Reactionary Catholics are a small minority of core Republican voters, but in many ways they set the party’s agenda because they’re so well organized and have a much stronger intellectual tradition than the white evangelicals who dominate the Republican voting base. But this trend exists internationally as well, and Opus Dei, a lay-member organization founded in Spain, has become a political powerhouse in a number of different countries.
But aside from the ridiculous caricatures of the group painted by Dan Brown in his Da Vinci Code novels, there has not been much of a detailed reporting on Opus Dei’s activities. The group is so secretive, in fact, that even the leadership of the church itself has often not known what Opus Dei has been up to.
That has began to change in recent years, however, thanks in large measure to journalist Gareth Gore, who has been reporting on the group for several years and has released an important book which is now out in paperback called Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church. It’s become an international bestseller that has become so influential that Pope Leo XIV actually invited him to discuss his findings and recommendations at a private meeting.
I was pleased to be joined by Gareth to discuss Opus Dei and his book for this episode. We also talked about why Leo, the first American pope, is becoming a historically significant figure through his efforts to reconcile the conservative faith with democracy in the twenty-first century by telling conservative Catholics that they have a place in the modern—contrary to what reactionary and anti-democratic groups like Opus Dei are telling them.
I hope you’ll enjoy.
If you’re interested in supporting Theory of Change, we are doing a fundraising drive for the show and for Flux on GoFundMe. I’d really appreciate your support. You can also become a paid supporter on Patreon or on Substack. Thank you so much for your help. I cannot do this work without you.
The video of this conversation is available. Access the episode page to get the full transcript. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.
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Audio Chapters
00:00 — Introduction
12:26 — Pope Leo XIV standing as a conservative against reactionaries
15:48 — Reactionary billionaire Peter Thiel trying to merge reactionary apocalypse traditions
20:14 — René Girard as the source of Thiel’s Antichrist obsessions
23:10 — A brief history of Opus Dei
29:14 — The Fatima miracle tradition within Hispanic reactionary Catholicism
33:52 — Opus Dei and Spanish dictator Francisco Franco
38:00 — The expansion of Opus Dei outside of Spain, including in the U.S.
42:35 — Opus Dei priest converted many Republicans to Catholicism and was accused of sexual assault
44:58 — Dan Brown’s ‘Da Vinci Code’ and Opus Dei
51:19 — Reactionary Christian traditions grow because they provide economic and social support
57:09 — Abuses, including sex trafficking, were protected by Opus Dei’s secrecy
01:02:22 — Pope Leo’s investigation of Opus Dei
Audio Transcript
The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.
MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: So today, we’re going to be talking about your book, about Opus Dei but also the larger context of, where this group exists within, right-wing Christianity and right-wing Catholicism specifically.
So just as a bit of background for people who may not be conversant on, Catholic theology and church dynamics, the larger context that this is taking place is that the Catholic Church itself had to reconcile with democracy, and the emergence of it in Europe and, other countries, and this is something that took place, [00:04:00] most predominantly through the Vatican II convention but before that, the church was in, had a number of popes who were quite anti-democratic, so we can just touch on that a little bit briefly here if you don’t mind
GARETH GORE: Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, how Opus Dei fits into all this? I mean, Opus Dei is a kind of pre-Vatican II construct. It, it was founded in the late 1920s and really kind of came into itself in the, in, in Spain in the early 1930s against this backdrop of, a country on the brink of civil war. And, I think It, we can very kind of, we can very much say that this kind of is an anti-democratic movement.
Through, through large parts of its history, it’s been interested in, really pushing forward an agenda that’s got very small support within the wider population. That was very true in the early 1930s in Spain, and was, has been true in many countries where it’s operated, and certainly today in the, United States, the kind of agenda that it wants to push forward, I think even among Republicans, it wouldn’t be kind of, it wouldn’t have a huge amount of support.
SHEFFIELD: And that’s also why the organization is so secretive, because if people knew what the agenda, the real agenda was, even the ones who might think that they’re supportive of it, well, they probably wouldn’t be if they knew what, they really want.
GORE: Even among kind of conservative Catholics as well, I mean, we had Pope Leo in the last few days talking about the issue of morality and how morality has, in certain circles been seen through this kind of homosexual prism. Some parts of the church have really focused on morality as a question of, questions of abortion pre- premarital sex, homosexuality, this kind of thing.
And, he made the point that actually morality is about a much wider, kind of spectrum of issues, including kind of social justice, things like equality, [00:06:00] immigration, and the rest of it. So it’s, even, y- even putting aside the kind of Republican kind of, you know, many, the many views within Republican Party, even within the world of conservative Catholicism, I think the Opus Dei agenda wouldn’t have a huge amount of support am- among many conservative Catholics.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and that’s why I often draw a distinction between reactionary and conservative. And sometimes people don’t want to do that, but I think it’s very important to draw that distinction because if you don’t, it’s, like refusing to distinguish between communist and liberal.
It’s like, all liberals are communists. And well, no, that’s not true. And all conservatives are not reactionaries. And your book and your research really does underscore that point. And, as you just said, the recent remark by Pope Leo does also further indicate that.
And, he is hearkening back to a tradition that, had, existed as well within the church. Like this is basic Catholic social teaching that not only does the church have a duty to comment about personal moral viewpoints and meta ethics, but also it does have the requirement as the the representative of Christ on earth to discuss the affairs of humans and societies on how they deal with each other.
And of course, you don’t have to believe that, but that is actually what the doctrine says.
GORE: Yeah, and it’s been quite interesting to, to, to listen to Pope Leo’s words around this. I mean, he– I think it’s quite clear to me that, we’re now a year into, his papacy. I think only now is he really kind of starting to find his feet. I think the first year was him kind of working out a little bit, how the church works and kind of working out how, what kind of stances he might take.
