Love it or hate it, you cannot ignore Opus Dei. As its founder JosemaríaEscrivá is canonised in Rome tomorrow, Paddy Agnew looks at thecontroversial movement which has pride of place in the Vatican
They have been called the "Cloak and Crucifix Brigade", the "Pope's Marines", the "Leopards in the Temple", the "Holy Mafia", and much else besides - most of it unflattering. The movement has been accused of elitism, secrecy, fanaticism, of using dubious recruitment practices and of being a "once in, never out" freemasonry with a right-wing, theologically conservative "hidden agenda".
We are talking, of course, about Opus Dei, the Catholic lay movement whose charismatic founder, Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, will tomorrow be made a saint by Pope John Paul II in a packed St Peter's Square in Rome. Wherever you go in the Catholic Church and whenever you mention the name Opus Dei (literally, the Work of God), the reaction is never indifferent. Some like it, some hate it, but almost everybody has a firm opinion.
Founded in 1928 in Madrid by Monsignor Escrivá, Opus Dei today boasts some 80,000 followers in 70 countries, with less than 2,000 of its members serving as priests. Escrivá's basic, laudable idea was that people should apostolate, evangelise and generally bear witness to the teachings of Christ through their professional work.
Put simply, if you are a good Christian, you are so in the office or on the shop floor, just as much as when attending Mass on Sunday morning.
Having survived, not without some risk to his own life, the Spanish civil war, Escrivá moved his small movement (in the mid-1930s he had only a dozen or so members) to Rome in 1946. From that point on, we enter into the realm of controversy.
For his followers, Escrivá simply went about his evangelical mission in his own charismatic, determined and driven way, overseeing the growth of the movement always in strict conformity with its founding principles.
Critics, however, argue that he (successfully) set about influencing makers and shakers in high Vatican places, gradually gaining a uniquely powerful place in the Catholic firmament for Opus Dei. For example, the Pope's highly influential spokesman for most of this pontificate, Dr Joaquin Navarro Valls, is a member.
For much of his lifetime, Monsignor Escrivá had campaigned for Opus Dei to be made a "Personal Prelature" in conformity with changes introduced at Vatican Council II. (The "Personal Prelature" was to be a "virtual" diocese, not defined geographically, but placed under the direct control of the Vatican rather than of local bishops).
In 1982, seven years after Monsignor Escrivá's death, Pope John Paul II did in fact confer this honour on Opus Dei.
To Opus Dei followers, this new-found status was merely in keeping with Vatican Council II. For its critics, it was proof not just of the favourable view taken of Opus Dei by Pope John Paul II (doubtless helped by its role in getting dollars across to Solidarnosc in communist Poland, but also of its unfairly privileged position in that it became a "church within the Church", an autonomous battalion in the Pope's divisions bearing allegiance to Opus Dei head office in Rome and not to a local bishop.
Today, Opus Dei is the only such "Personal Prelature" in the Catholic Church.
Not for nothing this week did Monsignor Flavio Capucci, the "postulator" of Monsignor Escrivá's case for sainthood and a member of Opus Dei, point out that tomorrow's canonisation in no way represents a Vatican "seal of approval" for Opus Dei.
That "seal of approval", he pointed out, had already been delivered 20 years ago, when Opus Dei was made a personal prelature.
In presenting the background to this canonisation, Monsignor Capucci also made reference to some of the many criticisms levelled at Monsignor Escrivá over the years.
The man that Opus Dei members like to call "Our Father" or "The Founder" has been accused of being vain (he allegedly had the "de Balaguer" tagged on to his name out of petty snobbery), fascist (he allegedly made anti-semitic remarks about the Holocaust, whilst his movement prospered greatly in Franco's Spain), arrogant and ambitious, as well as having such a loathing for many of the liturgical changes introduced by Vatican Council II that he once considered joining the Greek Orthodox Church.
A number of Vatican commentators have also expressed reservations about his appropriateness as a candidate for sainthood, reservations which reached a crescendo 10 years ago on the occasion of Monsignor Escrivá's beatification. In his book, Making Saints, religious affairs writer Kenneth Woodward comments: "Escrivá was an unexceptional spirit, derivative and often banal in his thoughts, personally inspiring perhaps but devoid of original insights".
Monsignor Capucci pointed out that such objections (and others regarding the unfavourable witnesses allegedly denied access to the beatification and canonisation hearings) are all irrelevant now: "The fact that he is to be canonised means that all these interpretations, reservations, are deprived of authority and are seen to be without foundation".
Yet, while the Catholic Church now considers Josemaría Escrivá a saint, others continue to have their doubts. Just log on to the Opus Dei Awareness Network site (ODAN at www.odan.org) and you will be confronted with a sizeable body of opinion expressing reservations about Opus Dei, in particular about its recruitment practices. Embittered parents and relations complain about loved ones "lost" to an organisation they consider a mind control sect "as cultic in its way as Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church or the Falun Gong", (in the words of John Martin, a contributor to the ODAN website).
Furthermore, you could fill a bookshelf with publications critical of Opus Dei. Among these are Crossing the Threshold by Maria Carmen del Tapia, Parents' Guide to Opus Dei by J.J. Garvey, Opus Dei: An Investigation into the Secret Society Struggling for Power within the Catholic Church by Michael Walsh, My Nightmarish Experience In Opus Dei by Sharon Classen, Why I Left Opus Dei by Peter T. Malinoski, etc., etc.
Talking in Rome this week, Opus Dei spokesman Jack Valero conceded that perhaps mistakes had been made in the past, both by over-enthusiastic members regarding recruitment and by over-discreet members regarding secrecy. He and all other Opus Dei spokesmen emphatically deny allegations of secrecy, elitism or "once in, never out". (In fairness, in its dealings with this writer and with the media generally, Opus Dei tends to be anything but secretive.)
Nonetheless, outsiders remain perplexed by a movement that encourages a minority of its followers (numeraries) to make a pledge of celibacy and to devote their incomes and entire lives to the "Work". Critics are also concerned about the effect Opus Dei can have on the majority of its membership (supernumeraries) who may be married but who also tend to contribute large portions of their incomes to the movement.
The economic well-being of Opus Dei was recently underlined by the opening of a $45 million, purpose-built headquarters in Manhattan. And the movement's spiritual well-being will probably be expressed by the largest crowd ever to attend a canonisation tomorrow. Love it or hate it, you cannot ignore Opus Dei.