched the other day on the fact that Rick Santorum had included Opus Dei in the list of organizations he chose to praise for the \u201cnew evangelization\u201d (he also included Regnum Christi, a group of which I had never … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15,711],"tags":[740,620,776],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6801"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6812,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801\/revisions\/6812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}