And we’re now starting to, I think, hear his voice. And I think what’s interesting for me is the way [00:08:00] that, he’s reacted to criticism from Donald Trump. I mean, he could have just let that go and not really engaged with it. I mean, he could have just almost sat above it and let, the kind of, let these tweets and the rest of it kind of just slowly die out in the, in, in the news cycle.
But instead he kind of– he’s st- he’s chosen to kind of take these challenges head on. And I think what I– I mean, my interpretation is that the Pope is quite keen to almost take ownership of the Christian agenda again, of the Catholic agenda. I think, what I sense is that the Pope is appalled at the way that Catholicism in particular has been kind of co-opted by reactionary politicians like Vance and many others and, the way that they’re trying to use the church for their own political agenda.
And so I think, this desire to send out a message that, we want to get back to the gospel, we want to get back to the teachings of Jesus Christ, that Christianity is about, concepts like love thy neighbor and, this, kind of thing rather than, obsessing about issues like abortion, I think is, I think is, a signal of, yes, one, him wanting to basically kind of, yeah, kind of reverse this co-option of, the Catholic Church that we’ve seen not just in the US but in a number of countries as well here in Europe.
So yeah, I think refreshing.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And there’s a direct relationship with his name, his papal name, because Pope Leo XIII published a papal bull called Rerum Novarum which argued exactly what he’s saying right now. He’s, directly recapitulating that earlier pope.
and, I think that was, his name is very deliberately related to this [00:10:00] doctrine that was propagated there.
GORE: Yeah. I mean, absolutely. It’s, I, mean, I think, I mean, like I said just now, I think, for the first year he was kind of, Well, we’re just coming up to the kind of, the anniversary of, the election. But for the first maybe nine months or so, I think he was a difficult pope to read. I mean, he seemed to be ma- kind of making overtures to all kinds of different wings of the Catholic Church.
he was inviting a number of quite controversial cardinals to private audiences in, his apartment. And I think, almost every wing of the Catholic Church was almost kind of reading into that whatever they wanted to read into it. the kind of, the whole kind of Latin mass contingency, he’s made a number of concessions to them, and I think they thought, “Well, he’s one of us,” and But I think, I guess in his first few months at least, he was trying to build bridges and repair some of the fissures that had grown during the papacy of his predecessor, Francis. I mean, Francis was not a great bridge builder. He kind of, he was, he caused a number of divisions. he made a number of these fissures kind of deeper, wider.
And, I, guess each pope comes along and makes, has their stamp on the church. I think Leo in his first few months wanted to repair some of those divisions. But now I think he’s gained the confidence to really put his own stamp on, And I think I, I sense that he wants, he isn’t keen to create divisions.
He doesn’t, he, really does wanna bring the church back together, and the church has really been ripped apart over the past kind of 10, 15 years. And I think, yeah, he… So he wants to heal those divides, but I think he also wants to take a stance on certain issues. And, as we were just talking about the way that reactionary politicians have co-opted the church and the teach- [00:12:00] and have co-opted Catholicism to further their political agenda, I think he, that’s something he absolutely wants to take a stance against.
And he wants to remind Catholics on, whatever wing of the church they might fall that, that actually there, there are some very specific teachings from Christ that they ought to re- remember, when they are, when, they’re kind of spouting whatever beliefs they have.
Pope Leo XIV standing as a conservative against reactionaries
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I think that’s right, and he seems to be, really kind of the first person in America that I’ve seen that is really trying to force that distinction between conservative and reactionary. Because, at the same time, he is not as socially progressive as Pope Francis seemingly was.
But, but to be fair, neither, neither one of them, were, going to sanction remove the commandments against homosexuality and things like that. Or, but, a- at the same time, he’s still saying that the church is a much bigger thing as, as we’ve been talking about, and, trying to say that, yes, there are some things that we’re not going to compromise and we’re going to keep our, tradition on that, but just because we have traditions doesn’t mean that we hate modernity.
We’re actually a part of that, I think, forcing conservative Catholics, even reactionary Catholics to question their own beliefs and to maybe go back to the gospel to, to reassess some of their views. I mean, the way that he has added his support to the death penalty being outlawed. There’s a campaign and he, basically added his name to the petition.
GORE: And I think that, for a lot of pro-life Catholics, that’s an interesting kind of message to be sending to, to say, “Well, if you, guys make all this noise about unborn babies and [00:14:00] about abortion, well, actually, if you’re really pro-life, then there are a number of other issues that you should maybe question your stance on.”
That was a very subtle way of reminding people that, yes, if you want to be pro-life, be pro-life, but be consistent in a way, and don’t just pick and choose according to your own political leanings.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And it’s all standard doctrine as it is, like, that’s, the other thing. And, and it’s, absolutely the case and it has, been particularly during the Trump era, but maybe even, a little before that that a number of reactionary Protestants in America have been, flocking to the Catholic Church, or in some cases the Orthodox Churches because they see it as, they see them as, “Oh, well, th- this is an old institution and I have, timeless values, so I’m gonna– I guess I need to become a Catholic. I guess I need to become Orthodox.”
And, and so they’ve had– And, JD Vance, of course, is the most prominent example of that. But Vance, as we’ve seen, and as Pope Leo has also made clear to him several times by now, that, w- if you’re going to become Catholic, then you have obligations to understand the doctrine and also not try to correct the pope on his teachings. That’s been very interesting to watch that dynamic.
GORE: Yeah. But Von’s saying that the pope should be careful when, speaking about morality and… So, so issues of theology and you’re like, “Just a minute, isn’t that his job?” Like, that’s literally the job of the pope to, to share his interpretations of, theology. But anyway–
Reactionary billionaire Peter Thiel trying to merge reactionary apocalypse traditions
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, one other person who’s been very prominently trying to, co-opt, Christianity recently has been the right-wing [00:16:00] billionaire Peter Thiel, he really is, the, centerpiece of so much of the reactionary politics that we’ve seen in the US.
