Opus Dei: A cult and a secret power broker in the World

[Kryztian]

Opus Dei is an organization within the Roman Catholic Church that has about 95,000 members and was started in 1928. Unlike the religious orders within the church (e.g. Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans) which consist of monks, nuns, friars, mendicants and priests, Opus Dei is a “personal prelature (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_prelature)” and mostly consists of lay people who dress is ordinary clothing (as opposed to religious garb), have jobs in the real world (including lawyers and bankers), and may be raising families. If they are unmarried, they are called “numeraries” and live in facilities run by the organization. About 20 percent of the members fall into this class. There are also about 2,000 Opus Dei priests.

According to an interview with one of these priests:


The primary importance of Opus Dei lies in the wonderful message of how to live every day with love and mercy, as a Christian.

however, the conclusions at the end of the video below from Deutsche Welle about Opus Dei are quite different:


Opus Dei remains a phenomenon shrouded in secrecy. It may not be a criminal organization or a holy mafia, but it can not claim to be open or transparent either. It revolves around faith, power and money, manipulation and pressure too. It would seem cohesion and obedience seem to outweigh the touted values of love and mercy.


6Zi4hp8hJRM

Some of the issue raised in this video:


The controlling manner in which Opus Dei treats its members, especially the “numeraries” (unmarried members who live in Opus Dei facilities). They are not allowed to watch movies, most books are banned, their mail is read, they don’t have internet access. They have little money of their own and have to get permission to buy things as necessary and inexpensive as a pair of pants.


The austere practices they impose on their members: they wake up to a cold shower every morning and have to sleep on the floor two days per week. They have this torturous device to wear around their thigh that digs into their flesh which they have to wear


Like some Roman Catholic orders (esp. the Jesuits) Opus Dei runs schools and colleges. Unlike the Jesuits, who try and make higher education affordable, Opus Dei institutions are notoriously expensive.


Many Opus Dei members find themselves in positions of power, in the banking and legal fields. By one estimate, one third of the judges in Spain have connections to Opus Dei.


They may wield a lot of back door power over the Catholic church. After Pope John Paul died, one Opus Dei member seemed to have known that Pope Benedict was going to be the next pope and that his election would be quick. (2005)

I have also heard that Opus Dei often is disruptive in family relationships. It encourages potential members to make decisions about joining the organization without consulting their families, and once they live in their facilities, they discourage them from displaying photographs of their family members.

Opus Dei, which tries to keep a low profile in the world, is an organization we should be keeping an eye on.

[Casey Claar]

Opus Dei, which tries to keep a low profile in the world, is an organization we should be keeping an eye on.



My Inner being would agree with you.

I did not see much, but they brought this ( Opus Dei ) to my attention in an OBE, December 26, 2021 (https://consciousnessexploration.com/2021/12/26/obe-log-opus-dei/).

Experiences like these are always a mystery to me.

[Kryztian]

Some information from ODAN (Opus Dei Awareness Network) about how their members are treated, especially the "numeraries" - that is, the unmarried members who live in Opus Dei housing and have taken a vow of celibacy:



Numeraries usually live in a center with other numerary members of Opus Dei. They are not allowed to associate with former members or critics of Opus Dei unless they are trying to recruit them back into the group. They are told to have a list of 15 friends, the top ones on the list should be people with the potential to join Opus Dei. To associate with anyone who does not have the potential to become an Opus Dei member is considered a waste of time.


Numeraries generally shop for clothes with the Director of their center. They are not allowed to keep gifts of clothes, jewelry, etc. from their parents. These gifts are given to other numeraries in the center by the Director or kept in a closet, called “number 2”, which is opened on rare occasions, to the delight of the residents


Numeraries have very little time for leisure, entertainment or vacations. Movie and concert-going are discouraged as a “waste of time” because there is little time for apostolic conversations at these events. Numeraries do go on one excursion per month with the other numeraries in their house. Even if they have too much homework to do, they may still be directed to go and “have fun.” If the excursion happens to be a trip to the beach, female numeraries are not allowed to lie down on a towel and sunbathe. They always have to be in the upright position and must cover up their bathing suits, unless they are swimming in the water. Otherwise, strangers might see the red prick marks or scabs made from wearing the cilice (a spiked chain typically worn around the thigh for two hours daily.)


