What Catholic organization includes both Denver's new auxiliary bishop and an accused FBI double agent?
It must be the Opus Dei, dogged with controversy since its founding 73 years ago.
The Rev. Jose Gomez, who will be ordained Monday in Denver, is the first bishop in this country to rise from the ranks of Opus Dei, Latin for The Work of God. Its mission is to encourage lay people to seek holiness in their daily life.
It claims 85,000 members worldwide and thousands of associate members and supporters -- as well as a huge number of detractors who consider it dangerous and above all, a cult-like sect.
"We are not a sect," Gomez insists. "We are part of the (Catholic) Church."
To detractors, the more apt symbol is Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who sent his kids to Opus Dei schools and who allegedly lived "The Work" -- as its spiritual mission is called -- while engaged in espionage.
"Man, I'm telling you, we're just reeling," groans an Opus Dei priest, the Rev. Mark Mannion, about the Hanssen connection. Mannion, 36, is a former accountant -- like all its priests, he comes from lay ranks -- and is a Chicago-based spiritual director for Colorado's dozen members.
Mannion, 36, says even fellow priests kidded him after the Hanssen arrest: "Well, now you have the FBI wrapped (up)."
When Gomez was named as Denver's auxiliary bishop, Leaven, a local Catholic publication, mused: "(Given) its reputation as an ultra-conservative cabal working behind the scenes to gain power and control in the church ... (we) cannot but wonder what the appointment of an Opus Dei bishop means for our church."
Founded 73 years ago by Spanish priest Jose Maria Escriva, Opus Dei's success at mobilizing laity was revolutionary: "At the time," says Mannion, "the idea was that only priests and nuns could become holy. Here comes the founder (Escriva), saying everybody's called to be a saint."
From that radical idea sprang practices that supporters see as deeply spiritual and foes see as deeply disturbing.
At the heart of the rift is Opus Dei's deep quarrel with the secular world. The pope, one of Escriva's major supporters, "is calling for a new martyrdom -- this is intense -- not of blood, but from living your faith in the middle of society," Mannion said.
One example of a different world view is the use of medieval disciplines, such as whips and metal chains, to cause physical discomfort.
Foes find it creepy. But the Rev. Peter Armenio, head of the region that includes Colorado, often wears a chafing metal band around his thigh, which he says unites him more closely to the sufferings of Christ -- a spiritually significant gesture that has been lost in the modern search for self.
"The secular world puts itself through more pain going to health clubs and having face-lifts," he says. "That's tougher than what I do."
"I have to say its practices betray a certain unease with the modern culture," says the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who in 1995 researched a major article on Opus Dei for America magazine. "I don't know why they have to read incoming mail (of resident members) or separate the sexes."
Those tactics, too, are true, says Opus Dei, but done to help form a newcomer's spirituality and to respond to God's different roles for men and women.
The most abiding charge is that its armies of lay people -- Octapus Dei -- move secretly throughout society, bent on altering the world order.
Four popes, including the current one, have issued strong support for Opus Dei. Francisco Franco's government in Spain was reportedly laced with Opus Dei members. The current head of the Vatican communications office belongs to Opus Dei. Escriva's writings were slipped "hand to hand" throughout the old Soviet Union, according to an Opus Dei film.
Martin says that while cabal may be too strong a word, the government connections are significant: "I know Opus Dei people in Latin America and Europe are found in high government positions, so it's not unreasonable to think that Opus Dei exerts, through its members, some influence on various governments."
"Why should people be concerned?" Martin asks. "Because the organization has an enormous amount of power in Rome, and if such a powerful organization is flawed in any way, there's cause for concern."
It's greatest flaw, says Martin and other critics, is its "high pressure" recruiting practices.
Dianne DiNicola says she saw it firsthand: "Opus Dei hurts people," insists the Massachusetts woman, who maintains a Web site called Opus Dei Awareness Network. Ten years ago the DiNicola family did a "family intervention" to pull a college-age daughter, Tammy, away from Opus Dei, which they regard as a cult. As is common in the organization, Tammy was drawn to an Opus Dei meeting through new friends.