He really is directly funding, so much of it. And then, indirectly inspiring kind of this culture, tech culture of move fast and break things within the Republican Party, and it’s why they’ve been remarkably innovative in the past several years since he, his faction kind of took over the party.
but, in, in, regards to Christianity Thiel has gained a lot of prominence for his obsessions with the biblical Antichrist. And just recently, he was in the Vatican, delivering his, four lectures on the Antichrist and how the Antichrist is liberals, he’s basically… but Thiel is not a Catholic at the same time, but he does have Catholic allies like Steve Bannon and some of these other people who are really trying to put forward this, theology.
Let’s talk about that a little bit here for a second, and then we’ll get into your book and, obviously
GORE: there’s a connection here ’cause, Peter Thiel for many years was very close to one of the most senior priests, the most senior Opus Dei priests who was for a while posted out in Stanford and, who then kind of relocated to Washington DC. Yeah, the two of them used to go on long walks together where they would talk about how they would bond over this kind of theory of theirs where, they had this theory where basically they believed that technical, technological pro- progress really kind of halted in the early 1970s.
And, they spent many hours talking about how that might have been linked to Roe v. Wade and the fact that all of these babies had been killed, as a result. Which, you know- It doesn’t really help very much Walter. but yeah, I mean, there, there is a connection there between, [00:18:00] Opus Dei and, Peter Thiel.
But yeah, it is extraordinary to… I mean, I’ve unfortunately spent hours reading through these lectures. I, was not invited to any of them. Surprise, I mean, I think
SHEFFIELD: Neither was I.
GORE: be a very friendly audience, a very amenable audience. But I’ve spent a lot of time reading through the four lectures that he– that have become an al- almost kind of a roadshow for him now.
There’s this traveling circus. I think he’s delivered these lectures in a number of cities across the US, and like you said, quite recently in Rome. I mean, some of it is just absolutely bonkers. I mean, there, there is a section of one of the lectures where he, kind of says that Pope Benedict was trying to send out this secret message in his writings warning that the, coming of the Antichrist was nigh.
And, you go back to the writings that he talks about and it’s, I– you almost think, was Peter Thiel on drugs when he was reading these words? I mean, it is absolutely bonkers. And I think, and honestly, I mean, it’s a… To come back to a topic we’ve just been discuss- discussing, it’s a…
What’s– what he’s doing, I mean, this is a r- it’s a reactionary play in that he– I think he’s co-opting theology, Catholicism, this idea of the Antichrist, to basically push back on any kind of regulation or any kind of, he’s basically trying to frame any, attempt to push back on the advances of Silicon Valley, whether that’s through regulation or through higher taxation or whatever.
He’s trying to frame that as, this great evil, this Antichrist. And, I think again, like we often see with Opus Dei, it’s a political agenda wrapped in this kind of almost fac- this facade of theology and Catholicism and belief, when actually it’s just [00:20:00] politics.
It’s him trying to prevent the left or who- whatever other bogeyman he wants to pick from, having an impact on his finances and the financial wellbeing of the companies that, that he’s backed.
René Girard as the source of Thiel’s Antichrist obsessions
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I think that’s right. and his, guide and his source of his obsession with the Antichrist is, a Catholic theologian named René Girard who was, French and, later moved to the United States and, taught at Stanford. And he was Peter Thiel’s one of Peter Thiel’s instructors.
And, basically Thiel is his star pupil. and so Girard, he wrote a book called I See Satan Fall Like Lightning which was the br- broader explication of his theories. and some people only know Girard for his literary, interpretations, which also were kind of bizarre in my opinion, because basically, a- according to Girard, humans have no innate desires.
All the only desires that humans have are imitative. They are mimetic, as he calls them. And then in, in his book, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, he claims that basically desire is, was, is created by Satan, literally. But Satan is not a person or is he? Like, that’s the weird… And I don’t know how much you’ve read Girard, so I don’t wanna put you on the spot with it.
But, Girard is, has, is essentially created kind of this metaphorical pseudoscientific Christianity in which Satan is a system of beliefs and might be a person, but maybe not. Who knows? And the Antichrist is the same way. The Antichrist is the, the, a system of, beliefs and people working together wittingly or not.
And then Jesus in that [00:22:00] mythos, he, might be real. He probably is real, but on the other hand, y- if he’s not real, it doesn’t matter if, there was no atonement of Christ. And so Thiel, like that’s the sense that I get w- in reading these lectures that, he, kind of says at some point, “Well, yeah, the Antichrist isn’t, probably isn’t a person.
It’s a system of beliefs.” And that’s, it, all of this is just right out of Girard
GORE: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, haven’t read very much Girard at all, but yeah, I mean, it’s clearly clear that he’s absolutely obsessed with Girard’s writings. Although, I mean, I did read something, I can’t remember where exactly, but I, read a, very good piece maybe it was in Wired,
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, Nick, how much do really good money?
GORE: where the journalist went to, to speak to a number of kind of Girard scholars and who– and kind of asked them to read through Thiel’s lectures, and they were horrified at what they read and said, this has got absolutely nothing at all to do with the T- this is a, complete misreading of the teachings of Girard.”
So yeah even within a kind of Girardian context, I think these lectures make very little, sense.
A brief history of Opus Dei
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and those guys I think are probably wrong because they’re thinking about him in his European context, unfortunately. and once he moved to the US he got more radicalized, I think, especially later in life. But that’s another podcast. how did you get interested in Opus Dei?
You are not a religion journalist by-
GORE: No, I mean, I’m… I, up until, the point I wrote the book, I had z- I’d had zero dealings with, Opus Dei and with the Catholic Church. my dad was Catholic, but he wasn’t a practicing Catholic, and we were brought up at home very loosely as kind of Church of England, in that I went to a Church of England school, but…
And we kind of said the Lord’s Prayer every day. We sang hymns. But it was a very kind of benign thing. I didn’t, I never really kind of engaged with [00:24:00] my kind of religious side at all. So you know, I’ve been a financial journalist for the last 20-odd years, and I fell into this story completely by accident.