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Cilice3.jpg
The cilice which Opus Dei members must wear for two hours
per day. All the sharp tines point into their skin and cause
extreme pain.


If numeraries are successful in their recruiting, they are allowed to invite their friends to ski trips, “weekend get-aways,” even pilgrimages to Rome. But every reward is geared toward recruiting. If a numerary wants to go out to dinner with a friend, that friend has to be a potential recruit. Those who recruit most successfully are the most-admired in Opus Dei and are sometimes given special privileges.
If numeraries are having doubts, they may be assigned labor-intensive duties, like cleaning toilets.


Numeraries typically report to their directors every time they leave or arrive at the Opus Dei house. They are allowed only brief visits to their families, often with a chaperone. They are not allowed to talk with members of the opposite sex behind closed doors. Female numeraries are not allowed to hold babies. Even personal friendships within Opus Dei are monitored and controlled. Numeraries either live in single or triple rooms; this discourages them from becoming too close and from the temptation to discuss any of their doubts. The one time when numeraries would have time to talk intimately with one another is at night after the examination of conscience; however, there is a “time of night” or silence, which is strictly enforced. The only “friendships” they are allowed to cultivate are the ones with potential recruits. All other friends are a waste of time.


There is definitely a hierarchy of organizational structure within Opus Dei. For example, only the Directors in Rome, or perhaps the Directors at the new North American Headquarters in New York have the complete picture of the financial aspect of Opus Dei. Opus Dei does not own anything outright. All Opus Dei universities, schools, residences, etc. are run and funded by foundations, whose Boards of Directors are made up of members or sympathizers of Opus Dei.


Opus Dei teaches that if you simply obey your directors, you will be doing the will of God. If you live according to the “spirit of Opus Dei” you will be doing God’s will. Anything outside of that is from the devil and must be avoided; otherwise you may be damned and fall outside of God’s grace.

from: https://odan.org/tw_how_opus_dei_is_cult_like

[Rawhide68]

Opus Dei probably had good intentions from start as most secret groups have had over the decenia.

"It revolves around faith, power and money, manipulation and pressure"

is probably and sadly the truth nowdays in my opioin.

[bojancan]

A nonprofit known as Marble Freedom Trust, headed by Leonard Leo, an Opus Dei kingpin, received last year a grant of $1.6 billion to fuel far right wing agendas...

Leo, readers of Daily Meditations may recall, was responsible for all six conservative judges on the Supreme Court from his position in the Federalist Society (of which he is currently co-chair). This includes, of course, Chief Justice John Roberts whose disastrous pushing of the Citizens United decision has made all this dark money possible in American politics. (To read previous DMs about Leo, please click HERE and HERE.)

Leo also brought us the three most recent judges, all appointed by Mr. Trump and all very much on board with creating the chaos that women facing miscarriages and girls and women being forced to bear children of rapists and incest are undergoing.

How much is 1.6 billion dollars? Robert Maguire, research director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, called the donation “stupefying” and “by far” the largest known contribution to a dark money political group. That amount of money is double the total amount raised by Trump’s entire 2020 presidential committee.

It is especially telling that this news comes out the same week that President Biden dared to speak the “F” word in a public discourse, that word being of course “Fascism.” (His exact terminology being “semi-fascism” of the MAGA crowd.) Maybe we should just call it “American Fascism,” which as Sinclair Lewis warned us 100 years ago would “come to America wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.”

American fascism is all of that, for sure. The “carrying the cross” part includes the extreme evangelicals such as Rev. Franklin Graham and the Opus Dei wing of the Roman Catholic Church so thoroughly represented by Mr. Leo, Steve Bannon, Cardinal Burke, Archbishop Gomez (head of the American Bishops Conference), Salvatore Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco, and many others who elected Gomez, and surely includes those who pushed for the canonization of Junipero Serra, the founder of the death camps known as the missions of California.

