Letter
to the Editor "Manipulation of Guilt"
by Sharon Clasen, National Catholic
Reporter on September 26, 2003
Dear Editor:
In
“Selling
orthodoxy to Washington power brokers,” (NCR, Sept. 5) Joe Feuerherd
explains why Fr. McCloskey was dismissed from Princeton. "Campus
critics that he used his position to promote Opus Dei and that he advised
students to avoid certain classes.” McCloskey says the controversy
resulted from a “relatively small minority of students, professors,
and townspeople who were not at all happy to have orthodox Catholic teaching
present on the campus.” McCloskey’s attempt to trivialize
the opposition masks the true issues of censorship and invasion of privacy.
According to The Trenton Times
(October 22, 1989), history professor Michael Jimenez contends “that
McCloskey told students not to take courses with certain professors because
they were ‘dangerous,’ and told professors he would advise
students not to read philosophers such as Nietzsche and Hume because they
were also ‘dangerous’ to young minds.” This practice
is consistent with the testimonies of former Opus Dei members, some of
whom have even witnessed book burnings. In a recent article in Newsday
(August 26, 2003), Fr. Alvaro Silva of Boston said “that despite
his advanced degree in theology, he had to ask permission to read leading
Catholic scholars whose works were on Opus Dei's list of forbidden books.”
According
to the same Trenton Times article,
there "were 12 signed letters from students . . . [that] described
intense questioning by McCloskey about their sex lives, their parents'
marital status and their parents' religion. The questioning often sent
students crying from McCloskey's office.” This invasion of privacy
and manipulation of guilt has been experienced by former members worldwide.
Censorship and the invasion of privacy experienced by the Princeton students
are just two of the methods employed by Opus Dei to control the lives
of their members. These methods, coupled with the manipulation of guilt
have nothing to do with orthodoxy.