What happened was a bank in Spain suddenly collapsed overnight in 2017, and I was sent to report on it. And at first, it kind of seemed like the same old story of, executives had taken too many risks, allowed those risks to spiral out of control, and then the whole kind of house of cards have come, had come crashing down.
And I wrote that story, as did almost every other journalist that covered the collapse of the bank at the time. But there was something about it that just didn’t smell right to me, and so it almost became a hobby for me in, in, over the next three, four years. I just started digging into the bank’s history and kind of started digging into the, bank’s financials and started to make all of these connections to this secretive Catholic group called Opus Dei, which I knew next to nothing at all about.
And that’s, basically how it started. It was, it’s a bit of a cliché, but I basically followed the money, and the money led me to this crazy world of human trafficking, widespread spiritual abuse, and and connections to reactionary political figures across the world.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, it’s a really incredible story. So, and I want you to get into that, but first let’s, just discuss the, origins of the group. So the, name Opus Dei literally means “work of God.” So that’s, that is what they see themselves doing very literally. That is what they think they’re doing.
But so yeah, tell us the, history here, if you would please.
GORE: Yes. I mean, so, so yes, Opus Dei, it means quite literally in Latin, work of God. And that’s how the founder of the movement, this Spanish priest called Josemaría Escrivá, that’s how he basically explained the [00:26:00] concept to his followers. He said, “This is l- quite literally the work of God. I have received this vision directly from God, and this is what he wants us to do.”
And initially the kind of his idea for Opus Dei was a relatively, I, guess a, quite a laudable project, a, quite a, benign kind of thing. I mean, he, basically set out to create a new kind of Catholic organization that would help ordinary Catholics to kind of go deeper into their faith. He kind of spotted a, a bit of a gap in the market, let’s say.
I mean, you had your kind of ordinary Catholics, and then if for anyone that wanted to be more serious about their faith, you basically had to become a priest or a nun. And he thought maybe there was a middle way. Maybe, you could remain a layperson, but still kind of go deeper into your faith and become, almost strive for holiness.
And that was the idea that it, that’s how it all started. But the backdrop to this is, hugely important. Opus Dei was born into a country that was on the brink of civil war, quite literally on the brink of civil war. This, this was Spain in the early 1930s. The workers had basically risen up.
They’d overthrown the monarchy. They were turning their backs on traditional institutions like the church. The church, up until that point, had a quite a, stranglehold, I think it wouldn’t be too kind of too harsh to say, a stranglehold over, over s- many elements of society, things like culture, education.
And people were beginning to question that. And the founder of, Opus Dei saw what was happening around him. He saw the way that the government was, I guess, severing the control, influence that the church had over many aspects of society, not, least education, and he was horrified at what he saw around, him.
He s- he was horrified at the increased secularization of Spanish society. And [00:28:00] so this idea began to take on a much more political hue. He- his writings really started to become quite, darker. He started to talk about his followers as a hidden militia that would be inserted into the currents of society, and they would kind of use their positions to collect information about the enemies of Christ, and also use their in- their influence in, their jobs to, to push forward this reactionary agenda to wind the clock back on this secularization, to kind of, to lift the church back up to its proper place in society.
And so, I think– so I think, yes, he, wanted to do good at first, I think. He, really he spotted a kind of, this kind of gap in the market almost. But I think the conditions around him really warped his, this initial agenda. And so I think what began as quite a laudable project and quite a, benign project very quickly took on a very, political hue and, became extremely reactionary.
The Fatima miracle tradition within Hispanic reactionary Catholicism
SHEFFIELD: yeah. Well, and, one particular way that he kind of latched onto, and, not just him, but some other reactionary Catholics th- there was this this story that came out of, Spain that they refer to as the Miracle of Fatima. So for… But non-Catholics I don’t think have ever heard of this before in their life.
Actually, a lot of Catholics probably have never heard of it either. So what, te- what is that belief and, like, how, and how is that useful as a evangelizing tool?
GORE: Well, I, think it possibly more importantly was that, that this the propaganda that was being pushed by Franco at the time. I mean,
SHEFFIELD: oh yeah. Well, I, [00:30:00] we’ll get into that. Sure. Yeah
GORE: but I mean, the, the fact that, Spain a few hundred years earlier had been– Well, it wasn’t Spain at the time, but A- Andalus was, basically part of of the kind of Islamic empire, and there’d been this great kind of Reconquista, the, kind of– The Christians had risen up and thrown out the Muslims.
And so, whilst all this was going on Franco staged a coup, and then the way that he tried to rally people around him was that he presented the kind of, “Coming to our side, we’re part of this new kind of Reconquista.” And so I think, this for me, I think that was a more powerful thing.
I mean, the whole Fatima thing, I mean, I don’t know, maybe you can fill us in on that. I’m not a great expert on, the miracle of Fatima.
SHEFFIELD: Well, so just very briefly, what it is, it’s this belief that in Portugal that there was a moment where there was a prophesied miracle and that the Virgin Mary was going to do something amazing, and people claimed that they saw the sun moving around in the sky and zigzagging, moving toward Earth.
And it was… And a lot of people had claimed that. And so it was like one of the few times where people, a lot of people claimed to have witnessed a miracle. And of course, if the sun actually had been doing that, well then everybody on Earth would be dead. So probably didn’t happen. I’m just gonna say that there.
But like the, Fatima story is a, very common kind of underground belief among far-right Catholics as kind of, It’s almost, it’s, a bit like so within Catholicism, actually contrary to Peter Thiel there’s not a big obsession with the Antichrist. There’s not a big obsession with the, end of the world, y- because this is a church that’s been around for thousands of years of people claiming that Jesus is going to come, was gonna come next week.
So they’re not really interested in that anymore. But the miracle of Fatima is kind of the it’s, [00:32:00] it functions in some way as kind of the rapture obsession for reactionary Catholics is what I would say. But maybe that’s a little further afield than you want to get.
