Dissimulation in Opus Dei

Saint Josemaria Escriva (1902-1975)

DISSIMULATION IN OPUS DEI

There are at least two levels of communications in Opus Dei:

- Public communications, especially Escriva’s writings

- Private, as a rule secret communications, much of it allegedly from Escriva’s lips

Deception and manipulation is entailed because the two channels are not convergent and in fact the latter, private communications, is rife with questionable and objectionable ideas and statements. Often, they are practical directives or theological claims, including vaunted claims of a divinely inspired charism. This corpus of information should be made public and in particular subjected to theological scrutiny.

Opus Dei’s practice of maintaining a secret store of internal documentation is objectionable because what should properly be the subject of public scrutiny is kept occult, often in a manner involving deception. Deception is a defining feature of cults, an attribute that in conjunction with other harmful elements causes psychological and spiritual damage to adherents and recruits.

RIGHT TO INFORMED CONSENT

Informed consent is a legal doctrine that has been developed by the courts over a number of years. The doctrine of informed consent may have been derived from the Nuremberg Code, which required that doctors obtain the voluntary informed consent of the subject prior to conducting medical experimentation. The Informed Consent Doctrine requires that medical doctors provide a patient with all relevant information about a proposed procedure or treatment prior to obtaining the consent of the patient to carry out the procedure or treatment. Four items of information that must be provided are:

- the nature of the procedure

- the risks

- the benefits

- the availability of alternative treatment (including no treatment) and the risks and benefits thereof.

Informed consent protects the patient by providing him/her with complete information on which to make an informed decision. Informed consent usually also protects the doctor from financial liability (with exceptions) provided that the procedure is properly executed according to the prevailing standard of care and without negligence. The adult patient’s power to consent is very broad and includes the power to consent to such extreme operations as sexual reassignment. Inadequate provision of information, however, may invalidate the consent.

http://www.nocirc.org/consent/

The Opus Dei practice of withholding vital or critical information about the organization—sometimes for years, even decades—from the members and from those who are asked to join the organization, in a manner involving systemic deception for the purpose of manipulation and blackmail, violates the right to informed consent of the members and of those invited to join the organization.

OPUS DEI AS DIVINE REVELATION (2016) BY E. B. E.

A book long, long overdue. This information should have been made public at least 40 years ago.

Excerpt—it is an English translation from the Spanish, not fully corrected, so I have made appropriate corrections of my own:

begin [Opus Dei] spiritual formation is like a serum through which Opus Dei introduces its own ideology that has nothing to do with Catholic doctrine, e.g. “theology of the boat,” the figure of “the Father,” etc. end (page 273)

Opus Dei indoctrinates its members in an elaborate, highly involved system of belief and practice that is occult. Documentation of this doctrine is hidden even from the members themselves. In Opus Dei the theological claim is insistently propounded that this doctrine is infallible, a charism of the Holy Spirit conveyed through his divinely elected agent, Saint Josemaria Escriva, in this regard infallible as well. We know this theological claim is unfounded and insupportable for three reasons principally: (1) religious or spiritual charisms are not infallible unless the Roman Catholic Church declares them so, and it never does, at least not directly but rather incidentally, that is, indirectly in relation to infallible doctrines, (2) so-called charisms of Opus Dei are glaringly contradictory and/or perniciously inconsistent, and (3) said charisms are demonstrably harmful, spiritually and psychologically, in part because they are unethical, demonstrably as well.

begin The prelature hides some documents and releases others only in Latin: in summary, in one way or another, Opus Dei withholds significant information.

Why does Opus Dei do that? At least, for one simple reason, apparently: many less people would join Opus Dei otherwise. If the prelature did not hide information, it would be well known. The candidate would know exactly how Opus Dei works and what the requirements and demands are. The reality is that no one knows what Opus Dei demands until it is too late. …The question is this: Does Opus Dei mislead? Is the misleading a mechanism to recruit faithful? Too many people realize that the prelature of Opus Dei is not what it claims to be and for that reason, they abandon the organization. …in some way, Opus Dei uses those people and those people feel spiritually abused. end (pages 47 to 48)

Oldest mask in the world, circa 7,000 BCE