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Testimonies and Other Writings
Opus Dei, the
Questionable
Practices Opus Dei-affiliated foundations
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Support Us Since its inception in 1991, ODAN has heard from countless people who have been victimized by Opus Dei's aggressive recruitment, secretiveness and deception. The result for many is devastation and disillusionment. Opus Dei's victims often feel isolated, alone, even abandoned by God. ODAN provides support, understanding and a sympathetic ear to these individuals and gives them the information they need to make informed choices. ODAN is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We depend solely on your donations in order to continue our goals of education, outreach and support. ODAN is staffed entirely by volunteers who work many hours without salaries. Please support us today. Your donation is vital! Donations to ODAN are fully tax-deductible. Receipts are issued for all donations. Please send a check, money order or cash in U.S. funds to:
Funding Letter 2011 Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc. (ODAN™) PO Box 4333, Pittsfield, MA 01202-4333,Tel: (413) 499-7168; Fax: (413) 499-7860Web: www.odan.org, e-mail: odan@odan.org
December 9, 2011
Dear Friends of ODAN,
A little over 20 years ago on a sunny September weekend in 1991, fifty plus people came together to discuss Opus Dei. We were a group of people who had loved ones who had joined Opus Dei. We were all practicing Catholics and were greatly concerned by the alienation and change in personality of our loved ones. It was no small miracle that each of us became aware of one another. The internet was not widely used for information and Opus Dei was telling each one of us that we were the only ones with a problem, that we were too controlling. Besides, Opus Dei continued, no one else had complained, and they were a bona fide Vatican approved organization of the Catholic Church. Yet with the lack of information, each one of us, on our own, could not shake the feeling that something was not right. All of the things Opus Dei were telling us turned out to be untrue. As time went on and some of those loved ones left Opus Dei, they began to report on Opus Dei’s hidden agenda. The extent of the manipulation and deception was staggering. The rate that members left Opus Dei was very high for an organization that claimed around 80,000 members world-wide. It was an organization that told its members that if they did not accept a vocation in Opus Dei, they would live a life completely void of God’s grace and blessing.
ODAN eventually became aware of a lot of people who had experienced Opus Dei’s questionable practices. The decision to form Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc. (ODAN) and its web site opened up a stream of information that encompassed not just the United States, but the whole world. ODAN became a source of information about Opus Dei’s underside, the side not readily seen and known. It was not the glossy picture Opus Dei puts out about itself.
One of the first documents created by former numerary members was “Opus Dei’s Questionable Practices”. http://www.odan.org/questionable_practices.htm. Among the things it describes are corporal mortification, aggressive recruitment, undue pressure to join, lack of informed consent and control of environment and alienation of family that exists within Opus Dei. The document was written eighteen years ago and still applies today. Opus Dei has not changed.
A recent example is the court case of a French woman who joined Opus Dei as an assistant numerary who sued Opus Dei for enslavement. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8782610/French-woman-sues-Opus-Dei-for-enslavement.html It was alleged during the trial that Opus Dei’s practices were “physically and psychologically damaging. Defense lawyers for Opus Dei claimed the case was a simple labor dispute, when in reality it was about Opus Dei’s questionable practices, exactly the ones outlined in ODAN’s Questionable Practices document. Unfortunately, the French court sided with Opus Dei stating that there was no evidence that the defendant had been trapped without remuneration.
Last month, Opus Libros, our Spanish sister organization, was denounced by Opus Dei for publication of internal documents. Opus Dei filed a complaint citing violation of intellectual property rights by using unseen writings of its founder. Opus Libros argued it is a “fight against censorship and secrecy”. A Spanish judge ordered Opus Libros to remove ‘private’ documents revealing the inner workings of the Catholic organization Opus Dei from its website. This leads one to wonder why an organization that claims its only interest is the spiritual well-being of its members would want to block anything their founder would have to say. What do they have to hide?
Over the last twenty years ODAN has dedicated itself to its mission statement.