Maguire observed that he had “never seen a group of this magnitude before” and that that amount of money can seriously influence the “federal judiciary and make it more difficult to vote, a state-by-state campaign to remake elections laws” that undermine future elections....

Taken from:

https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/2022/09/01/opus-dei-and-american-fascism-strike-it-rich/

[bojancan]

I am adding this here... is very interesting read!


To understand the goings on in SCOTUS today, you must understand Opus Dei, a fascist organization in the Roman Catholic Church. Why?
Because the person who forwarded five names to the senate for approval as supreme court judges is Leonardo Leo, who is an out of the closet Opus Dei operative. It was he who pushed Mitch McConnell to nominate Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett for SCOTUS. He is also “closest friends” with Clarence Thomas and has been called “one of the most powerful figures in the United States.”*

Leo is executive vice president of the Federalist Society and co-director of the board of directors of “Catholic Information Center” which is a right-wing Catholic think tank in Washington DC that raises millions of dollars to promote conservative judges. The Charles Koch Foundation is heavily involved also, having given $30 million to the cause; so too is the NRA.

I have studied Opus Dei and its founder who was a fascist Spanish priest and ally of dictator Franco. He was rushed into canonization under Pope JP II faster than any “saint” in history. He also “connived” in his own canonization before he died—the only “saint” I ever heard of who did that.**

Opus Dei is about control, not freedom. Theocracy, not democracy. Part of fascist ideology is that it is fitting that men have control over women’s bodies (my book documents this). Indeed, control is what fascism and Opus Dei are all about.

Mussolini defined fascism as the “marriage of corporations and government” and we are seeing that play out in the current SCOTUS where environmental rights take second place to corporate power; and voting rights get gutted in favor of dark money from very dark corporations (NRA and Koch brothers among them).

And the Supreme Court itself becomes a cesspool of religious ideology ignoring the pluralism of American culture in favor of a far right version of evangelical and Roman Catholic Christianity committed to anti-abortion fanaticism.

Susan Sontag defines fascism as “institutional violence”– which is surely what is happening where states are bent on locking up women for miscarriages, inciting bounty hunters to chase pregnant women, forcing women and girls to term even if they have been raped or victims of incest, threatening doctors with jail terms. Cruelty rules and Institutional Violence is alive and well thanks to supreme court.


https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/2022/06/29/supreme-court-judges-sharing-an-opus-dei-seal-of-approval/

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Any club, society, order, or 'faith' that inflicts practices, rituals or routines upon you, while restricting your personal freedoms, either physical, spiritual or otherwise, is negative, regressive, and parasitical by nature. To me it's always been a profound mystery why anyone, ever, would willingly sign up for such a life -- the exception being those who are brainwashed into it from an early age.

[TrumanCash]

From this video it appears to me to be a sociopathic/psychopathic cult based upon or perhaps directly created by the psychopathic ETs masquerading as gods, known as the Anunnaki, Elohim, El, Ilu, "Watchers", and other names around the planet through millennia. I wouldn't be surprised if there is also a hidden secret society within Opus Dei that practices blood sacrifices, blood drinking, pedophilia, assassinations, etc, as that is how these nefarious ETs create secret societies.

[ExomatrixTV]

This Ultra-Conservative Religious Organization Is Problematic:
rumble.com/c/c-538333/videos
(https://rumble.com/c/c-538333/videos)

vgly8b/?pub=ir01b

[Kryztian]

Women in Argentina claim labor exploitation by Opus Dei
https://apnews.com/article/business-paraguay-europe-argentina-uruguay-43b48ed43c2f7ddebf05ec6203b12d8d

By Débora Rey
Published 10:18 AM EST, November 12, 2021

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Lucía Giménez still suffers pain in her knees from the years she spent scrubbing floors in the men’s bathroom at the Opus Dei residence in Argentina’s capital for hours without pay.

Giménez, now 56, joined the conservative Catholic group in her native Paraguay at the age of 14 with the promise she would get an education. But instead of math or history, she was trained in cooking, cleaning and other household chores to serve in Opus Dei residences and retirement homes.