GORE: but it is– I mean, it’s kind of an interesting subject because I think I think to our modern kind of eyes and ears, these, visions, And, we we still occasionally get them. I mean, like the whole Waco thing and, v- pe- people have these– They say that God has spoken to them and given them this message about the imminent end of the world or whatever it might be.
I think, as a culture, we’ve kind of learned to just kind of dismiss those things and ignore them. And m- I mean, for me, what’s, really quite interesting is how the followers of this Spanish, this unknown Spanish priest, they, believed that he had quite literally rece- received this vision from God.
And, I think the Fatima apparition was not that many years before this. It was kind of roughly… What was it? Was it in the 19-
SHEFFIELD: 1917.
GORE: And so, yeah. And so to 1917, I mean, it’s quite hard for us to kind of understand that. But yeah, I mean, this was kind of not quite part of the culture. That’s putting too, strong a spin on it.
But these things happened. People believed that, God or the Virgin Mary or who, whoever had, that they, had come down to earth. There were various things in Ireland as well at the time. And of course, Lourdes was also not that much kind of before this either. I think that was in the late kind of 19th century, if I’m not mistaken.
But but yeah, I mean, I think yeah, I mean, these things were abnormal, but they weren’t kind of– People back then didn’t believe that they were impossible, I guess, in the way that today people, if someone says that God’s just spoken to them, people are just gonna think you’re an absolute whack job.
Opus Dei and Spanish dictator Francisco Franco
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, and your point though about it coinciding with Escrivá his, ministry, I th- there, there is something there because [00:34:00] in a lot of ways, essentially what he was doing was kind of importing the lay ministry concept from Protestantism into Catholicism. And so like that’s i- in some ways, like I…
That, that’s kind of maybe the, larger theme is that we’re seeing kind of the merger of reactionary Christianities globally across, a, kind of ecumenicalism that is anti-ecumenical to democracy is really what we’re talking about here. And, that’s something that, So, so, so once he got his organization started in Spain he did he did work with the, Franco people pretty closely. So let’s talk about that.
GORE: Yeah. I mean, not only did he work with him closely, but Franco offered him a huge amount of, financial and operational support. The two men, Franco and Escrivá were, big fans of each other. There were… I dug through the, Franco archives in, Madrid and found a number of letters from Escrivá and, his second in command, these really adulatory letters written to the Generalissimo hailing what he was doing, saving Christianity and the rest of it, ignoring the fact that, Franco was a dic- was a dictator who murdered tens of thousands of his opponents during peacetime, not just during the war.
Rounded up hundreds of thousands of political prisoners and put them into concentration camps and, this was a guy who was sending off left-leaning members of the opposition to the Nazis to be experimented on because the Nazis were looking for this red gene. He would send, Spanish citizens to be experimented on to the Nazis.
I mean, they had no, problems cozying up to, this brutal, deeply un-Christian dictator. And, by the 1950s Opposite, I mean. It’s [00:36:00] important to, to kind of say at this juncture, I think as well to, talk a little bit about how Opus Dei recruits. Opus Dei, because it’s a politically motivated organization, very much targets its recruitment efforts at people who are in positions of power or people who are wealthy, people who can help it to really push its agenda forward.
So I think, if you were… The membership of Opus Dei is, largely secret, but if we were to be able to kind of do a, a kind of sociological structure as to, the types of people it’s, recruited, it, it would be people, predominantly people like politicians, judges, business people, journalists even as well.
Anyone who can help to kind of further the agenda of the group. And so, by the 1950s in Spain, there were several thousand members, but they were very much concentrated in the kind of political judicial elite. And so, there was this big crisis in, Spain in the late 1950s, where the Franco regime was kind of on the verge of collapse.
There was, Its economic policies had been absolutely disastrous, and there were… And the kind of, the regime itself was beginning to kind of crumble into splinter parts. People were vying for influence. Opus Dei stepped into this and basically saved the, Franco regime from collapse. And as a reward for that, through the 1960s, Franco basically handed almost the governance of the country to a, small group of Opus Dei members.
By, the end of the ’60s, half of the cabinets was, filled by half of the cabinet positions were filled by people who were members of Opus Dei. this was kind of the real zenith of Opus Dei’s power in Spain. and so yeah, I mean, the, connections between the Franco regime and Opus Dei itself were, very [00:38:00] close.
The expansion of Opus Dei outside of Spain, including in the U.S.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And then once they had that foothold they began trying to expand into other countries as well. Into South America in particular is where they had a lot of success. But also they have had some a number of elites in the United States join their group and also in, Yeah, I guess, well, I guess, yeah, but I- I set that up for you.
Why don’t you go ahead and take that?
GORE: Well, yeah, I mean, I mean, just to quickly pick up on, on the, initial part of that, I mean The Franco regime was extremely corrupt. People who were close to Franco became extremely rich. And Opus Dei was a, became a great financial beneficiary from its closeness to the regime.
not only were they able to take over this high street bank in, in Spain, which, then became a, kind of cash machine for them, but, they, they also used the connections with the regime to take over a number of other businesses and to benefit from government contracts. In the 1950s, Opus Dei had, I think, more than 100 different companies that were basically…
it was benefiting from all of these financial flows. And that helped it, like you said, to, set up shop first of all in fellow sp- Spanish-speaking countries across Latin America, but, also right across Europe. And, by the 1950s, 1960s, they were also kind of making inroads into the United States.
And, I think initially in the US they tried to use the same playbook that they’d used in Spain. They, tried to recruit from the, political elite. But I think it didn’t translate all that well. I think Americans were slightly suspicious about these foreigners who were coming over kind of preaching this, very kind of different blend of Catholicism.
I mean, this was at a time when, you know, the, post-Vatican II, was, the church seemed to be going in a very different direction to the one that was being pushed by these, th- these disciples who’d come to spread the Opus Dei message from Spain. And it wasn’t really [00:40:00] until the 1980s, I think, that it started to really make inroads into Washington, DC.
