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Pope Francis Puts the Kibosh on the Opus Dei, Your Least Favorite SCOTUS' Justices' Favorite Catholic Sect

By Alberto Cox Délano | Politics | August 9, 2022 |

By Alberto Cox Délano | Politics | August 9, 2022 |


PopeFrancis2022PictureThatLooksLikeAnAlbumCover.jpeg

Maybe I should be more careful about how I word things here. I wouldn’t want to give you the impression that Pope Francis went Dark Brandon mode and started taking asses and kicking names. All of this is very much the Nancy Pelosi of reining in his own church: About the only thing available right now.

Here’s an experiment for those of you not raised Catholic: If you happen to meet some charming, easy-going Spaniards, ask them about the Opus Dei and see them turn into the Vietnam-flashback dog meme, doesn’t matter if they are young or old. The same thing will happen with most Latin Americans and I reckon with many Catholics in the US because from what I can gather, the Church there is crazy.

Since its inception in 1928, the Opus Dei has been one of the leading causes of people leaving the Catholic Church, punching way above its actual membership. What is the Opus Dei? You know, most times when I have to describe the history of a country or an institution, I always feel anxious about misrepresenting them or not accounting for nuances. This is not the case because I couldn’t care less about failing to give an accurate portrayal of these people. The OD (ha!) is a congregation within the Catholic Church; effectively, it’s a religious order, but in terms of the church’s inner administration, it operates separately from all other congregations within it. Until recently, it operated under the unique title of “Personal Prelature,” meaning that its entire global structure was its own separate Diocese headed by an appointed bishop. You don’t need to know much about Catholic hierarchy to realize that this ends up placing the OD on a more equal footing compared to any other religious order or diocesan priests and bishops (diocesans are those not affiliated with any order or congregation). Who gave the OD this special category? Why, no one but the Joe Paterno of Popes, John Paul II, because as long as you delivered for his reactionary agenda, just like with Papa Joe, he would gladly turn a blind eye to whatever awful things you were doing.

But more importantly, why was the OD given this heightened status? Because it’s a religious order made by and for wealthy and conservative Catholics that tells them exactly what they want to hear. The other major Catholic congregation/order tailored to the wealthy are the Legionaries of Christ founded in 1941. They totally loathe each other and fight over the same recruiting pool (the Legionaries think of the OD as “pretentious”). The latter, however, took a colossal L when its founder was revealed to be the Jerry Sandusky of the Catholic Church in the late 2000s. They never recovered from that blow and the Opus reigned triumphant. Until now.

The OD was founded by Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, though the latter part of his surname is apparently from a nobility title he tried to claim. He is also an ordained saint, but his entire process of canonization was worth as much as the promises of a dad who lives in another state with his new family. He kicked the gears of the OD at a time of global crisis, the rise of left-wing movements and the collapse of the Monarchy in his native Spain. He found a willing audience in the most jittery and trigger-happy group of all: Aristocrats and landed gentry who already felt that the Church’s Social Doctrine of Pope Leo XIII was too radical and made them feel bad. For the record, the Rerum novarum was pretty much the Nancy Pelosi of the Catholic Church saying “maybe we should take this whole exploitation of labor and wanton capitalism down a couple notches, just a bit.”

Ever since, the OD spread through the veins of right-wing Catholicism, becoming the ideologues behind Franco’s dictatorship and its particular blend of fascism and Catholicism. It then spread to the white elites of Latin America and other majority Catholic countries with highly segregated and stratified societies. More recently, their people have been leading reactionary think-tanks like the Federalist Society, especially through the influence of one Leonard Leo, who masterminded the promotion of people like Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Barrett to the Supreme Court, all of them very close to the OD, at least in thought.