For 18 years she washed clothes, scrubbed bathrooms and attended to the group’s needs for 12 hours a day, with breaks only for meals and praying. Despite her hard labor, she says: “I never saw money in my hands.”

Giménez and 41 other women have filed a complaint against Opus Dei to the Vatican for alleged labor exploitation, as well as abuse of power and of conscience. The Argentine and Paraguayan citizens worked for the movement in Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, Italy and Kazakhstan between 1974 and 2015.

Opus Dei — Work of God in Latin — was founded by the Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá in 1928, and has 90,000 members in 70 countries. The lay group, which was greatly favored by St. John Paul II, who canonized Escrivá in 2002, has a unique status in the church and reports directly to the pope. Most members are laymen and women with secular jobs and families who strive to “sanctify ordinary life.” Other members are priests or celibate lay people.

The complaint alleges the women, often minors at the time, labored under “manifestly illegal conditions” that included working without pay for 12 hours-plus without breaks except for food or prayer, no registration in the Social Security system and other violations of basic rights.

The women are demanding financial reparations from Opus Dei and that it acknowledges the abuses and apologizes to them, as well as the punishment of those responsible.

“I was sick of the pain in my knees, of getting down on my knees to do the showers,” Giménez told The Associated Press. “They don’t give you time to think, to criticize and say that you don’t like it. You have to endure because you have to surrender totally to God.”

In a statement to the AP, Opus Dei said it had not been notified of the complaint to the Vatican but has been in contact with the women’s legal representatives to “listen to the problems and find a solution.”

The women in the complaint have one thing in common: humble origins. They were recruited and separated from their families between the ages of 12 and 16. In some cases, like Gimenez’s, they were taken to Opus Dei centers in another country, circumventing immigration controls.

They claim that Opus Dei priests and other members exercised “coercion of conscience” on the women to pressure them to serve and to frighten them with spiritual evils if they didn’t comply with the supposed will of God. They also controlled their relations with the outside world.

Most of the women asked to leave as the physical and psychological demands became intolerable. But when they finally did, they were left without money. Many also said they needed psychological treatment after leaving Opus Dei.

“The hierarchy (of Opus Dei) is aware of these practices,” said Sebastián Sal, the women’s lawyer. “It is an internal policy of Opus Dei. The search for these women is conducted the same way throughout the world. ... It is something institutional.”

The women’s complaint, filed in September with the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also points to dozens of priests affiliated with Opus Dei for their alleged “intervention, participation and knowledge in the denounced events.”

The allegations in the complaint are similar to those made by members of another conservative Catholic organization also favored by St. John Paul II, the Legion of Christ. The Legion recruited young women to become consecrated members of its lay branch, Regnum Christi, to work in Legion-run schools and other projects.

Those women alleged spiritual and psychological abuse, of being separated from family and being told their discomfort was “God’s will” and that abandoning their vocation would be tantamount to abandoning God.

Pope Francis has been cracking down on 20th-century religious movements after several religious orders and lay groups were accused of sexual and other abuses by their leaders. Opus Dei has so far avoided much of the recent controversy, though there have been cases of individual priests accused of misconduct.

“We do not have any official notification from the Vatican about the existence of a complaint of this type,” Josefina Madariaga, director of Opus Dei’s press office in Argentina, told the AP. She said the women’s lawyer informed the group last year of their complaints about the lack of contributions to Argentina’s social security system.

“If there is a traumatic experience or one that has left them with a wound, we want to honestly listen to them, understand what happened and from there correct what has to be corrected,” she said.

She added that all the people currently “working on site are paid,” adding that some 80 women currently work for Opus Dei in Argentina.

However, she said, “in the 60′s, 70′s, 80′s, 90′s, society as a whole dealt with these issues in a more informal or family way. ... Opus Dei has made the necessary changes and modifications to accompany the law in force today.”

Beatriz Delgado, who worked for Opus Dei for 23 years in Argentina and Uruguay, said she was told “that I had to give my salary to the director and that everyone gave it. ... It was part of giving to God.”

