1:27
I was asked to write an article about the trip for Cronica, now Cronica is…an internal publication for the men’s section of Opus Dei…so I was asked to write it up I did I submitted my article and kind of forgot about it.
A while later maybe six months or so give or take a few months the article was published in Cronica, so I thought I’d check it out, and when I did I was surprised to find that the article that was published was really nothing like the article I had originally submitted. …They changed my article…I’m sure…my draft was terrible and needed to be thrown out…what stood out to me though about the article about the trip was that it just wasn’t very accurate. It was not really a fair description of the trip. It was much more…like pious it was much more beautiful…I don’t remember the exact details that gave me that impression. One thing that I do recall was I think the article mentioned that a few different guys who were on the trip were thinking about joining Opus day, and I was friends with those guys, and…they definitely were not thinking about that. …The bottom line is I was left with the impression that this article is just not an accurate representation of the trip at all.
…I’ve subsequently learned that other members of Opus Dei have…very similar experiences where they were at an event or a conference or a trip or something like that and they read an article about it, and it’s just not true, it’s just not what happened.
…The point is this. The person who is dishonest in very little will also be dishonest in much. Another idea, how you do anything is how you do everything.
…So the idea is it can be useful to see the Work…one aspect of the Work, is just focusing on painting beautiful pictures of itself of its history regardless of whether it’s actually true or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip6FFDQvEtY
—NOPUS DEI, “The Key to Understanding Opus Dei,” YouTube video, 5:14 minutes, March 10, 2023
I’ve been saying it for many years—lying is a telltale sign of the devil’s work.
I’d also say that what you describe—creating false pictures about itself and distributing them among Opus Dei members to propagate self-delusion on the corporate level—isn’t the only key to understanding Opus Dei. It’s one key but not the only one.
In order to understand Opus Dei, we need to drill down to the theology on which it is erected. No easy thing to do because the organization itself is Orwellian.
In the foregoing respect, Opus Dei as Divine Revelation: Analysis of Its Theology and the Consequences in Its History and People (2016) by E. B. E. is the best theological exposition of the problematic and spurious, yes, theology on which Opus Dei is founded. The book accesses confidential internal documents.
Opus Dei’s theological foundation and its ramifications for religious belief and practice should be thoroughly and scrupulously reformed by the pope, who is the only person in the Roman Catholic Church with the power to accomplish a task so critical to the spiritual health and well-being of the faithful.
***
I really enjoy listening to you so that I’m surprised at myself. Possible reasons why:
- I agree with you in the area of 96% to 99%
- You communicate with integrity—you radiate deep sincerity and a desire to speak and know the truth.
- “No tengas miedo a la verdad”
- Unmistakably intelligent, winningly logical and grounded
- Attractive face—warm, smiling, genuine, expressive, visibly happy, occasionally amused, grave or serious as appropriate
- Resonant, vibrant male baritone
Photo courtesy of Howard Lake
ReplyDeletehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/howardlake/4316376179
Gonzalinho
0:00
ReplyDeleteDo members of Opus Dei know anything real about Opus Dei? It’s a funny question but that’s what we’re going to look at in today’s video. What do members of Opus Dei actually know about Opus Dei? Obviously they know some they know a lot but I’m going to suggest that they know significantly less than they think they do, and there [are] really important parts of the Work’s history and the biography of Josemaria Escriva which they simply know nothing about.
3:28
So I read all the books I read all the websites and I was I was pretty shocked actually, and it completely…changed my understanding of the Work completely changed my understanding of Josemaria Escriva, and I had to completely reinterpret my time in the Work, and it was kind of a confusing few weeks I spent most of my free time for maybe about a month reading all these books and I was just really surprised and frankly…basically what I discovered is just like Josemaria Escriva was nothing like the person I was taught that he was, the Work’s history that it tells itself isn’t really that accurate.
6:40
It’s not like the work tells everything is not true…there is some of that, for the most part it is true, it’s just that it’s limited, and there’s whole other areas that members of the Work know nothing about, and they’re taught that people who are critics of the work don’t like the Church, don’t want to…lead moral lives, they’re bitter, they’re angry, all these things it’s just not true.
—NOPUS DEI, “What Opus Dei Hides from Its Members,” YouTube video, 8:02 minutes, March 10, 2023
One of the most damaging outcomes of Opus Dei indoctrination is that it separates you from God. It replaces the person of Jesus with that of Escriva, whom you are taught to worship as God. Opus Dei centers its life on Escriva and literally talks more about Escriva than Jesus. I would hear about Escriva everyday and Opus Dei directors—laymen and priests—would spend more time teaching and preaching (the latter, priests only) about Escriva than about Jesus. You end up not knowing the true face of Jesus and loving him because of who he is. The genuine saint should like John the Baptist point to Jesus, not substitute him. In this respect, Opus Dei was like a bad dream. Read the gospels and get to know and love Jesus. He who is…not him who isn’t…who is an idolatrous substitute.
