Can i join opus dei

Does Opus Dei pressure people to join? Return to Questions. The programa ensures that before being formally admitted, the candidate is instructed that: he must commit himself to strive for personal holiness according to the spirit and practice of Opus Dei; he will be under the jurisdiction of the directors of the Work and should obey them in all that pertains to the aims of the prelature, its government, spirit, and apostolate; he should assiduously try to live the plan of life in its fullness, especially daily mental prayer, the Holy Rosary, and the frequent reception of the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion; the spirit of Opus Dei encourages them to lead a life of intense work; he should try to fulfill all the obligations that come with the type of membership i.

Return to Questions Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading Follow Following. The Truth, Served Raw. In Opus Dei, we were not supposed to have personal friendships. One day, a member who lived in the same house with me had a nervous breakdown.

He tried to speak to me, but the director came between us. The director told me to mind my own business and told him to be quiet. This person's condition was apparently so fragile he could not be left alone, and he was under the constant supervision of the director for the next three weeks until someone was found to accompany him out of the country.

Even though I saw him at breakfast and dinner every day, he made no further attempts to talk to me. We also had a young vocation who was working in the same office I had worked in. I found him sobbing one day in the chapel, and in less than a week, he was put on a plane out of the country. After seeing some of these events, I started to speak up when I felt something strange was happening. I refused to be silenced anymore. Periodically, in Opus Dei, there is an official visitor sent by the Father in Rome, and this visitor is supposed to talk with everyone who wants to see him.

Eventually the time for the next visitation arrived. The first thing this visitor said when he was introduced to a group of us, was that we should learn to grow quietly in the spiritual life like mushrooms in a dark cave not bothered by the hassles of the secular world. Someone must have pulled him aside and told him this was a very bad example because he never used it again. This person was a Spaniard living in Rome. In my subsequent talk with this visitor, he allowed me an hour for the interview.

At the end of the hour, he gave me a pained look of boredom and frustration, and he stopped me. He looked me straight in the eye and told me the things I was complaining about simply do not happen in Opus Dei, and he showed me the door. I continued to speak up as a matter of conscience when I saw strange things happening and felt people were being manipulated, and I was returned to the United States in and processed out of the organization within a year.

I was not permitted to speak to any directors I had previously known. I asked about writing to the Vatican since I was a permanent member with many years of service, but my director told me we were a completely lay organization the first Secular Institute and later the first Personal Prelature and our statutes which were kept secret allowed us to dismiss members without intervention from the Vatican.

The statutes are handled with the tightest discretion and circumstance. In the interest of showing how open they are, Opus Dei states they give copies of their statutes to all the bishops in whose dioceses they operate. When I asked some bishops to see the statutes, they refused me access.

Opus Dei continues to insist that they have no secrets. Statutes of Opus Dei. The circumstances of my vocation were a burden in conscience for me.

Since leaving Opus Dei, I have discussed these with diocesan priests and these priests have told me quite clearly these things were wrong. The priests in Opus Dei always told me I should believe and obey my directors. There were one or two occasions when a priest made a small suggestion, which might have helped me, but as soon as the suggestion came to the attention of my directors, it was over-ridden. I was clearly informed Opus Dei was a layman's organization, and I was to do what my lay director told me.

There was another time when I was discussing these burdens with a priest of the Work in Confession looking for moral guidance. I was getting fed up with the moral ambiguity and demanded to know why he was just sitting there and wouldn't say anything. He looked at me for a moment, then got angry and said if I didn't have any of my own sins to tell, he was terminating this Confession and walked out.

Some years later, I was in Rome. Since I was no longer under obedience, I felt I could finally speak freely without being silenced. I went to the central offices of Opus Dei to confront one of their major directors who had lied to me. I went first to pray and pay my respects to the dead Founder.

The woman who interviewed me before she would let me visit the tomb wanted to know about me and how I knew about the Founder. I replied with the generic but true answers which answered her questions without telling her anything she could use. Then she asked if I wanted to go to Confession. She said the Founder had inspired many people to lead holy lives and people liked to go to Confession in the chapel where he was buried.

I told her, "no, thank you. He recognized me and asked if I wanted to go to Confession. He said we could not talk in the chapel because we would disturb the people praying, and he suggested we could talk privately in the confessional. Once inside, I asked again where I could find the director. He said he didn't know -- that I would have to go to another entrance and inquire there -- but since we were in the confessional, why didn't I go to Confession?

In my view, Opus Dei gets so obsessed with their vision of holiness they become oblivious to reality. One of the ways Opus Dei controls a situation is by controlling whom you can talk to. As I mentioned above, when I was processed out of the organization, I was not permitted to talk to directors I had known before. They had been moved to other parts of the country, but I called my old center and was told where I could contact them. From the point of view of human decency and morality, it only made sense to me that these people should listen to the consequences of their actions, so they could make fully informed moral decisions in the future.