“They convince you with the vocation, with ‘God calls you, God asks this of you, you cannot fail God.’ ... They hooked me with that,” she said.

So far, the Vatican has not ruled on the complaint and it’s not clear if it will. A Vatican spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for information.

If there is no response, the women’s legal representatives say they will initiate criminal proceedings for “human trafficking, reduction to servitude, awareness control and illegitimate deprivation of liberty” against Opus Dei in Argentina and other countries the women worked in.

Argentine law sanctions human trafficking with prison sentences of four to 15 years. The statute of limitations is 12 years after the alleged crime ceases.

“They say, ‘we are going to help poor people,’ but it’s a lie; they don’t help, they keep (the money) for themselves,” Giménez said. “It is very important to achieve some justice.”

[Kryztian]

Article from "The Independent" from 2004, no longer on their website but found here (https://www.opus-info.org/index.php/Meet_the_Catholofascists_and_seize_the_Dei). It speculates that when Pope John Paul II dies, that Opus Dei would be influential in selecting the Pope. Interestingly, he did die in 2005 and some Vatican officials claimed that Opus Dei members told him the new pope would be Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) would be the next pope, and he would be elected quickly. And that is indeed exactly what happened.

Meet the Catholofascists and seize the Dei

The Independent - 12/08/2004

This summer, the beaches of the world are awash with The Da Vinci Code. It's a daft, mediocre thriller - but it contains two words that matter: Opus Dei. The novel depicts this strange sub-strata of the Catholic Church as the Pope's secret police. According to the author, Dan Brown, they are a mad, murderous mob who pick off the enemies of their own brand of ultra-conservative Catholicism.

Big deal: it's fiction. But Brown has performed a valuable service. He has reminded the public about the existence of an authoritarian, ultraconservative cult that will play a key role in picking the next Pope - one of the world's most powerful men - and has been intimately involved with some of the ugliest fascist regimes since the Second World War. They want to make the Vatican an even more hardline campaigning force, battling the "evils" of contraception, homosexuality and divorce. In developing countries, their influence will mean the difference between life and death for thousands of poor people.

There has been much discussion over the past two years (rightly, in my view) of the totalitarian strains within the Muslim world. The word "Islamofascism" was coined by Christopher Hitchens to describe the fanatics who seek to repress moderate Muslims and demonise secular democracies. Unfortunately, there has been far less discussion about the totalitarian strains - just as real - within other faiths.

Anybody who has studied the history of the Vatican knows that it has long harboured totalitarian elements, manifested from the Spanish Inquisition to Pope Pius XII's complicity in the Holocaust. Do we really think those dangerous instincts have vanished from Christianity?

Opus Dei emerged from this tradition, and it is growing stronger every day. If we do not discuss this, we risk feeding the Islamophobic idea that Islam is uniquely prone to fanaticism.

The group preaches a brand of Catholofascism. If this sounds like a piece of journalistic hyperbole, then you should peruse the history of Opus Dei. Founded by Josemaría Escrivá, an obscure Spanish lawyer-priest, in 1928, it immediately targeted the rich and powerful for recruitment, because they are "more important" and "more influential". The sect quickly became a supporter and key power player within General Franco's fascist Spain, with its members holding (amongst several other cabinet positions) the finance portfolio.

As Opus Dei spread beyond Spain throughout South America, it became a player in a string of fascist tyrannies, most notoriously Augusto Pinochet's murderous Chilean junta. They opposed trade unions and were used as a tool by the Vatican to suppress more democratic and socially concerned strands of Catholicism.

Its religious philosophy is described by Robert Hutchison, an award-winning journalist who studied the movement for many years, as "totally authoritarian". The founder's strange book The Way - the inspirational text for Opus Dei - encourages members to keep their membership entirely secret, even from their families. "Remain silent, and you will never regret it," Escrivá declared.

All members must report and fully confess to an Opus Dei official at least once a month. The group prescribes strict hierarchy and unquestioning obedience. Maxim 941 of The Way demands "unreserved obedience to whoever is in charge" of the sect.