Gonzalinho
6:40
Delete[Correction] It’s not like the Work tells everything is not true...
Gonzalinho
0:33
ReplyDeleteI hope this video serves at least one person and make a real difference that really has been the goal of this channel…
0:49
I’ve spent a bunch of time thinking about Opus Dei and Josemaria Escriva and trying and probably failing to understand it, I’m going to share my final thoughts about how…I think one can make sense of Josemaria Escriva and Opus Dei…I don't claim this is the truth I don’t claim to have proven it, it’s just a way of trying to make sense of things, that’s a theory, it’s a possibility, here it goes…
1:21
Josemaria Escriva was a vain man with a narcissistic personality disorder. Opus Dei is his personal project made for his personal glory. People with narcissistic personality disorders have big projects like that, whether it’s founding a thousand-year Reich or making America great again. Josemaria Escriva’s project was founding the work of God that would last until the end of time and he co-opted Catholicism for his personal project.
2:11
The myth is that Opus Dei has always been the same and has never changed. Josemaria Escriva wanted Opus Dei to be completely and utterly unique and special, so he denied that it or he had any influences. No, it was founded directly by God.
3:11
Saintly founders have a certain amount of detachment from their foundations. Not Josemaria Escriva, it was clearly his “precious.”
3:28
He seems to have been truth challenged from the beginning about his biography. The Work’s history everything the whole image he crafted of his sanctity is a myth, a lie, it isn’t true in the slightest. He dedicated tremendous amounts of resources to building up the cult of personality and myth of his sanctity during his lifetime. If I wrote a book about Josemaria Escriva or Opus Dei…I would call it a beautiful lie.
And I think he lied to himself about his own motives and intentions. I think he was completely unknown to himself. He exhibited zero self-awareness. He thought he could…fake sanctity by saying beautiful things and painting pretty and false images. There is a certain superficiality about him, a focus on image-making, but he lacked charity, real love for God, real love for concrete human beings—how did he treat people?—like crap, he treated people like crap, it’s not a nice thing to say, it’s also not a nice thing to do.
To be continued
Gonzalinho
Continued 2
Delete10:30
Some of the practices and attitudes he taught are simply not Christian. Most important among these is the practice of putting the good of the institution above the good of human persons, which is to flip Christianity on its head, but members of the Work can adopt these attitudes and practices because he was the Father, he’s a saint, these things are willed by God himself, Saint Josemaria Escriva said so. But these practices and attitudes over time can corrupt consciences. Members of Opus they aren’t bad people, they’re genuinely seeking God and trying to do good in the world for the most part, they’re simply innocent victims of the myth of Josemaria Escriva’s holiness and Opus Dei’s divine origin.
11:33
Opus Dei is extremely hard to understand and pin down. I don’t understand it I don’t pretend to. I think that’s because it’s made up of 99 percent true and good Catholicism good doctrine plus the best of the Church’s devotional patrimony—mental prayer, the sacraments, the rosary, etc. But it is also one percent pure poison…that poison ruins everything and changes the institution’s essential nature. It is a destructive cult within the Catholic Church and meets all the criteria scholars use to determine if an organization is a cult.
12:28
His foremost collaborators are Don Alvaro and Javier Echevarria. Sure, he might have deceived them to some extent, but at a certain point they had to deny what their eyes and ears were telling them. The investigation into Josemaria’s sanctity was severely compromised. Key witnesses were excluded. Their important testimony was never heard or considered in part because of the probable perjury of these two men. Of course it has taken many people to preserve this myth, how deep does the rot go.
15:49
I could be totally mistaken part of me hopes that I am, but I know this for certain, time will tell, time will definitely tell. Thanks for watching and goodbye.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVwyXl2mNi0
—NOPUS DEI, “The Sad Truth About Opus Dei,” YouTube video, 16:16 minutes, March 9, 2023
To be continued 3
Gonzalinho
Continued 3
DeleteI am one among those who believe that the canonization of Josemaria Escriva is not only valid but also worthy—he is a saint, meaning, he has entered heaven for eternity. He has been judged by the Church principally through the pope as wholly deserving of veneration. I, personally, pray to Saint Josemaria Escriva regularly.
When I pray to Saint Josemaria Escriva, I believe that I am praying to his perfectly glorified soul in heaven, not to the sinner he was on earth. Moreover, when I pray to the saint, I do not accept every word he said on earth as infallible nor do I regard every action he performed as exemplary. No doubt he was saintly in some ways…he was not in others. In at least several critical aspects he is not a model of holiness. As a corollary, the Opus Dei charism, so-called, does not proceed from God directly but rather in key and important respects is a deeply flawed human construction that originates—where else?—and in some features is in fact sinful, as some have so cogently demonstrated.
