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Editor’s Comment on Opus Dei Over Time
Michael D. Langone, Ph.D.
Opus Dei has been one of the most controversial
new movements within the Catholic Church. It
has had many detractors, including Alberto
Moncada in this issue (Moncada, 2006), and many
defenders.
One of its most important supporters
was the late Pope John Paul II, during whose
papacy Opus Dei’s founder, Josemaría Escrivá,
was canonized. I know devoted Catholics who are
highly critical of, for example, the Legion of
Christ (another controversial organization
within the Catholic Church), but who support
Opus Dei. I know other Catholics who have
little good to say about Opus Dei. And I know
nonCatholics who look upon Opus Dei as a
disturbing oddity, a religious anachronism.
It is impossible
to evaluate Opus Dei objectively when one relies
only on anecdotal accounts, such as those that I
have heard in my limited experience. So far as
I have been able to determine, there isn’t a
single scientific study that systematically
examines random samples of members and/or former
members of Opus Dei. As with other
controversial groups, this lack of scientific
evidence sets the stage for claims and
counterclaims as to the “badness” of the group.
Such disputes become especially vexing when a
group’s defenders acknowledge excesses or
problems, but point to instances in which these
problems or excesses do not occur. This
“nobody-is-perfect” defense may be honest and
valid in some cases. But in others it may be a
diversion providing cover for indefensible
practices tolerated or even encouraged by the
group in question.
There are a large
number of critical testimonies from former
members of Opus Dei, sometimes eloquent reports
of problems and excesses. The Spanish language
Web site opuslibros.org, for example, lists
hundreds of posted testimonies, including 18
posted in June 2006 alone. This seems like a
lot of testimonies. However, Opus Dei has a
worldwide membership of 85,000 and 164,000
“cooperators,” i.e., supporters (Allen, 2005a).
When placed beside the multitude of people who
support Opus Dei, the complaints of a few
hundred former members may seem insignificant
and may even be overlooked by observers trying
to evaluate the organization as a whole. They
may conclude that the organization simply isn’t
all that bad.
Many people who
follow the line of reasoning advanced thus far
stop at this point. Stopping here, however,
constitutes an affront to the many people who
have placed their personal pain before the
public and to the probably much larger number of
distressed people who are too diffident or
frightened to “go public.” A grocer may not
worry about a handful of eggs broken during a
shipment of hundreds of boxes. However,
Christians (and anybody else who claims to care
about people) ought to be concerned about a
handful of broken souls. The pain of one person
is not negated by the joy of 100.
That is why I
believe it is important to ensure that the
victims of “excesses and problems” are not
ignored. Their individual testimonies may not
be sufficient to justify a blanket indictment of
a large organization. But their voices should
be heard. John Allen, who seems to say that
Opus isn’t anywhere near the threat some make it
out to be, seems to agree with this point:
On the other
hand, the sheer number of critical ex-members
around the world suggests their reports are more
than isolated cases. Sometimes Opus Dei leaders
have exerted undue pressure on people to join,
have not responded adequately to legitimate
questions, have demanded too much personal
disclosure and have insisted too much on
obedience to superiors. This seems less so today
than in earlier eras, but the potential is still
there. Such behavior should be no surprise,
because any group made up of passionate
believers can sometimes shade off into excess.
The on-going challenge for Opus Dei, as for
other bodies in the church, is to ensure that
accountability and transparency are built into
the system; Pope John Paul II said in 1984 that
the church should be a “house of glass where all
can see what is happening,” an exhortation that
applies to Opus Dei as well. (Allen, 2005a)
Alberto Moncada, the author
of the following article believes that Allen has
been too “soft” on Opus Dei and recommends other
books over Allen (Fortes Texeira & Fernandez
Silva, 2003; Mazery & Mazery, 2003).
Moncada’s article briefly examines how Opus Dei
has changed over time and how the organization’s
cultic dynamics have negatively affected its
members. The paper affirms those victims who,
like John Allen, call for transparency and
accountability from Opus Dei.
References
Allen,
John. (2005, December 16).
Q & A on
Opus Dei. National Catholic
Reporter (online).
http://nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/word121605.htm
(See Joseph Szimhart review of this book
here.)
Fortes Texeira, Dario, &
Fernández Silva, Marcos. (2003). Opus Dei, Os
Bastidores. Brasil, Verus.
Mazery, Benedicte, & Mazery,
Patrize. (2003). L'Opus Dei" Une Eglise au
Cœur de l´Eglise. Paris: Flammarion.
Moncada, Alberto. (2006).
Opus Dei Over time.
ICSA e-Newsletter, 5(2).. |
