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BEYOND THE THRESHOLD -- A LIFE IN OPUS DEI |
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11. SILENCES Sincerity, "savage sincerity," is the constant watchword repeated to Opus Dei members, the "faithful of the prelature," as they are now called. One must speak, open up, in the fraternal chat, formerly called the confidence, in confession, and in the weekly talk with an Opus Dei priest. "In order for the mute devil not to take control of our soul, it is necessary to live sincerity." "When something happens that you would not wish to be known, say it immediately -- in a hurry -- to the Good Shepherd," Monsignor Escriva used to say. Opus Dei's indoctrination of its members gives pride of place to sincerity. Sincerity is mentioned in season and out of season in Opus Dei. Its members hear unceasingly that sincerity is the cure for all evils. When I came to Opus Dei, I believed in the authenticity of that healthy, useful attitude. Unhappily, Opus Dei fails to say many things and misrepresents others. This is a major source of the great disillusionment that sweeps over a person when the blindfold of fanaticism slips off. In Opus Dei the truth is constantly silenced. On the one hand, the member of the Work is urged to bare herself spiritually to her director or the priest. On the other, that same director is capable with holy astuteness of silencing the real motive of any of the directives that she imparts to the member. Without any intentional bad will on the part of superiors, this Opus Dei emphasis on discretion creates a false air of mystery: people coming from other countries to the central house are not announced; nobody is informed when a member is leaving for a different country. Sooner or later, one finds out through chance meetings on the stairs or in the oratory. The ordinary members' lack of information increases the power of the directors, who feel powerful because they know what all the rest do not. Sadly, this sort of practice is familiar to citizens of totalitarian countries. The most significant area of silence in Opus Dei was that surrounding Monsignor Escriva. From the most trivial to the most important, many details were hushed up. Numeraries and servants who cleaned his rooms could not mention, even among themselves, that Monsignor Escriva often took a bath instead of a shower as the rest of the members did; they had been carefully instructed not to discuss what they learned while working at the administered house. One day he almost died. I knew that only because in the afternoon of the crisis, he came with Don Alvaro to the office of the central advisory and told us: "This son of mine, Alvaro, saved my life with his great presence of mind." The rest of the house, more than a hundred members, knew nothing until many months later; except, of course, Rosalia Lopez, who as the maid, was present at the scene. It was not openly acknowledged that Monsignor Escriva had diabetes. When he fell into a coma, Don Alvaro immediately realized what was wrong. He forced open his mouth and practically poured down the sugar bowl placed on the table, sprinkling it with water to make it easier to swallow. Meanwhile, he urgently sent Rosalia to the kitchen for more sugar and to call the Father's numerary physician, who also lived in Villa Vecchia. I learned that those who were in the kitchen -- and did not know what was happening -- were going to give Rosalia another sugar bowl in response to her abrupt demand for "sugar for the Father." She snatched the big can out of the hands of the person in charge of the kitchen and returned to the dining room on the run. This happened on April 27, 1954. The Founder's childhood friends were never mentioned in Opus Dei. Did he have any? Isidoro Zorzano is the only boyhood friend, specifically from secondary school, known as such through the early biography by Daniel Sargent. [1] Zorzano's process of beatification was opened in Madrid, October 11, 1948, with a proclamation posted on the cathedral door announcing: "Cause of beatification and canonization of the servant of God, Isidoro Zorzano Ledesma, of the secular institute Opus Dei." Those of us who were members of the Work during the following decades were encouraged to pray to him as a model of sanctification of everyday life. Why has Opus Dei silenced this process? Is it because Opus Dei is now a prelature, while Zorzano became a saint when it was a secular institute? Opus Dei has similarly silenced the process of Monsita Grasses, while pushing forward with Monsignor Escriva's process. Many things and many individuals are silenced in Opus Dei. They disappear in silence. Those who left Opus Dei, those who committed suicide or tried to, those who became insane are never mentioned. Even greater care is taken not to mention priests who leave Opus Dei. Opus Dei silences them all. Many of them continue in the priesthood. Others seek secularization, and receive dispensations from the Holy See, and marry in the Catholic church. I found out about some cases when I was still in Opus Dei. I remember that when I learned of one case by chance, I called the counselor to the confessional and asked him if what I had been told was true. He confirmed the rumor I had heard outside, but recommended that "I say nothing," although the situation was whispered about all over Caracas. Opus Dei silences the truth. To squelch discussion inside the Work about the many people who quit the institution, the superiors -- perhaps without reflecting on the consequences that their statements might have -- have said that those individuals were "sick" in some cases, or "insane" in others; they never try to offer a straightforward explanation as to why they have left. For me, the worst silences are those that hinder personal freedom. Opus Dei shows admirable zeal in trying to preserve vocations that have been a decade or more in its ranks. Its practice belies the slogan that is repeated when one joins: "The door to Opus Dei is only open a crack to come in but wide open to leave." Perhaps without realizing the danger of its strategy, Opus Dei silences persons, intimidates, even blackmails, deliberately creating a sense of guilt which leads some former members in turn to keep silence about their membership in Opus Dei. There have been those who have suffered some misfortune after they left Opus Dei and considered it God's punishment for having left. I remember only too well the case of the daughter of a friend who tormented herself for a long time with this notion. Opus Dei's cold silence toward those who leave provokes contradictory reactions. In their resentment toward the association, some also leave the church. Others remain within the church, but their acquaintance with Opus Dei makes them regard it as a sect which has managed to lodge itself within Catholicism. But almost all former members of Opus Dei, even if they never met while they belonged to the Work, agree publicly that Opus Dei silences the truth. None of this is meant to deny that there are not only good people but excellent human beings