Taken from “A ’Zinger of Opus Dei” by Frank R. Zindler
President of American Atheists
Opus Dei (God’s Work) is a Roman Catholic cult founded in October of 1928CE by the fascist Spanish cleric Msgr. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer. By the end of General Franco’s rule over Spain, more than half of his cabinet members were members of this secretive society. When Escriva was being considered for sainthood (at the urging of Opus Die sympathizer Karol Wojtyla acting in his position as Pope John Paul II) in the final decades of the last century, Opus Dei prevented the church tribunal from hearing of his pro-Nazi sympathies. (Whether or not this would have prevented John Paul II from naming him a saint in 2002, however, is open to question, since Pius XI and Pius XII were saintly supporters of Hitler, too – at least early in the Fuhrer’s career before he started stepping on their toes.)
OBJECTIVES OF OPUS DEI
According to Robert Hutchinson [The Guardian (London) 10 Sept. 1997], the primary goal of Opus Dei is to return the Catholic Church to the centre of society as in medieval times. The organization seems a lay (non- priest) organization, although priest, bishops and even cardinals are members. Under Karol Wojtyla, Opus Dei became the dominant force in the Roman Curia (that is the more than 2000 prelates and laymen who run the Roman Catholic Church). Opus Dei is said to have more than 80,000 members worldwide, with over 2,000 priests. In 1982, Wojtyla granted Opus Dei the status of ‘personal prelature’ so that it is not confined by geographical boundaries and its vicar reports directly to the pope, not to a local bishop.
The authoritarian cult has two types of members: celibate and non-celibate, but both are subjected to a secret initiation rite. Obedience is sworn to the prelate-general (the head of the organization) and to “other authorized persons of the prelature,” according to Hutchinson. After initiation they must submit to thought control which is by observing and obeying “formative norms” – reporting weekly to a mentor who controls all their activities both personal and professional, and confessing weekly to an Opus Dei priest.
Celibate inductees must wear a cilice ( this was originally a horribly uncomfortable shirt made of goat’s hair, but in Opus Dei usage it is a barbed wire belt around the thigh and groin) and flagellate themselves with the disciplines (a whipping device resembling a cat-o-nine- tails), preferably with effusion of at least some blood.
Married members must send their children to Opus Dei schools if possible, to extend the brainwashing to the next generation.
CHIEF STRATEGY
– of Penetrating, Entering and Influencing High Political, Legal and Economic Office
The strategy of Opus Dei is to extend its influence by recruiting people in high places. In the US, for example, US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a member and it is widely rumoured that Clarence Thomas also is a recruit. During the Reagan administration, it placed its agents in the White House and recruited in the middle ranks of the Pentagon. Former FBI director under Clinton, Louis Freeh, is a member and sent a child to an Opus Dei school. His brother, John is a celibate director of a large Opus Dei centre in Pittsburg. It is unclear to what extent Opus Dei was behind Ratzinger’s June 2004 letter to American Bishops ordering them to refuse communion to Catholic John Kerry, thus swaying Catholic support in favour of the crusader-warrior George W. Bush. In this brazenly meddling in American politics, I think Ratzinger has given Americans a taste of what is to come from Pope Benedict XVI.
It was Opus Die that presided over the decline and death of John Paul II, who appeared to be completely under their control for the final several weeks of his life. They were the ones who set in motion the electoral juggernaut that would crush all opposition and place their Ratzinger on the papal throne in just four or five ballots.
This panzer (he was in a Hitler military brigade) cardinal had everything going for him well before the conclave. It was he who celebrated Wojtyla’s requiem mass. It was he who directed the whole show before the election. In a last minute sermon to the cardinal electors he inveighed (- strong complaint) against secularism and ‘relativism’:
“We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”
Of course, this is a gross distortion of what philosophers and anthropologists consider to be an obvious fact, viz., that morals are relative to particular cultures, times, and circumstances. Furthermore, it relates only to morals, not to questions of scientific fact – except in the trivial sense that scientists admit their findings are not certain to the umpteenth decimal position.
Ratzinger’s insistence on absolutist morality instead of an ethic that is relative – i.e., relatable to the realities of different times and circumstances – points up to a major reason why this traditionalist ideologue is so dangerous. By insisting on adherence to principles falsely supposed to be perfect and absolutely good, true, or whatever, he makes change impossible.
“That which cannot change cannot be improved. That which cannot be improved is doomed to extinction when circumstances change in ways that require adaptation for survival.”
For example, tens of thousands of years ago, when the entire human population of the earth numbered less than a million, the effective moral code of the time favoured procreation – make more babies! When tribal wars were desperately fought, numbers counted. Therefore, sexual acts not supporting this procreation were considered unhelpful to the cause of survival of the species. Women, therefore, were required to do their duty. In less stressful times, of course, things could be more lax, more playful.
Today, however, when there are more than six billion people living on a planet that cannot indefinitely sustain more than two to three billion, it is clear that the ancient pro-natalist morality must be turned upside down. In the world today, it is necessary to promote sexual activities that are not open to pregnancy and procreation.
The Historical Baggage of Benedict
There are tough times ahead for Europe, America and the rest of the world. Even the name ‘Benedict’ he chose, has ominous connotations for the future.
Quotation which explains his choice of Benedict:
“The name Benedict calls to mind the extraordinary figure of the great ‘Patriarch of Western Monasticism,’ St. Benedict of Norcia, co-patron of Europe together with Saints Cyril and Methodius, and the women saints, Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Sein, and Edith Stein. The gradual expansion of the Benedictine order that he founded had enormous influence on the spread of Christianity across the Continent.
St. Benedict therefore, is deeply venerated, also in Germany and particularly in Bavaria, my birthplace; he is a fundamental reference point for European Unity and a powerful reminder of the indispensable Christian roots of his culture and civilization. [Benedict XVI general audience, 27 April, 2005]”
The code words ‘European Unity” and ‘indispensable Christian roots of his culture and civilization,’ recall the fight to put Christianity into the Constitution for the European Union. Ratzinger is going to try again to capture Europe for Christ. The fight will be especially difficult in Germany, where the Vatican has already made concordats with the individual states – concordats that repeat or even go beyond the still recognized concordat the Vatican signed with Hitler way back in the thirties.
It is predicted that America will see more meddling not only in elections and legislative proceedings but more crucially in the US judicial system. Already, at least one member of the US Supreme Court is a member of Opus Dei, and who knows how many Republican Judges at lower levels (2005) are secret adherents?
Catholics comprise a disproportionate fraction of American lawyers and judges, – and considering what we do know of the modus operandi (method of working) of Opus Dei – we may expect that likely, there has been heavy recruitment in an effort ultimately to capture the US Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the writer of this article has no hard numbers to substantiate this conjecture. He asks people to investigate this further (2005) and prove him wrong.
At the Conclave to elect the new pope, most of the Latin American cardinals voted for Ratzinger, and it is in Latin America that Opus Dei is exceptionally influential. The social and political problems there can only get worse with the Church siding even more with authoritarian regimes against the more democratic or socialist governments. This can be expected as a direct result of “The Enforcer’s” (Ratzinger’s) silencing of the “Liberation Theologians” when he was Grand Inquisitor.
Whatever the name Ratzinger may signify in German, one thing seems certain – he will be a pope like no other since the Dark Ages. The world’s foremost authority on Satan and exorcism, he was the head of the Holy Roman Inquisition – a Grand Inquisitor euphemistically referred to as “The Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”.
As his replacement, Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco has been appointed as Grand Inquisitor (2005CE).
Taken from “A ’Zinger of Opus Dei” by Frank R. Zindler in ‘American Atheist’ Spring 2005