Opus Dei centers would continue activities during holiday vacations, keeping numerary members away for the holidays, he says. "The idea is to keep them from getting corrupted."
LeBar says he has encountered instances in which members were told by an Opus Dei superior "if your parents don't approve with what you're doing they're the bad ones, they're in error or sin or worse. And that's not good."
So parents complained, he said. "They thought [their children] were too controlled, and I'm convinced in some areas that's very true."
Working for Jesus Christ
LeBar also is the coordinator of an association called the Coalition of Concern About Cults, which includes senior representatives from the U.S. Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Jewish faith and other religions.
He says whether one thinks Opus Dei displays some cult-like characteristics can depend upon how one looks at them:
"They certainly exhibit a high regard for their leader. They respect the maxims and sayings of it with almost awesome reverence. But if you're an active Yankee fan, aren't you also always eager to hear what the Yankees are going to do?"
"There is no doubt in my mind that some people succumb to the intensive training of Opus Dei into almost a cult-like state of being," he says. "But there are others who saw it and saw what it was worth and could cope with it or leave it alone."
Unlike cults, LeBar says he's found Opus Dei's intentions beyond reproach. "Opus Dei has never veered from working for Jesus Christ and the church. Perhaps their methods are a bit strong, but I certainly would never doubt their intentions."
The "main difference," he says, is that "a cult is really turned inward toward itself, and the leaders are really looking for aggrandizement and that kind of stuff. Opus Dei really isn't doing that, even though they are using methods that may be old-fashioned, and really aren't too much approved in other circles these days."
Protecting the Faith?
Opus Dei members differ from monks and nuns in that they don't take vows, which are made to God. Rather, they make contracts, which are commitments to Opus Dei, according to Finnerty.
Critics say the practice of signing over their salaries and making wills in the organization's favor can make members dependent upon the group and without significant resources if they would like to leave. Finnerty argues such practices should not be considered unusual.
"Living in a spirit of generosity is something everybody is called to do, depending upon what the individual circumstances are. And if someone is a numerary in Opus Dei and he has make that lifetime commitment, that is something in which there is no problem in doing," he says.
Finnerty says Opus Dei directors stopped privately opening the mail of numeraries "a few years ago," though he said he could not specify a date. But he says directors now encourage numeraries to share their mail.
"That custom was changed. I think the spirit is still the same, in that people are encouraged to share it, if people think there is something important that they need to talk to or get advice on, they're encouraged to do that," he says.
Finnerty says numeraries are discouraged from reading certain books because such reading could damage their faith.
"The members of Opus Dei, and for Christians generally, are sort of encouraged to realize that there are certain things, literature that might represent an attack on the faith," he says. "It's a real possibility that if somebody keeps on gorging on nihilistic literature or something like that, it is a real possibility that somebody can read their way out of the Catholic Church."
He says numeraries, who have committed to chastity, are segregated by sex in the residential and work centers "as a measure of prudence that helps to keep it that way."
And the regular corporal mortifications practiced by numeraries, using a crop on the buttocks and spiked chains around the thighs, also are intended to help control appetites, as well as to promote virtue and to imitate the sufferings of Christ, according to Opus Dei literature.
And the Opus Dei primer, mentioned above, explains why numeraries may see their families less after joining Opus Dei. "Like young people who have married they are sometimes unable to make it to their parents' home for Thanksgiving or an anniversary or birthday party."
It says joining Opus Dei brings a new set of relationships with other members, "not unlike those they had with other members of their family in their parents' home," and goes on to say, "They celebrate birthdays, anniversaries of important dates in the development of Opus Dei, and secular and religious holidays in the same way as the members of a closely knit Christian family." (Click here for more explanations of Opus Dei practices.)
A Serious Commitment
New members are gradually exposed to Opus Dei practices and restrictions, said Finnerty. But he says they should be fully aware of everything by the time they make their first annual commitment to the group.
Pressed to say whether Opus Dei directors tell numeraries they might go to hell if they break their commitment to Opus Dei and leave, Finnerty would not say yes or no.
"I think it's absolutely impossible for anyone to know if another person is going to hell," he says. "That's decided on another plane."
But he adds, "The promise is viewed as a serious commitment. It's something important, it's not something that someone decides to go back on lightly."
The Opus Dei primer describes the commitment even more soberly. In recognizing a calling to Opus Dei, it says, "a person becomes aware that Jesus addresses to him or her personally his invitation to 'be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.'"
"Julie"'s Story
The following describes a former member's critical account of her experience with Opus Dei. She has asked that her real name not be used. Opus Dei has since raised the age of commitment to 18.
When Kristina was 12 years old, taking cooking and ceramics classes at a local Catholic center, she says a priest took her aside and said he thought she might have a calling to join Opus Dei.
"He asked me what my plans were for the future, and I said, 'I don't know, get married and have kids,'" she says. "And he said, 'Well, I think God is calling you for something much higher, more important than that.'"
By age 13 ½, Kristina had joined as a "numerary," a life that eventually would include turning over all of future income to the organization and promising a life of chastity, as well as regular prayer, meditation, confession to an Opus Dei priest, and attending Mass in Latin.
For most of the next seven years, she says, she lived a secret life, hiding her new vocation from her family with the encouragement of her Opus Dei spiritual director.
"So, enter the mind-set of a goody-two-shoes Catholic girl: I was told that I had a higher calling from God. I was told that I'd never be happy, that I'd go to hell if I didn't follow this, and that I couldn't tell my parents, that in telling my parents, they would surely oppose my vocation. And, not only could I go to hell, but they could go to hell too," says Kristina, who now lives in Washington, D.C.
At age 16, she says, she announced she had joined the group, and told her father she wanted to leave the family to move into an Opus Dei center. Feeling betrayed, her parents disowned her. They dropped her off at the center and told her to never use their last name again, she says. But several days later, they brought her home. She promised she would not continue with the group, but that was a lie.
"I thought, when I was there, that I was a blissful human being," says Kristina. And she says she loved and worshipped the Opus Dei people with whom she associated.
But at the same time, she says, the stress of concealing it from her family was making her sick.
"My hair had begun to fall out in patches, I had daily migraine headaches. I would gain 20 pounds and lose 20 pounds. I couldn't' sleep for weeks and weeks at a time."
Kristina says she left after confiding her experiences to a non-Opus Dei priest. "It was one of the hardest things I ever did," she says. "To this day, I have nightmares about it and I'm 36 years old, married with two kids."