“The Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc. (ODAN) was founded in 1991 to meet the growing demand for accurate information about Opus Dei and to provide education, outreach and support to people who have been adversely affected by Opus Dei. ODAN challenges many of Opus Dei's Questionable Practices because of the way they affect an individual's personal freedom, choices and family life.”
The past several years have been hard to maintain since ODAN, like many other non-profits, has experienced a decrease in funding. We have tightened our budget and have maintained the bare essentials to keep us functioning. No one receives a salary at ODAN. Our website is constantly active at distributing information. Please consider praying for ODAN and sending a tax deductible donation to help us continue our mission.
Sincerely,
Dianne R. DiNicola Executive Director
Funding Letter 2010
Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc. (ODAN™) December 2010 Funding Letter
Dear Friends of ODAN,
On April 9, 2010, the Catholic News Service announced the appointment of Opus Dei member Archbishop Jose H. Gomez to be the coadjutor archbishop of Los Angeles, one of the largest Catholic dioceses in the world. In this CNS story it stated, “Archbishop Gomez is one of 24 Opus Dei Bishops around the world, although like any priest, once a member becomes a bishop, he answers directly to the pope and no longer to his bishop or religious superior.”[1] The important question being asked is how much influence will Opus Dei have with Gomez in this powerful position? “Will he be accountable to Los Angeles first and to Opus Dei second?” Archbishop Gomez says he is no longer a member of Opus Dei but are his loyalties going to cease to an organization that he has been associated with since his college days? “Anyone who has read the governing documents or is familiar with Opus Dei, knows that his loyalties are going to be with Opus Dei. He will be required to have a spiritual director, who is going to be a member of Opus Dei, and he will have an obligation of obedience to his spiritual director, with all of the fine shades of meaning that would accompany his official statements about his loyalty.[2]
ODAN was the first to post the Opus Dei Constitution and its Statutes to its website in English. Without these translations, who would know many of the inconsistencies that exist between what Opus Dei says is its Church-approved mode of operation and what it actually does in practice? When ODAN released those secret documents to the public, it forced Opus Dei to reveal more of itself than it had ever done before. For years, the Opus Dei Constitution/Statutes were only written in Church Latin, a hard translation to accomplish.
Recently a former member of Opus Dei told of how the Constitutions of Opus Dei (10 S1) say the priests will not accept stipends for saying Mass, but when the former member’s mother, some years ago, offered a priest of the Work a stipend to say a Mass for the Dead, he said the price had gone up. It leads to having secret documents that tell the Church their priesthood is doing something more noble than is required of priests, but then it is not lived in practice.
Another important and troubling discrepancy is Opus Dei’s “contract” or ‘agreement’ pertaining to its membership. What is the nature of membership in Opus Dei? Why is it not defined? It seems as if the cart came before the horse. Dennis Dubro, former numerary member of Opus Dei, writes: The same old tricks
Opus Dei continues to put forward its same old message of being fully approved by the Church without any secrecy. In the leaked 1982 Statutes on ODAN's website the closing paragraphs say that "All of the members are bound by the same obligations and conserve the same rights which they had in the preceding juridical government (secret 1950 Constitutions), unless the prescriptions of this Code expressly establish something else." That says quite explicitly that the 1950 Constitutions remain in effect except for the changes approved in the 1982 Statutes. Members continually try to deny this, saying the Statutes replace the Constitutions. This is not even logical since Constitutions establish the basic operating rules for an organization and then Statutes are the laws that are made, based upon those Constitutions. The Constitutions of Opus Dei explicitly foresee and make way for any future Statutes that may be approved in Paragraph 89.
In John Allen's book on Opus Dei (Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church), John asked Opus Dei why the governing documents were kept secret. The answer, quoting his book on Page 153, is "The deeper logic, according to Opus Dei insiders, is that some essential terminological questions have not yet been settled in canon law. For example, is the relation between a member and Opus Dei best described in terms of a 'contract' or an 'agreement'? ... and many canonists feel it's inappropriate for describing the nature of a bond in the Church". This raises a clear question how the Vatican can have approved an organization when such critical things as membership are not acceptably defined in the Law of the Church?