Both of these directors said they were only responsible for obeying their respective directors and had no further responsibility for or to me.

They both hung up on me. This is the end of my story. It has been a real burden in conscience to find out the true nature of Opus Dei after I had already committed years of my life and resources to it. In the beginning, I learned to pray, studied theology and started living a spiritual life, and I wanted others to enjoy these spiritual benefits. Then my membership became a two-edged sword as I found I had to stifle the voice of my conscience because the vehicle for transmitting these benefits to the world was enmeshed with a leadership which believed the miracles involved in founding Opus Dei had placed them above basic morality and accountability to any authority on earth -- even that of the Church.

It was a sword which cut me through to the deepest parts of my being. Again, in the beginning, I met some admirable self-sacrificing people who gave up so much in personal desires and possessions; but then I saw how these same people, through blind obedience were manipulated into participating in a social movement which was false.

Opus Dei pushed themselves into my life. They told me I had a vocation given to me by God and approved by the Church. Now, after living through the devastation of seeing that vocation shredded before my very eyes, I have experienced a sense of freedom and mission in holding Opus Dei accountable in a public forum for their deeds. For those who want to understand a little better how Opus Dei manages to operate in this manner, it is probably worth some discussion in a more structured analysis, which follows.

The document states that anything in the document which is not directly abrogated or superceded is still in effect. Part of the difficulty in discussing Opus Dei is its complex nature. The other difficulty is that I am writing to a very diverse audience of unknown readers. I have had a rich experience in life as a member of Opus Dei.

I have met many different kinds of people from many diverse circumstances. The world is composed of many different personality types by the tremendous creative diversity of God, so there will be people who can devote themselves to the menial daily and detailed tasks of life which are required to make a community function as well as the dreamers and thinkers who will direct and inspire society to do great good and build structures which solve social problems. There are poor people for whom the price of a bottle of milk for a newborn is fixed, and anything more or less is unfair; and there are the leaders of business, government and the military who know how much waste exists in community life and write off thousands of dollars in miscellaneous expenses.

A lot has been said about whom Opus Dei targets. Opus Dei wants all of you, but they know the most efficient way to do that is to first attract the elite of society and then the rest will follow easily. I am attempting to write to all of you. Many people who hold influential positions in the world will have no objection to the smooth marketing, tightly controlled operation that Opus Dei is. Opus Dei intends to play in the high-class world scene.

Many leaders in the world of business, the military and government know the rules of this game and play by them to manage society.

Opus Dei doesn't do any less. Opus Dei is an example of a high stakes sales organization with all the good and bad which that implies. In many parts of the world today, the individual has a choice of going out and participating in a high stakes game of career, finance or prestige.

People need to develop their own instincts and decide at what level they want to play. If a person starts getting involved in something, finds himself pulled in deeper than he expected, and wants to get out of the game, the world has its own ways of dealing with such people. Some of the ways are honest, and some of them are not. The trouble with Opus Dei is they come looking for you. They suck you in under false pretenses in the name of the Church and then pressure you in God's name to take on defined responsibilities on their terms; when you try to slow things down, ask some questions and exercise your freedom as a human being, they stifle your complaints in the name of the Church and threaten you with dire moral and eternal consequences.

Josemaria Escriva was canonized by the Pope on October 6, It is a public relations technique for saying what Opus Dei should be in theory rather than what it actually is. During the recruiting process and in their public statements, Opus Dei members say they are just a simple group of lay people gathered together to sanctify their professional work and do some apostolate. The statutes talk about the merit of obedience. Number 31, Paragraph 3, of the document states, "Whenever there are two members of the Institute, lest they be deprived of the merit of obedience, a certain subordination is always observed, in which one is subject to the other according to the order of precedence, unless it is mediated by a special delegation from the Superiors, always safeguarding the dependence of each upon the respective Superior.

But Number 31 of the document describes the order of precedence among those who have power of government and Paragraph 2 states, "However, the priests and clerics always preside over the laity, who do not exercise the power of government, and to them, all render the greatest honor and reverence.

The directors of Opus Dei make a lot of hype over fraternal correction. They say they have a divinely inspired spirit which was defined by the Founder and any infractions are corrected immediately.

When a person makes his perpetual commitment to the organization, called the Fidelity, after about seven years of membership, he promises to make fraternal corrections to any and all members -- especially the directors. As I said above, there are very unique and strange exceptions in Opus Dei.

When I attempted corrections against the directors, I was told once that I couldn't make the correction because I had bad will; another time I was told that certain things were none of my business to correct; and, still another time I was told that it was improper of me to accuse my directors of the behavior I was trying to correct. Opus Dei is like a cult in that it creates an awe-inspiring image of a perfect organization given by divine revelation to the clay instrument of their Founder in order to invite you and me personally to heaven.

In actual practice this revelation was far from complete and perfect. There have been a continuing number of false starts and experiments with human beings. Once a director has told the defining stories of the history, no one is permitted to question them even if he has heard another version of the story or knows the story to be edited.