I submit that we have to change our understanding of sainthood. Sainthood does not canonize every word and deed of the man or woman. Sainthood denotes that a man or woman is in heaven. Consequently, we should not accept their words or deeds as normative or deserving of emulation if they do not, so to speak, pass the smell test. Everything Jesus said and did should require of us perfect reverence and unstinting imitation. Not so with the saints, however great they may be, with the exception of the sinless Blessed Virgin Mary.
Gonzalinho
Opus Dei is a Beautiful Lie because Opus Dei uses beautiful words to paper over the details, which dwell underneath like the major part of an iceberg. And the devil, very much so, is in the details.
DeleteGonzalinho
In Opus Dei, canonization has been like the Sacrament of Confession, and spiritual direction co-opted as an instrument of social control. The salutary beliefs and practices of the Church are co-opted by Opus Dei to propound and propagate sectarian doctrine. This intentionally subversive co-optation degrades the value of canonization by making what is of questionable value or even objectionable ride on what is of unquestionable value.
DeleteCanonization began as a type of acclamation ratified by the bishop. It evolved into an institution in the Church, beginning especially with Pope Alexander III in the Middle Ages. When canonization was exclusively reserved to the pope, it solidified as an institution with all the advantages and drawbacks that brings. It became susceptible to abuse, contamination, adulteration, and exploitation.
Opus Dei gave canonization a bad name. Canonization is today exploited by the organization to propagate harmful sectarian doctrine.
In the context of a compromised institution, becoming a saint is a problematic ideal.
Gonzalinho
Canonization in some cases propagates dysfunction. A good example that comes to mind is Saint Augustine of Hippo’s condonation of slavery. His theology for more than a millennium encouraged the acceptance and even practice of slavery by the entire Roman Catholic Church. The leading African slave traders were the Roman Catholic Portuguese. Roman Catholic Brazil, former Portuguese colony, was the last nation to outlaw slavery. Popes and religious orders owned slaves. In the nineteenth century, religious orders, including the Jesuits, bought and sold slaves.
DeleteThe canonization of Escriva propagates dysfunction. Some of his ideas are demonstrably warped, unethical, and sinful. They do not come from God. Recruitment and exploitation of minors, sometimes involving human trafficking, is one good example.
Gonzalinho
Josemaria Escriva’s desire to be canonized a saint in the Roman Catholic Church developed into a neurosis. There may be a lesson here for us all.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
Saint Josemaria Escriva lived under the bright floodlights of the modern world. We cannot but understand him lit up by the glare. He is not like the saints who belong to the obscurity of the past, some of whom are so distant in time that they somewhat reduce to legends adrift from reality. As the saints draw closer to us in time, we have to adjust our understanding of them and our expectations accordingly.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
The unfortunate reality is that Escriva is a saint, in the final analysis, not because of what he purportedly said and did, but because the pope said so.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
Opus Dei continues to harm and damage the Roman Catholic faithful, and if the pope doesn’t reform them, the meat grinder will remain in operation.
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
Your trenchant, pointed exposition exposes well the egregious blindness of the institution [the Roman Catholic Church].
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
FATHERHOOD IN OPUS DEI
ReplyDeleteIn Opus Dei you’re not supposed to attend the funeral of your father according to a literal interpretation of the gospel (Matthew 8:21-22). Also, Escriva is supposed to substitute for your father.
I had a good father. He paid for all my needs and especially for my education. He was warm, loving, generous, and humorous.
Escriva was a monster by comparison. His idea of fatherhood was to hammer Opus Dei members on the head using his thunder god mallet. In his own words, he through Opus Dei was going to divest you of literally everything. The ravage includes the assault on your mind and the dispossession of your conscience.
Escriva had a warped worldview. He was a monster who did the devil’s work.
In Opus Dei I formed the idea that God is a monster. This happened because Opus Dei presented itself as God. It turns out that it is Opus Dei that is the monster. And Escriva, from whose brain Opus Dei sprouted like a poisonous plant, is also a monster.
Gonzalinho
I don’t consider biological fatherhood and spiritual fatherhood incompatible in the sense that they can coexist in two different persons, so that we can acknowledge and honor biological fatherhood in one while doing the same for spiritual fatherhood in another, and the latter, moreover, in more than one person. We don’t have to repudiate one to honor the other. Escriva harbored twisted ideas, this instance being only one example.
DeleteImagine not going to the funeral of your father. It’s perverse. If you’re locked up in a cloister, we can make an exception. However, in Opus Dei, you don’t live in a cloister.
How can you claim to be living an ordinary life if you don’t visit your parents, especially when they are sick, and if you don’t attend their funerals? It’s inhuman. Worse, it’s monstrous.
Gonzalinho