When Pope John Paul II was elected, he was, an arch conservative. He basically gave Opus Dei a special status within the church, and he almost kind of anointed them as his kind of Green Berets that he would send to whatever, wherever, there was a pro- progressive archbishop or cardinal who was making life difficult for John Paul II by calling him out for whatever conservative policies he might have had.
He would then send Opus Dei to kind of do his bidding in, in, in, those parts of the world. And in the US, I think the US and the Catholic Church in the US in the 1980s was deeply divided. There were many, outspoken progressive archbishops who were who were basically very confrontational with John Paul II.
And I think that created a, almost a schism within the kind of US Catholic Church. There were a lot of kind of conservative Catholics who were very supportive of John Paul II’s policies, who were very supportive of what President Reagan was doing in places like Central America. And they, I think, almost felt left adrift by the church leadership who, were kind of progressive leaning.
And so I think Opus Dei very successfully kind of inserted itself into this kind of gap that had been left, and became almost a kind of a rallying point for many conservative Catholics who felt betrayed by the church leadership in the United States. And that’s when it really started, I think, to kind of, especially in Washington, DC, to, to attract the types of people that it, it had really wanted to, cultivate.
In the late 1980s, it started to… Opus Dei started to really kind of build a, very strong relationship with Antonin [00:42:00] Scalia. And, once it started to attract big names like Scalia, it made it, much easier to attract even more. And it suddenly, it was, it found itself inserted or had successfully, inserted itself into, a number of realms that are very difficult to get into.
And so, once you’re friends with Scalia and the rest of it, it then becomes very d- very, easy to then meet the right people in Congress and on K Street and in other parts of DC. And so it became, suddenly that opened many, doors for them.
Opus Dei priest converted many Republicans to Catholicism and was accused of sexual assault
GORE: And there was a particular priest called C. John McCloskey who was the main priest for Opus Dei in Washington, DC, who became extremely successful at converting a number of prominent conservative politicians
SHEFFIELD: And he made it his focus. Like that was h- and his job as he saw it was to target right-wing Republicans for conversion
GORE: Absolutely. And he was extremely successful. He, kind of gained a nickname for himself. He was known as the Convert Maker, and he didn’t just kind of convert people who were already Catholic to the Opus Dei cause. He also converted a number of non-Catholics and non-Christians. there, there are a number of kind of prominent Jewish conversions that he helped to, bring in.
He was, really quite a charismatic priest. He was kind of regular on, on, on programs like Meet the Press. He was a staunch defender of John Paul II. I mean, when the, Boston Globe crisis erupted and, people were be- and people started to question the way that the church and John Paul II was handling this h- this enormous sexual abuse scandal McCloskey took to the airwaves to defend the cover-ups that were basically happening at the time.
he was trying to talk about how, we shouldn’t be focusing on the way the church is handling this. This is a, homosexual [00:44:00] scandal. This, the problem… It’s a homosexual problem. Absolutely. It’s not a– This is not about pedophilia. It’s not about the church trying to cover up abuse.
It’s not about the church, hearing about abuse and then shipping some priest onto another parish and trying to keep things quiet. Let’s look, let’s look the other way. This is about homosexuality in society. that’s the re- that’s the real problem here. He was kind of a big proponent of that kind of agenda.
And, and so yeah, I think Opus Dei very successfully kind of painted themselves as the staunch defenders of, kind of true conservative Catholicism and, helped along by John Paul II, who not only gave them this special status, but then went on to beatify and then canonize the founder of Opus Dei.
So this, priest, became Saint Josemaría, and still is kind of revered as a, saint in the Catholic Church today.
Dan Brown’s ‘Da Vinci Code’ and Opus Dei
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So really, quite incredible. And just as a coda though to McCloskey after his years of defending and trying to divert attention from sexual abuse, he himself was found guilty of having done that to a woman, and was severely restricted in his job by Opus Dei. But it wasn’t it wasn’t something seemingly that they wanted to do.
But nonetheless, yeah, he the wo- he had, th- they had to pay the woman I think a, close to a million dollars in the settlement that they reached with her. And to some extent, I think that scandal brought some, of the first attention within the US media to Opus Dei as an organization, even though regrettably there was Opus Dei figures in the Dan Brown execrable novel novel settings.
So I guess maybe perhaps that’s the first one. But first actual real attention [00:46:00] for, some of the terrible things that they’ve done
GORE: So, I mean, on McCloskey, I mean, at least they were consistent. So McCloskey and Opus Dei, having justified or seek to kind of paper over all the cover-ups that had happened in the church around the sexual abuse scandal, they then tried to cover up the McCloskey scandal themselves. First, when it looked like he was about to be served papers and, the woman who’d been abused was, going to sue him and it was all gonna come out, they flew him out off to England, so that he couldn’t be served papers and he couldn’t be arrested.
And, he, was there basically in hiding whilst Opus Dei was working out this, agreement to silence the victim. And yes, they paid her almost a million dollars to buy her silence, but the story eventually came out years later. But yeah, I mean, the Da Vinci Code was a… and I mean, this was happening almost around the same time that The Da Vinci Co- Code came out.
And, Dan Brown, of course, The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. There are many holes, of course, in The Da Vinci Code and many things are, completely made up. But, I, think It’s interesting that Dan Brown chose Opus Dei to be this kind of the, one of the baddies in the book.
I mean, to your point, already at this point there were a number of s- there were many suspicions around about Opus Dei, about its practices, about, things like, corporal mortification. And already at this point as well, there were allegations against the group, the way that it had, was abusing its members and its very questionable practices.
And so in a way it became, I guess, almost a natural baddie for, it’s, kind of unsurprising that he chose chose them to kind of fill that role in the book. I mean, of course, he, [00:48:00] then went on to make up lots of things which aren’t true, not least the fact that, the central character was, an albino monk, a supposed member of Opus Dei.