If the Justices they helped appoint don’t give you a good idea of their beliefs, consider the following tenets: First, their view of a godly society is one that works like the human body, something which might sound familiar to those knowledgeable about fascist worldview. By extension, this means that the roles we play are assigned by God himself (of course he is a he), and by roles I mean your social status. Indeed, they believe in good-old-fashioned Calvinist Predestination, something which in no way panders to the social status of the OD’s members. They do fund a couple of high-performance schools in vulnerable areas here and there, but for the most part, their educational charities are devised to produce compliant workers. Their treatment of low-income women, absorbed into their work system, recently came to light in a class-action lawsuit filed in Argentina and other countries. As you might expect, they are horribly backward in their sexual morals, and not in a Medieval way, because Medieval people were horny af, but in a distinctively Victorian way. They believe in having as many children as you are able to breed, usually seeing families that make Mormons think they are going overboard. They also believe in the sanctity of self-mortification by using things like whips and cilices, and not in the fun, BDSM-dungeon kind of way, but in the actual-Medieval dungeon kind of way.

More distinctively (aside from the billions of dollars in donations they manage), there is a whole suborder within them called the numeraries, men and women who live in the community and take vows of celibacy. But they are not monks or nuns. They are upper-class professionals, live in luxurious accommodations, and are attended by a host of servants such as the women currently suing. If that sounds to you like a very elaborate way to hide their Gays, Lesbians, and Queer people in general… well, to paraphrase Juan Gabriel’s famous quote: “Don’t ask about what’s right in front of your face”.

Basically, the whole thing is a glorified sect cum secret society for the rich, powerful, and sexually repressed that demands strict obedience to itself, worded in just a way that it still reminds them that the actual Catholic Church and the Pope are above it. Wink-wink.

And these are the people who control a substantial share of Latin America!

But the OD has a formidable foe, one whose story is much longer than the OD’s, and one whose history is by equal measure problematic, but has generally defaulted to the side of progress: The Jesuits. Coincidence of coincidences, the Pope happens to be one! Sure, Pope Francis is very much the Nancy Pelosi of popes, but just like Nancy, reactionary Catholics loathe him with a passion, even though they are trapped into a Möbius strip of their own making, as their default mode is believing in papal inerrancy. The OD is no different, being outwardly obedient to Francis, while also secretly looking for book depositories on the Popemobile’s route, or checking if Mehmet Ali AÄŸca is busy. Just playing! They don’t do magnicides, too unsubtle! That’s more in the Vatican Bank’s business line.

Pope Francis issued a Motu Propio (a sort of executive order) back on July 22nd by the name of Ad charisma tuendum, in which he officially demotes the Opus Dei from its privileged stature as an independent Prelature-Diocesis. Now, I don’t have the time or energy to explain the nuanced implications this has on the Vatican’s Byzantine bureaucracy, because we are probably using the term Byzantine literally here … or whatever adjective the Byzantines used to describe a twisted organization. But to sum up, the most noticeable changes entailed in this reform include the head of the OD no longer being a bishop, a check on its hierarchical structure and, more importantly, they will now be held accountable, on a yearly basis, reporting to a Vatican office called the Dicastery for the Clergy, the overseers of diocesan priests. Though this is still a mostly symbolical move, it’s a major blow for an organization that has operated unchecked for the better part of a century, especially the whole part of being inquested as “lowly” diocesan priests.

There is a legitimate argument that this falls in line with a move towards centralization in Pope Francis’ rule, as he also tightened the screws on the liberal reforms discussed by the Synodal Path in Germany. The big difference is that, historically, the Vatican has never been good at reining in reformist German priests. Meanwhile, reactionary Catholic sects come and go all the time.

I don’t have much faith that the OD will be wholly transparent with the Dicastery nor that the latter will do its due diligence and fact-check the reports they provide, but a win is a win, a humbling is a humbling, and goddammit, I would be lying if I told you this didn’t bring a gleeful, petty smile to us lapsed-Catholics and progressive Catholics alike. The Opus Dei deserves much worse, and hopefully, this demotion will have the same effect on its members as their private schools have on their students: Half graduate not wanting anything to do with the Church.

Alberto Cox is a lapsed-Catholic, but like Guillermo Del Toro once said, “Once a Catholic, always a Catholic”… it’s kinda like being Culturally Jewish. Also, he is surprised by your assumption that he was raised around Jesuits, what could possibly make you think that?