Opus Dei has consistently sided with the powerful against the weak, theologically and politically. It revels in wealth, and is strongly involved in corporate trading. (It was, for example, one of the world's main traders in eurodollars in the 1970s.) Escrivá once said: "Ask the Lord for money ... but ask him for millions! He owns everything anyway. To ask for five million or 50 million requires just the same effort, so while you're at it ..." Throughout the 20th century, there was a battle within the Catholic Church about whether the Vatican's power should be used to help the poor by advocating social change, or whether they should tell the poor to self-flagellate and think of the next world.

Opus Dei has been a major force on the Catholic right opposing social change. When liberation theology emerged in the 1960s - a movement saying that Catholics should be free to think out their own faith and change their social conditions - Opus Dei was appalled.

Escrivá had taught that the poor should remain meek - all the better to leave his fascist friends in power.

Liberation theologians like Gustavo Gutiérrez preached against the "Church of the Rich", the corrupt Catholicism which encouraged the poor to defer to their "superiors". Opus Dei replied with what Robert Hutchison calls a "moneybags theology". Opus Dei represents the ugliest of religious tendency - it coats the rich with a thick syrup of self-justifying superstition, while telling the poor to pray patiently for salvation.

There are still a billion Catholics in the world (most of them in poor countries), and the direction of this battle within their Church - however distasteful atheists like me might find it - will have a massive impact on global politics. (Imagine how different the world would look today if Vatican II, the 1960s reform process, had culminated in approving contraception - a decision that was expected by many experts and theologians.)

Opus Dei is winning. It has established itself as the praetorian guard of hard-right Catholic doctrines, and - because they target only the elite - they have an influence far beyond their 80,000 strong membership.

When Pope John Paul II dies, it will be a key force in choosing his successor, and therefore the direction of the Vatican for decades.

Giancarlo Zizola, one of the world's leading Vaticanologists, explains: "Opus Dei is the only group well-organised enough, working within the power structure of the Roman Curia [the central Vatican administration], that can make a difference in swaying the decision over the next Pope."

The Pope has been lethally reactionary on issues like contraception and homosexuality, but this has to some extent been balanced by his brave arguments for fair trade and anti-poverty strategies.

Given the sect's track record, we can assume that an Opus Dei-picked Pope would take John Paul's social conservatism even further into the political stratosphere, and ditch all the admirable criticisms of extreme capitalism.

Catholofasicsm and Islamofascism resemble each other. At the United Nations Cairo Conference on Population and Development, for example, the Opus Dei-dominated Vatican delegation made an alliance with Islamic fundamentalist representatives to oppose the distribution of contraception and abortion to the world's poorest women. A far-right Vatican is the last thing the developing world needs. The Da Vinci Code is right, at least, about one thing: there are a lot of people out there who should be frightened of Opus Dei.

[Kryztian]

Just a few of the many, many articles about how much influence Opus Dei and other related Conservative Catholic organizations have on the U.S. government, especially the Supreme Court, the Finance system and the U.S. Military-Industrial complex. Some links and summaries here:


Opus Dei’s Influence Is Felt in All of Washington’s Corridors of Power
https://churchandstate.org.uk/2019/06/opus-deis-influence-is-felt-in-all-of-washingtons-corridors-of-power/
An overview of all the tentacles that Opus Dei has in Washington DC with lots of links. Written in 2019, it points out many of the members of the Trump appointments who have Opus Dei ties. Also mentions Trump's connection to the Vatican via Newt Gingrich (Gingrich was converted to Catholicism by disgraced sexual predator and Opus Dei priest John McCloskey (https://www.thedailybeast.com/did-opus-dei-lie-to-protect-priest-who-baptized-newt-gingrich). )


The Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court And Their Faith
https://www.mgr.org/OpusDeiInUSGovernment.html
In the last two decades the Supreme Court has become disproportionately Catholic (and Jewish), especially ultra-conservative Catholic. Chief Justice John Roberts children attended an Opus Dei school, Antonin Scalia attended a R.C. church in Falls Church, MD with a strong Opus Dei presence and his son Paul is a priest in the Order of the Holy Cross, Opus Dei's priestly order. Clarence Thomas returned to Catholicsm also with the help of disgraced Opus Dei priest John McCloskey (https://www.thedailybeast.com/did-opus-dei-lie-to-protect-priest-who-baptized-newt-gingrich).