"At first we were happy because she was going to church every day," DiNicola says. "Then her personality began to change."
When recruits resist, their Opus Dei friends often pull away, leaving them devastated and alone, according to DiNicola and people quoted by Martin.
One disaffected member is Escriva's own personal secretary, Maria del Carmen Tapia, who charged in a 1998 book, Beyond the Threshold: A Life in Opus Dei, that she had been brainwashed by Escriva and held against her will in Rome so she could not publicize her horrifying experiences. Opus Dei claims Tapia was fashioning a private cult. Tapia, whose latest address is Santa Barbara, Calif., could not be reached.
DiNicola claims Opus Dei has a membership quota and that the Denver archdiocesan office is laced with secret members.
Secret members in Denver?
"I'm the vicar, and I don't think there's one," says Armenio, 47, who heads the Opus Dei Chicago-based region. That doesn't mean there aren't sympathizers, he says. But to become a full member requires six months' study and a conviction of a calling from God.
Few people link their names to the charges, "and usually I hear complaints from the same two or three people," says Armenio. As for abruptly dropping friendships and setting quotas, "I'm not saying Opus Dei's members have never made a mistake (by) abusing a friendship. What our founder would say is, everybody should have 10 to 12 friends. You can't keep the faith to yourself."
Right from its start in 1928, Opus Dei has been wrapped in paradox. What now is a powerful, Rome-based organization -- with a 17-story, multimillion-dollar U.S. headquarters in the heart of Manhattan -- began with a young Spanish priest who had nothing to offer God, he said, but his sense of humor. The church came to see Escriva's mission to elevate the laity as a profound insight into God's will and set him toward sainthood.
At the same time, the idea of bringing a private spiritual agenda into one's everyday life can be seen as subversive, Mannion agrees: "We're like the first Christians in the middle of society, who changed the whole Roman Empire."
Revolution hardly seemed on the menu in Denver at a recent Opus Dei-sponsored "day of recollection," monthly prayer and meditation gatherings held separately for men and women.
While not widely advertised, nonmembers are welcome. Secret? No, private and individual, say members. "We don't go out on the street corner and hand out pamphlets," says Kathy Fisher. "We're trying to reflect Christ in our own lives."
On that day about 25, including nonmembers, joined for prayer, confession and a talk by an Opus Dei spiritual director. Members include a college professor, an engineer and several small-business owners. Many of the women are stay-at-home moms who help their husbands' work. Their spirituality reflects that "God is in charge of every detail," says Pam Bruin, a 46-year-old mother of eight. "That's what we're trying to live through Opus Dei."
Members chuckle sympathetically as they try to explain Opus Dei inner workings, based on a Byzantine structure from 19th century Spain. Numeraries are celibate members who live in centers and fill the priestly ranks. Supernumeraries are married members who support "the Work" financially and staff schools and programs for inner-city kids.
As women pray silently in the sanctuary, in strides Armenio, a slim 47-year-old priest in a black cassock. The former New Jersey track athlete says he was drawn to Opus Dei in the tumultuous late 1960s. There, "they really encouraged us to follow the Gospel in a very serious way. I remember one of the guys saying `You guys don't take Christianity seriously. You criticize it, but you don't try it.' "
Members are overjoyed at the arrival of Gomez, who led the Texas region, and who joined as a young layman and accountant. They hope he will be able to make Denver the country's fifth regional Opus Dei center. He would like that, too, but says it's not up to him. His first commitment is to the archdiocese's Hispanic ministry.
As for the organization he loves: "Oh gosh," he says, "Opus Dei is so simple, but so difficult to explain."
Contact Jean Torkelson at (303) 892-5055 or torkelsonj@RockyMountainNews.com.
March 25, 2001