There are no monks in Opus Dei to begin with, so that… But, you know what? in many ways, “The Da Vinci Code” was a godsend that’s for, Opus Dei because what it did was, create a, an opportunity for them to speak about O- Opus Dei in the press. And so, obviously “The Da Vinci Code” was an enormous success, and so the press, were were looking for kind of the real, “Da Vinci Code” stories, and so kind of Opus Dei used that opportunity to basically tell the world how we’re nothing like how we’re portrayed in the book and invited the press into its centers to show them this extremely veneered kind of image of, what, their presentation of what they, wanted Opus Dei to be seen as in the world.
And on the back of that, they managed to recruit, a number of people. I mean, the, the, recruitment really kind of went through the roof partly as a, result of “The Da Vinci Code” because they played that kind of media game very well. They, and it’s, they had this thing called Operation Lemonade.
when, life serves you lemons, then you make lemonade, and that’s precisely what they did. they, used that, and I think only now are we kind of seeing the after effects of that. So, already they’d been quite successful in DC, recruited quite a number of senior figures, people close to the Supreme Court, people in Congress, and the rest of it And I think on the back of that and on the back of this Operation Lemonade to basically, I guess, capitalize on The Da Vinci Code attention, then, the recruitment, especially in DC, kind of really went into overdrive.
And the people they started to recruit in those years were only, I think [00:50:00] we’re now starting to see the results of that
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. I mean, th- there is a pretty awful ironic picture there that you’re gonna join an organization that was portrayed as this e- tremendous source of evil. But, it does fit to the right-wing Christian persecution obsession. Like so many of them, they do truly see themselves as a- as living in the end times, and then they’re being persecuted just like the, early Christians were in, just at some…
Any day now a Democratic governor is going to say it’s okay to murder Christians. Like this is an actual belief of right-wing Christians in the US. It’s very common
GORE: But even, in the Da Vinci book, right? I mean, Opus Dei commits all of these crimes, but it commits these crimes in order to save the church and in order to stop the secrets of the s- of the church from being kind of, fr- from, coming to light. And so, so I, guess, yes, it’s kind of ironic that they j- maybe The Da Vinci Code, caused many people to, to join Opus Dei, but, it kind of, it, kind of runs in with this theme that, certain crimes or certain wrongdoing is permissible if it’s for this greater good, I guess, I guess was the message.
Reactionary Christian traditions grow because they provide economic and social support
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, so, it, and it does highlight though the other thing is that Opus Dei, the, how it grows and how it works so well for its members for so long, irrespective of crimes is that it, it really is a social support and social networking organization of the sort that you really don’t see a lot of in the modern day.
Because so many community clubs so in the US, we got things called Lions Club and, of course you got things like the Freemasons or whatever. Social organizations independent of, religions, but religions also are, have been, collapsing in terms of belief [00:52:00] in.
And so here you have this very tightly knit organization of people that says, “Yes, we’re, working for God literally, and we’re gonna do everything we can to help each other advance professionally.” I mean, this is, it’s a, it’s an incredible way of leveraging a small group for, great power
GORE: Yeah. and, you know what I, I mean, I think it’s, it is very helpful to think of Opus Dei as, a network, as a political network. in the countries where it’s strongest, in places like Spain, it’s, almost a whole feeder system. So you have Opus Dei schools, which, in addition to being recruitment grounds for the children that, that attend those schools, those schools are also a way to bring in the wider community, to bring in the parents to Opus Dei events or whatever.
And then, the schools feed into Opus Dei universities and, and then you’ve got the kind of wider membership who are in positions of, power and influence across the worlds of business and politics or whatever. And I think, certainly in places like Spain, Italy, Mexico, Argentina, and perhaps in some parts of the US, the Opus Dei network is it- it’s very beneficial to be part of that.
Not just spiritually, supposedly, but also kind of career-wise business-wise, within the network deals are done, people help each other out. And when the, when someone has a particular idea for a political project or think tank or a certain kind of thing that they want to push, they fall back on the network for financial and for kind of operational support.
And so I think, comparing it to something like the Freemasons, I think is… it’s interesting. I think, there are lots of similarities there. I mean, I think the Freemasons, I think the peak of, was a long time ago and, they, no longer have this kind of power, but it’s a very similar idea.
These are almost kind of [00:54:00] secret societies of people who are in positions of influence and, you’ve almost got these kind of secret meetings going on where they get together and and they, organize ways of helping each other out and, looking after each other. I think, I think it– they’re very sim- Opus Dei would hate me for saying this, but they’re very similar I think.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and it’s, an example of why these f- far-right religious movements of not just Opus Dei, but, we see that also in the US. So, for instance and this is just a little aside I don’t expect you to have to comment on it unless you want to. But, like, in the US people who come in as, impoverished immigrants from Spanish-speaking Latin America, they don’t know anyone.
They don’t have any friends oftentimes. They don’t have family members. and so really for many of them, the, only network that they can have is in these evangelical churches. And so Hispanic Protestantism is just as rapidly growing a religious denomination, which, is… There’s not really any denominations that are growing significantly in the US, but this is one of them.
and it’s because it actually does things for the people who go into it. and then of course, tells them all sorts of terrible things about homosexuality and transgender people and women and, but you know, y- if you, don’t like those things and you’re somebody who has money and you have left-leaning values, well, then y- you’ve gotta create your own organizations, y- or if you’re a, Christian who doesn’t like these things, well, where is, where are your organizations to, help people advance themselves?
GORE: I think, I mean, that’s the, danger of these kind of closed communities that especially when they’re connected to, religion, I think, And I think in a way that was the kind of the Opus Dei playbook. They, they, wanted to [00:56:00] create all these, closed communities.
They have the community of schools, the universities, even the university residences that, where the students kind of sleep and, are fed, are, in many w- in many instances run by Opus Dei. And, when you combine these kind of communities with religion and you have priests telling people, what they should believe and how this tiny line in the Bible kind of backs up this particular kind of political agenda, it’s a recipe for disaster because these people are kind of, the- they’re not hearing outside voices.