The Court of God: How a Catholic Secret Society Took Over SCOTUS
https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority
The appointment of conservative Amy Coney Barrett to the SCOTUS and how Opus Dei played a role


We Don’t Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right’s Supreme Court Supermajority
https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority
Leonard Leo is the power broker between ultra-conservative Catholicism and Washington power. Highly influential in getting Amy Coney Barret and Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court but he also pulls off a lot of other political deals in Washington D.C. Nowhere does the article mention "Opus Dei", but he leads the "Catholic Information Center" which was founded by Opus Dei members.


High-Ranking Members of US Military Belong to Knights of Malta, Opus Dei
https://www.constantinereport.com/seymour-hersh-high-ranking-members-of-us-military-belong-to-knights-of-malta-opus-dei/
Seymour Hirsch wrote an article in 2011 about the military connections to Opus Dei and Knights of Malta which I can not find on the internet. But this article seems to be a good summary.

[Kryztian]

Opus Dei was founded during the Spanish Civil War by Josemaría Escrivá and supported the fascist government of Francis Franco. The organization also had their fingers in the violent actions of Operation Gladio in Italy and it almost seems natural that they would get involved with Operation Condor, which overturned democratically elected governments in South America (most famously in Chile.)

vi29c5

[shaberon]

Opus Dei is the Elite Jesuits of 1926.


Opus Dei (https://isgp-studies.com/opus-dei) on ISGP


Involved with Propaganda Due (http://visupview.blogspot.com/2015/07/propaganda-due-strange-and-terrible_16.html):


In addition to Gladio, there can be little doubt that there were ties between Opus Dei and P2. The most obvious ones are the financial links, especially via the banking empire of Roberto Calvi.


Him (https://toritto.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/gods-banker-and-the-fall-of-ambrosiano-a-re-post/)?


At 7:30 am on Friday, 18 June 1982, a postal clerk was crossing Blackfriars Bridge and noticed his body hanging from scaffolding beneath the bridge on the edge of the financial district of London. Calvi’s clothing, he was wearing a monk’s black robe, was stuffed with bricks. It was eventually ruled he was murdered.

So who killed Calvi? While searching his villa in 1981, police discovered a P2 membership list that included 953 high-level officials: Judges, bankers, police chiefs, members of Parliament and the Cabinet, admirals and generals, respected political leaders, even religious leaders connected to another secret society, Opus Dei. A parliamentary commission concluded that P2 were operating as “a state within the Italian state.” It remains the greatest scandal in Italy (and maybe, Europe) since the end of WWII.



This is who America joined to "fight the commies" as we are still doing...see, Russia's about to collapse, and we get all this free stuff...

[Bruce G Charlton]

I used to know two or three Opus Dei academics when I was at Glasgow University some thirty years ago, and once visited their boarding house. The OD people I knew were absolutely fine (one was an exceptionally eminent scholar), they worked by reasoned argument, and the organization seemed to be nothing more sinister than an evangelical type of traditional Catholicism with a few elements of monasticism.

I don't have any objections to traditional/ conservative Roman Catholic groups (such as SSPX) - indeed IMO these contain most of the best Christians among Western Catholics.

I don't have any up to date information on Opus Dei, but I would observe that if they really are genuinely powerful within the RC church and the world - then they cannot be "conservative"; and if Opus Dei are still conservative among Catholics, then they cannot be powerful.

Because the Pope, Magisterium and Bishops of the RCC are very liberal/ radical/ leftist indeed, and the upper echelons of the RCC are closely integrated with the mainstream materialistic leftist billionaires who dominate and run most of the world (UN, EU, WEF etc), and all of The West.