Anyone familiar with the operation of Opus Dei knows that Opus Dei says everyone is free to leave at any time. Yet Paragraphs 102 and 103 of the Constitutions say that anyone who leaves his assigned Center can be declared a fugitive and an apostate. Why would anyone incur such penalties if they were truly free to leave?
If you have donated to ODAN in the past and continue to do so, thank you for your years of support. If you have donated in the past, but not recently, please consider supporting ODAN again this year. If you have never donated to ODAN before, please consider a donation this year. ODAN runs solely on your generosity. Since the economic crisis, ODAN, like all non-profits, has experienced a downturn in our donations. This year your donation is critically important to continue our important work. There is no other source in the United States where a person can find factual, truthful commentary about Opus Dei’s questionable practices.
Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc. (ODAN) is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization and all donations may be taken as a charitable deduction. Please keep ODAN in your prayers and consider a generous donation to keep the ODAN website online and functioning. Go to the ODAN website to keep informed!
Sincerely yours,
Dianne R. DiNicola Executive Director
[1] Catholic News Service,
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/100142`.htm
Apr-9-2010
Funding Letter December 2009
Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc. (ODAN™) December 8, 2009 Dear Friends of ODAN, A day does not go by that someone does not praise and speak about their good experiences in Opus Dei. Testimonials are all over the internet, in the media and the press. Opus Dei has adopted a different plan to project a positive image. Those of us who remember Opus Dei’s reaction to outside queries years ago remember an organization that put its foot in its mouth and shied away from the media. Today Opus Dei has adopted a far different way to deal with the public. It is the same Opus Dei who is now waging an offensive rather than a defensive plan of action. I am sure there are some people who do have good experiences. However one cannot ignore those who have had devastating experiences. There are too many of us who know better. They are good people who were just trying to get closer to God when they experienced Opus Dei’s questionable practices. Earlier this year, a book “Women of Opus Dei: In Their Own Words” was published by Crossroad. The review of the book was released by the Opus Dei Information Office saying the book “is an in-depth look at the experience of women in the Prelature of Opus Dei.” These interviews are glowing accounts of various women’s experiences in Opus Dei. On the ODAN website there are two vastly different experiences of life in Opus Dei. If you do not have access to the ODAN website and want a copy just contact ODAN and we will mail copies to you. Both stories are compelling; one is of a former numerary assistant “My Basic Human Rights Were Violated” http://www.odan.org/tw_basic_human_rights_were_violated.htm and the other of a Supernumerary’s daughter, “This Apple Guiltlessly Falls Far From the Tree: Recollections of a Supernumerary’s Daughter” http://www.odan.org/tw_apple.htm . The assistant numerary testimony is a story of servitude and the underlying attitude that exists in Opus Dei about social class and women. The supernumerary daughter’s testimony tells of life in Opus Dei from a woman’s perspective. The differences in the examples of life in Opus Dei women put out by Opus Dei and ODAN is startling. It is almost hard to believe both organizations are speaking of Opus Dei. A feature film about the life of Josemaria Escriva, “There Be Dragons,” is scheduled to be released next year. The film shot in Argentina has been reported to be funded by Opus Dei members. However, Opus Dei has stated in their own statement, “The film team asked us for help in gathering information and we gave them access to the documentations. That’s the beginning and end of our collaboration with this film.” An anti-Opus Dei blog of former members states it fears “this is a propaganda film written and supervised by members of Opus Dei in a desperate attempt to clean up its battered image in the eyes of public opinion. The film focuses on the early years of Escriva’s life during the 1930’s prompting concern that his rise during the Franco years may be brushed over.” The former members claim they were mentally and spiritually diminished by the organization. The film cost an estimated £20 million (~$30 million.) ODAN does not have access to the millions of dollars available to Opus Dei, but still manages to expose the underside of Opus Dei. Times are tough financially for many people but ODAN’s work is not done. Please pray for ODAN and consider supporting us financially this year. We will continue to be the voice for all the people who have been harmed by Opus Dei. Sincerely, Dianne DiNicola
Revised December 19, 2011 |