WHY I WALKED AWAY FROM OPUS DEI
Michael McMahon, a former follower of 'the
Work', reflects on the mixed credentials for sainthood of Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer
SO there he is, then; up there with Christina the Astonishing, who flew out of her coffin and perched in the rafters of the church during her funeral, and Walstan of Bawburgh, princely pauper and patron of severed private parts: Monsignor Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, founder of the secretive and ultra-conservative movement Opus Dei, is a saint. No one claiming to be a Catholic can deny it: the Pope declared it publicly in St Peter's Square last Sunday. But not all Catholics share the happiness of the 300,000 people who were present, or the delight of the movement's 84,000 members worldwide. Some see Opus Dei as sinister, and consider it a cynically manipulative cult.
My own experience doesn't lead me quite to that conclusion, but I have no plans to put a prayer card with Escriva's picture on it in my missal. He's not my kind of hero. There are too many stories about his bad temper and bullying to make me warm to him, and too many of his admirers are fanatics, albeit with the best intentions. It is claimed, for example, that he once completely lost it when told that a senior female member had broken the rules by putting uncensored letters in the post. 'Draw up her skirts, tear down her panties and beat her on the bum!' he is said to have shouted. 'On the bum! Until she talks. Make her talk!' The tribunal that weighed up his sanctity was not told that story because the woman who aroused his anger and several other prominent critics of Escriva weren't invited to give evidence. Many other allegations have been made against the man that we now must call Saint Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer but, for all I know, the whole lot of them — including the bum-smacking one — could be fibs. Did he ever address females who annoyed him as 'whores', 'cows' and 'pigs'? Perhaps, but if those whose language tends to the colourful can't get to Heaven, there's little chance for foul-mouthed fellows like me. One charge that does stick, however, is that of hypocrisy — at least of hypocrisy in one instance. Escriva won the titles 'blessed' and 'saint' after his death, but during his lifetime the man who wrote 'Honours, distinctions, titles, things of air, puffs of pride, lies, nothingness' went out of his way to secure the worldly title 'Marques de Peralta'.
Thirty years ago. I was invited to join Opus Dei as a teenager, though between agreeing and being formally accepted I realised I had made a mistake. It was not for me. and I am pretty sure Opus came to the same conclusion. I left in disappointment, not in anger. It was a mismatch. wanted membership of a confraternity that would help to keep me on the religious straight and narrow, of a club that would keep roe at my prayers while I got on with life. They wanted me body, soul and bank book. When I realised that. I buggered off.
I don't claim that my experience left me damaged, but I do know others for whom membership has left scars. I only ever dipped one toe into the water, but several contem poraries of mine were in up to their cojones, and some spent many years there before they got out. When we joined what was on the face of it a youth club (though one in which a female shadow was never cast) we failed to see that we had entered a pre-planned vocational training programme — until, for some, it was too late. A make-or-break moment of choice was engineered for the chosen ones; existing members worked towards it behind our backs. Our progress towards that point was plotted secretly; we were nudged towards it without ever knowing what was up. In my case, it was my cussedness that saved roe; when told by the member whose role it had been to befriend me (needless to say, I have not seen him since) that God was asking me to join Opus Dei as a celibate numerary, I replied that if that had been the case, God would have told me first, not him. I asked to be accepted as a non-celibate supernumerary. The coldness of their response led me to quit.
If they'd had their way, I would have been expected to flog myself weekly with a whip while reciting the Salve (ah!) regina (oh!) and to start each day with a cold shower, though I would not have been told about this until after signing up. As a numerary I would have been expected to wear a cilice, a spiked chain that is fitted around the thigh to mortify the flesh. Maybe such practices would have been good for me, but I would also have had to sign over all my earnings to Opus Dei, and leave it everything I own in my will so that it could be spent on such purposes as its 17storey, $42 million headquarters building in New York. Now, the little money that I earn is my own, and if I am moved to give any of it to a beggar, I don't have to ask a superior for permission first. I can choose my own friends, and I am happily married, with four children. This would not have been so if I had become a numerary, which was the future that had been planned for me behind my back.
This, then, is my objection to Escriva's organisation: that in its relationship with those it wants to recruit to membership, it does not put its cards on the table. Escriva's motto was 'compelle intrare': 'force them to enter'. In my experience, and in the experience of many others, that might just as appropriately be translated as 'trick 'em into joining' — and, in some cases, 'terrify 'em into staying'. He and his followers believe that they are forcing people to be saved, pursuing the highest of motives with all the means at their disposal. Whether or not the organisation Escriva founded has forced the Church into entering his name in the calendar, now that it is there, we Catholics are obliged to accept him as a saint. I am happy to accept that his personal virtues are exemplary and beyond question, and to find comfort rather than disillusionment in any stories of his faults and failings, for they demonstrate that one does not have to conquer absolutely every human weakness to win a place in Heaven. But I do not feel under any obligation to admire the methods of the enterprise that he founded: no way, St Jose, no way!
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