Opus Dei is also like a cult in that it uses its attractive and young members to recruit new members. As soon as the recruit joins, he is turned over to a more experienced director and the member is told not to discuss anything personal or of a vocational nature with the recruit and that his relationship of friendship with the recruit has been absorbed into the body corporate of Opus Dei. The standard example we were given in formation is that of the young member who got up early every morning to play tennis or some other sport with a targeted recruit.

On the morning after the recruit joins, he goes in to wake his recruiter for their usual game, and the recruiter tells him to go back to bed and let him sleep. He says he was only playing sports with the recruit in order to convince him to join. Everyone laughs and understands and the new member is supposed to love his vocation so much that he is grateful for the morning sacrifices made on his behalf by his recruiter.

Opus Dei is also like a cult in that the Founder and his successors are idolized to varying degrees. I saw the very strong face of fanaticism in when some members returned from a trip to Rome at Easter and were talking about the still-living Founder almost as if he were a god. This was a concern to me and I resolved never to participate in it. Obedience in Opus Dei is modeled around the concept of being one in mind with the Father.

Similarly, it recalls a key element in the life of Jesus Christ in which he prays in the Garden, "Father Obedience is tied in with the concept of Unity. He likens the commitment to marriage: "A person who is married is making all of his income available to his spouse and his children, he's thinking first in terms of the others.

An Opus Dei-published primer, "On the Vocation of Opus Dei," says "numerary members remain celibate to give themselves body and soul for the sake of the apostolate. In this way, they are fully available to carry out tasks for formation and direction within Opus Dei. Massimo Introvigne, who runs the Center for Studies on New Religions in Italy, says restrictions of freedom have been common in Catholic convents and monasteries throughout the world since the beginning of Catholicism.

But he says with church reforms beginning in the s, strict convents have almost totally disappeared in the English- and German-speaking world. Notre Dame's Appleby says the numerary life actually resembles that of a Catholic seminarian during the s and s.

It raises a question, though, he says, about whether or not Opus Dei in its recruiting tactics is "exploiting the uncertainty and insecurity of youth. But he observes it's tough from the outside to know whether that dialogue has truly taken place. Opus Dei has been accused by critics of having "cult-like" practices. Religious scholars say Opus Dei is not a cult.

But many do say it engages in practices that appear cult-like, practices used by many strict religious groups and that used to be common in some Roman Catholic orders. LeBar says Opus Dei's practices are not necessarily wrong: "If someone wishes to follow a very strict way of life, and be very closely supervised, and they willingly go into that, that's fine," he says.

LeBar says he has been in contact with Opus Dei over the years, "hoping to help them see where the line is drawn and where they cross over it. Opus Dei centers would continue activities during holiday vacations, keeping numerary members away for the holidays, he says.

LeBar says he has encountered instances in which members were told by an Opus Dei superior "if your parents don't approve with what you're doing they're the bad ones, they're in error or sin or worse. And that's not good. So parents complained, he said. LeBar also is the coordinator of an association called the Coalition of Concern About Cults, which includes senior representatives from the U.

He says whether one thinks Opus Dei displays some cult-like characteristics can depend upon how one looks at them:. They respect the maxims and sayings of it with almost awesome reverence. But if you're an active Yankee fan, aren't you also always eager to hear what the Yankees are going to do? In he was quoted as saying " Dianne DiNicola, its executive director has said: "The biggest problem we have with Opus Dei is that a person is not free to make their own decisions.

They live in a controlled environment and all the while Opus Dei hides behind the Catholic Church. Critics have also described it as a sort of Catholic freemasonry - accusing it of being secretive and manipulative. Opus Dei members respond to these allegations by emphasising the fact that all members are free to join, and leave, as they please. The allegations of secrecy and aggressive recruiting tactics are more often than not attributed to misinterpretations of the way Opus Dei was viewed in the past - the existing organisation has taken great pains to present itself in a more moderate way.

It has been suggested that Opus Dei has a wealth of important and powerful members in both the religious and the political spheres. However, Opus Dei does not publish official lists of members, believing membership is a private matter. The influence of Opus Dei in the Holy See has been exaggerated. An Opus Dei member in the British government attracted questions in May Questions were raised over Ruth Kelly's suitability for the role of Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government; however, she insisted as a practising Catholic her faith would not influence decisions she needs to make for her job.

Asked if she thought homosexuality was a sin, Ruth Kelly stated: "I don't think it's right for politicians to start making moral judgements about people. That's the last thing I would want to do. What I think the question is, is what are my political views and as a politician those are the ones I'm accountable for to the public. As a politician I think anybody should be free from discrimination and I'll fight to the absolute end to make sure that is the case. His vision is to extend the Sunday religiosity of working people into their everyday lives.

He is initially seen as a heretic by the church hierarchy. It states: "No one must reveal to anyone that they themselves belong to Opus Dei.