inside Opus Dei. Some are still blinded by their own good faith and credulity. Others, who have privileged information, do not dare to say what they think out loud for fear of being silenced by Opus Dei. A range of circumstances could be described which retain such individuals within Opus Dei. For example, one is the age of many women over fifty, including professional women, who have not exercised their profession for many years. Even if they are not in agreement with major aspects of the Opus Dei and have suffered its penalties and harassment personally, they would not know where to go if they left Opus Dei at their stage in life. It is not easy to begin a life outside especially when one carries the burden of the years spent in Opus Dei. Thus, they let their life slip by in silence, on behalf of a cause of which they are no longer convinced in conscience. Then there are numerary priests whom Opus Dei silences when they have tried to exercise genuine charity as the church demands rather than as Opus Dei commands. Such priests have defended just causes with great integrity and energy, even at the risk of being silenced. Opus Dei takes pains to warn them and to convince them that failure to persevere in the association is equivalent to leaving the church. They are blackmailed with the argument that if they leave Opus Dei they might end up in concubinage. It requires heroic courage for a numerary priest over fifty to leave Opus Dei. The change from the comfortable, sheltered life of Opus Dei houses to the poverty and hardship of a poor parish is very great. Accordingly, some priests accept the rules of the game, become silent, and spend their lives in inner conflict, a situation which has led to more than one case of alcoholism among male numeraries. Some years back after I had ceased to belong to Opus Dei, I encountered a paradigmatic case of a "silenced" Opus Dei priest. He acknowledged that Opus Dei was a harmful organization but felt he could not abandon it, because he had "given his word and had to keep it." I suggested to him that he speak to the bishop of the diocese where he lived and place himself under the latter's authority, continuing as a priest but outside Opus Dei. I was shaken by some of his responses: "I would not have been a priest because it never occurred to me to be a priest before entering the Work. I was ordained as a priest of the Work. ... As an Opus Dei priest, I have nothing to do with the activities of the church that have not been assigned me by Opus Dei superiors. If the children in Vallecas [a proverbially poor Madrid neighborhood] have runny noses, let their parish priest wipe their noses. I have nothing to do with that, and it doesn't interest me. If a woman has a problem, let her go to whomever she needs. It doesn't affect me as an Opus Dei priest. I'm not going to worry about it.... I have been ordained to serve my brothers in the Work, nothing else, nobody else. At least until the Opus Dei superiors tell me otherwise." This doctrine that Opus Dei priests serve the prelature rather than the church is not news to me. I have heard Monsignor Escriva express himself on the matter on several occasions, saying that "Opus Dei numeraries are ordained to serve their brothers." Of course, this is never said overtly to church authorities; rather the contrary is proclaimed. Opus Dei claims the right to silence those members who waver in their vocation, taking their freedom away, isolating them, forcing them to submit as slaves for whatever period the supervisors deem "medicinal." They are deprived of their freedom, isolated, held incommunicado. Why do men and women who left Opus Dei fear to tell the truth of what they saw, heard, and often suffered? As can be learned from my own case, many, understandably, fear reprisals and prefer to put painful memories behind them as they try to rebuild their lives. Some married people fear that their children might suffer abuse from Opus Dei and remain silent about their years in the institution. They may even beg that their name not be mentioned publicly because "members of their family who belong to Opus Dei would completely avoid them." Opus Dei silences critical minds. Monsignor Escriva used to say, "I don't want great brains in the Work, because they turn into swelled heads. Average intelligences, if they are docile and faithful, are very effective." An engineer, banker, or scientist tends to have fewer problems with superiors in the Work than humanists, philosophers, or theologians, who are almost always frustrated within the Work. As soon as someone -- who may even be a priest -- is outstanding in the field of philosophy or theology, Opus Dei will almost certainly end by silencing him. He disappears. Opus Dei hides him. He frequently ends up by leaving the institution or becomes the patient of a psychiatrist. Opus Dei does not let you think nor engage in speculation. There is an "internal censorship" that reviews articles, books, lectures, or anything that a member wants to publish. Youngsters with "good spirit," mostly incompetent in academic disciplines, dare to suggest corrections and bring them to the attention of superiors. The proof is that outside Opus Dei institutions there are no Opus Dei philosophers or theologians particularly well known and respected for their work at other institutions besides the University of Navarra. Jurists can acquire some importance within the prelature but philosophers and theologians have no place. This is publicly recognized. I say nothing new but observe a fact. I speak about what I know, because to my shame I must confess that I, too, used the weapon of silence within Opus Dei, accepting and participating in the game of discretion. It was difficult for me to swallow the rules of discretion, but I did so conscientiously, learning how to dish out the truth in small doses, or more precisely, how to keep it hidden or even make it disappear. This lasted a long time, proof of my having acquired "good spirit" in Opus Dei. Years later, life in Venezuela freed me, it brought back my real self, and helped overcome my fanaticism. My experience there aroused my conscience, reminding me first to look to God and to consider everything else secondary. As I said in the Introduction, I judge it my responsibility before God and humanity to unmask Opus Dei, even if I have had to undertake the sometimes tedious task of describing in detail life inside women's houses. For that, I have no other method than to follow the thread of my personal experiences. Therefore, even at the risk of being destroyed by Opus Dei, I refused to be "silenced" by them at this stage of my life, because I believe in spiritual freedom and in the defense of human rights. Ese cielo tan
rosado That sky turning
pink _______________ 1. Daniel Sargent, God's Engineer (Chicago: Scepter, 1954), pp. 32 ff. Sargent describes Opus Dei as a secular institute. Opus Dei eventually "silenced" this book in its houses. 2. Romulo Gallegos, "Cantaclaro," Obras Campletas, Tome I (Madrid: Aguilar, 1976), p. 996.
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