Opus Dei must defend its members’ privacy

Andrew Soane
Imagine that you have just donated £4,000 to victims of the Tsunami disaster. Or that you fast twice a week, or give £500 per month to your parish. Or that you are a member of Opus Dei, if that is not too difficult a stretch of the imagination. If a journalist gets wind of any of these things and questions you about them with a view to making the details public, are you obliged to supply an answer?
Everyone has a basic right to keep their private life private. I might decide to confirm in public that I am a member of Opus Dei, something that is obviously well known to friends and family. Alternatively, you or I may prefer to keep that kind of information to ourselves. A body with legitimate authority, such as a court of law, might be able to demand such information; the press is another matter.
If the choice belongs to the individual concerned, it is clearly out of the question for someone else to take that choice out of his or her hands. So if ever a journalist approaches the Opus Dei Information Office asking whether someone is a member, the office usually directs the inquirer to ask the person concerned. The press inquiries about the new Secretary of State for Education, Ruth Kelly, are a case in point.
As a matter of fact there may be very real reasons why a member of Opus Dei might be wary of responding to questions. The way some supposedly serious newspapers have juxtaposed reports about Ms Kelly with descriptions of Opus Dei taken straight out of the Da Vinci Code is a demonstration that even to this day this kind of calumny is liable to be put out about them, and someone might fairly decide that responding just isn’t worth the bother.
But this is not a secret of Opus Dei. In not giving the names of members, Opus Dei is declining to reveal information that is private to the people concerned.
Opus Dei does in fact publish plenty of information about itself and its activities. Its aims are purely spiritual: to spread the universal call to holiness among ordinary Catholics. It has no other aims, whether social, economic or political. It has no party line on anything other than doctrine common to all Catholics. It has no political or social programme. It concerns itself with formational and spiritual activities, which are on offer to members and anyone else who wishes to attend.
Opus Dei publishes the appointments of its governing authorities, the addresses of centres and information offices, and other data for use by the public or which could be of objective interest (eg for statistical purposes). This information is given in its six-monthly gazette Romana, and in the various yearbooks and handbooks that contain similar information about other organisations within the Church.
Thus Opus Dei’s centres in Britain, and its priests, are listed in the Catholic directories. The financing of its activities is checked by external auditors and accounts are filed. For example, Netherhall Educational Association, which operates several centres in Britain, has put its last few annual reports and accounts on its website. The Information Office in London handles inquiries from the general public, distributes press statements and maintains a website. Opus Dei has no secrets. It has nothing to hide.
As an aside, readers will probably know that Opus Dei has in fact been accused of having plenty to hide. A compendium of sample allegations appeared last week in The Catholic Herald, none of which is true. It was nice to see that one old chestnut has been quietly dropped, that women members of Opus Dei play a subordinate role.
To respond to some of the others, the suggestion that Opus Dei’s founder, St Josemaria Escriva, was privately hostile to Pope Paul VI is absurd. Everyone knows that the present Pope strongly supports Opus Dei, but actually every pope back to Pius XII has been a supporter, including Blessed John
XXIII, who donated a considerable sum to a technical college in Rome, the Centro Elis project, which he himself asked Opus Dei to take on. Pope Paul VI was a personal friend of Escriva’s from as far back as 1946, shortly after Escriva moved from Madrid to Rome. Paul VI personally opened Centro Elis in 1965, summing up his address with the memorable phrase: “Tutto, tutto qui e Opus Dei.” (“Everything here is the work of God.”)
The “baby-snatching” slander is also ridiculous. Cardinal Hume suggested in 1981 that under-18s should not be allowed to take any long-term commitment with Opus Dei. In doing so he was only stating what is now set down in Canon Law, which Opus Dei has never broken, neither before nor since. You cannot take even a short term commitment with Opus Dei before the age of 18. Cardinal Hume specifically stated at the time that he was not criticising Opus Dei and throughout his time as archbishop he authorised the opening of centres of Opus Dei in his diocese. In 1998 he presided over a solemn Mass in London on Opus Dei’s 70th anniversary.
As for the allegation that Opus Dei lent the Vatican £100 million pounds (or whatever sum or currency – the calumny varies depending on the source) in return for becoming a personal prelature, it belongs in the realm of pure fantasy. The suggestion that Pope John Paul II could have been bought will offend many Catholics.
Opus Dei has always had to put up with this kind of slur. There is no space here to deal with them all, but they are all tosh. However, let us return to the case of Ms Kelly, because there are real implications here.
Why has there been such a hullabaloo in this case? The answer has more to do with politics than genuine interest. While some people’s questions about Ruth Kelly’s connection with Opus Dei have doubtless been well-intentioned, in my opinion the fuss as a whole was started by people who wanted to discredit her – recalling the way in which Rocco Buttiglione was treated late last year by a self-righteous clique of secularist Euro-politicians. By requiring someone in public life to declare whether he or she is of a particular religion or group, they aim to cut them out of key debates for reasons that have little to do with the arguments they present, dismissing their views as “merely” religious, in this case Catholic.
But a Catholic is not bound to want Catholic teachings to become law, as in a theocracy. He or she could be quite content with the liberal democratic model and still be against the legalisation of euthanasia and the cloning of embryos to produce human stem cells for research. Such views could be held from a genuine belief that legalising them would do more harm to society than leaving things as they are.
Where these beliefs come from is no one’s concern. That is how democracy must function, if people of certain backgrounds are not to be marginalised.
Catholics in Britain, with their chequered history, should be especially wary of promoting the contrary attitude: it is not so long ago that they were excluded from high office, and now, once again, it is being openly suggested that a practising Catholic should have the good grace not to accept certain positions in the Government. What pernicious rubbish that is, and how dangerous it would be for Catholics to allow themselves to be browbeaten into accepting such twisted logic.
The real reason for the commotion is anti-Catholic prejudice. Opus Dei has no business to declare the nature of Ruth Kelly’s connection, and it is up to her to decline to answer if she so wishes. And instead of criticising Opus Dei, Catholics should see this fuss for what it is – an effort to force Catholics to wear identification badges.