As was very obvious in 2020 when the RCC hierarchy enthusiastically embraced lockdowns and social distancing, cease to provide sacraments, closed churches - and even closed Lourdes! - ignoring many centuries of teaching and practice; but in-line with the then-current demands of secular global totalitarianism.

[Kryztian]

A docudrama aired on the history channel in 2006 about Opus Dei. It is mostly focused on the cult like aspects of Opus Dei. 45 minutes long, although video is about twice as long since the last half is a repeat of the first.

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[shaberon]

I used to know two or three Opus Dei academics when I was at Glasgow University some thirty years ago, and once visited their boarding house. The OD people I knew were absolutely fine (one was an exceptionally eminent scholar), they worked by reasoned argument, and the organization seemed to be nothing more sinister than an evangelical type of traditional Catholicism with a few elements of monasticism.


Same as the Jesuits.

Most of the ones you meet will be those who believe in at least some of the better principles that the organizations must have as fronts.

It is unfortunately the case that echelons of these are, indeed, the heart of Fascism.

And of course there is a "new strategy", so this is not like the Inquisition saying convert or die!

It seems to be a long-range goal, i. e. when other ways and institutions are seen to be violent failures, then you will run to the church. Catholicism is not a Zionist. Therefor all that plays in their favor.

If anyone wants to know more about Operation Condor--that's what Aldous Huxley did, so, you see the UK was enmeshed from this very first move of Fascist Genocide in Spain, 1936.

Later these groups are attached to Permindex, considered the assassins of Kennedy. Also Le Cercle into the whole human trafficking thing.

So much dirt in this bag, I don't attempt to post most of it. It's not like the Roman Church was a shining jewel that happened to get a spot on it. I just think of it as a power trip using religious ideas that prevented Christianity from ever arriving in Europe.

Now we can find out in a few months, for example, that Ukrainian charities are fronts for child smuggling--that is, if they even do anything else. Same principle. Realistically, it must be a small core of political Jesuits and Opus Dei who do a better job of employing people to make them look good.

To get a militant message when you walk in the door, then, American Evangelism can do that.

But the whole idea of "millennialism" or "end times" was trotted out by Catholicism in several instances before the first Protestant was a twinkle in grandpa's eye.

In my view, Opus Dei should not have any base to stand on, but, there it is, whiling away for Pan-Europa.

[Kryztian]

I used to know two or three Opus Dei academics when I was at Glasgow University some thirty years ago, and once visited their boarding house. The OD people I knew were absolutely fine (one was an exceptionally eminent scholar)

I am sure they may have be fine people. I have met a few people in Germany who were also exceptional human beings. During the 1930's and 40's they were members of the Nazi party. Looking at their behavior and personality does not explain how Nazis marched entire Belorussian villages into barns and set them on fire, or how they built gas chamber for Jews, gays, Roma, Baptists, dissidents, etc. And there are probably some fine individuals committed to human health who work for organizations funded by Bill Gates. Their good intentions and hard work, however, do not tell the tale of what that foundation really is up to.

In fact, every sinister organization has to put up a facade of charity and kindness to veil the evil deeds it does behind the scenes. There are many people in Opus Dei doing good work to help the needy of this world. But the fingerprints of Opus Dei is also there in Operation Gladio and Operation Condor, to thwart democracy via means of violence and corruption.


they worked by reasoned argument,

Reasoned argument, free thinking and looking at all the information is the way to go, but that is not the way of Opus Dei. They ban books, movies and work very hard to mind control their members. If you are a numerary (unmarried, and therefore living in celibacy in their housing, giving them your salary), they read all your emails, control who your friends are and restrict contact with your own family. If a fellow Opus Dei member leaves the order, you are not allowed to associate with them - presumably because they have ideas that can not be dismissed by reasoned argument. Their priests may may be able to superficially justify the behavior of there organization to outsiders, but they restrict the thoughts of their own members, who might, if they had all the pieces in the puzzle, see that the organization they are part of has many practices that are in sharp contrast to Christianity. I think members of Scientology have a lot more intellectual freedom than members of Opus Dei do.