They’re not going, they’re, just hearing from the Opus Dei priest and the Opus Dei spiritual directors. They aren’t kind of really reading up on or they’re not visiting other parishes where, a priest, an, a, more progressive priest might ha- priest might have a very different perspective and different view about what the gospel is saying or whatever.
And, I think these communities like the ones that you were just talking about, but also kind of Opus Dei communities there’s a real danger of radicalization, and I think that’s what we’ve seen.
Abuses, including sex trafficking, were protected by Opus Dei’s secrecy
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So, okay, so b-beyond the social components and the networking that they do, so you had investigated and, found a number of other very disturbing things. And let’s walk through just some of the, lowlights if you will
GORE: I mean, yeah, I mean, this is an organization that is absolutely riddled with, abuse. You have cases of spiritual abuse where the organization breaches the seal of confession, uses supposed kind of spiritual guidance sessions that are obligatory to collect information on its members, and then passes this information up the chain to be used against members at a later date to kind of manipulate them and coerce them into doing things that might benefit the group.
Within the group as well, I mean, all kinds of psychological [00:58:00] abuse the ranks of Opus Dei, especially the kind of the the celibate members, the, numeraries that kind of go out and recruit for the organization, those ranks are absolutely riddled with mental illness. And, often the organization tries to cover up those instances of, men- mental ill- illness which have been caused by, the way that the organization operates.
They, use their own doctors to prescribe a cocktail of drugs to, to basically hide the symptoms without really addressing what’s been going on. And also, there, there’s this kind of other quite separate aspect as well. I mean, generally the, group recruits from the elite of society, but it al- it also has these kind of very high-end residences around the world where its numerary members live and where, some of these also double up as university residences.
And, they have over the years basically recruited underprivileged girls to go work there as kind of semi-slaves. And, these girls are recruited in poor parts of the world across Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and they’re then trafficked to, to work in Opus Dei centers around the world.
So you’ve got this kind of hidden underbelly of, enslavement and human trafficking as well. And, m- more recently there’s a, case ongoing in Argentina where public prosecutors investigated Opus Dei for two years and concluded that criminal charges needed to be brought against the group.
And so there is a case currently being heard, and y- there, there are likely to be criminal charges coming very soon
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. I mean, it’s, just i- in any organization that large, irrespective of their doctrines or whatever, you’re gonna have p- people who engage in misconduct. But, this organization, the way that it’s structured seems to, in a lot of ways promulgate abuse of various kinds, and it’s really, awful.
And so, [01:00:00] s- so your book a- after it came out in hardback the Opus Dei did not like your book, needless to say. So they kind of went after you
GORE: Yeah, they did sur- surprise me. I mean, actually, I was surprised. I mean, I perhaps quite naively thought that the book and the evidence presented in the book might be a good opportunity for them to say, “Well, just a minute. Perhaps something’s gone wrong here. We should launch our own investigation. We should find out what’s gone wrong.”
I think, I’ve been a journalist for more than 20 years, and over the years, whenever an organization is presented with, serious allegations like these, then they take them, generally take them seriously, and they launch investigations. They pledge to get, to the bottom of whatever’s happened, and they pledge to, fire or, hold accountable, people who’ve, committed such acts.
I mean, I think the reaction w- of Opus Dei to my book was quite telling. Instead of, trying to get to the bottom of this, they instead just called me a liar. They called me a conspiracy theorist. They accused me of having been paid by some, someone with a vendetta against the group to write this book.
They basically did everything possible to try to undermine the work that I’d done and and the, what the book was trying, to say. And, I think that, that failed because, a few weeks back, I actually got a call from the Vatican saying that Pope Leo was very much aware of the work that I’d done and the book and that he wanted to meet.
And so I was invited to the Vatican to give a private briefing to the pope about my findings. And so I think I think, so this strategy by Opus Dei to basically kind of distract the public and try to paint me as just some crazy guy who’s written a book that’s full of lies has backfired because, they had an opportunity to do something about these allegations, and they’ve shown their true side.
they’ve shown a [01:02:00] complete lack of desire to really get to the truth and, basically now the pope is onto them. I think yeah, I think whatever… they, could have they could have, done something, I think, when the book came out, but now it’s too late.
I think now they’re potentially gonna face far more severe consequences as a result of not really grappling with, the allegations.
Pope Leo’s investigation of Opus Dei
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and on that point also, it’s, I think it’s worth noting that a lot of the allegations that talk about in the book, they aren’t things that, you just in many ways are putting pieces together that were already public. So it’s not like you made these up or you reported these out.
Like, you as a person did not expose a lot of these scandals. Like, people knew about them locally. It’s just that no one had ever put it together and said, “Wow, this seems to be a very abusive organization.” And so like irrespective of your viewpoint, it, that’s, perhaps why the, Pope is taking…
was asking for that meeting because, you, did something very reliable. Like, you didn’t make this stuff up, and it’s obvious that you didn’t.
GORE: And, I think I think that’s kind of played into Opus Dei’s court over the years. I think it’s been very successful at basically trying to portray any kind of abuse as very kind of local examples of, something’s gone wrong, these are a few bad apples. It’s nothing to do with us as an organization.
But I think, the real message I hope comes across in the book is that this is a… The abuse inside of this organization, it’s systematic, and it’s almost there by design. A lot of the abuse and controlling behaviors that happen inside the organization are actually kind of mandated… Were actually directly mandated by the founder himself.
I got hold of these internal documents, these internal writings of the founder that are, that, that have never been released, publicly [01:04:00] released, but, which are are stored in every single re- Opus Dei residence around the world, and they’re kind of followed to the letter. And, in the writings of the founder, it…
that’s where the, abuse and control and manipulation started. We have it in black and white that the founder basically ordered his followers to abuse other Catholics and to manipulate them in order to further the agenda of, Opus Dei. And so I think you’re absolutely right that, for decades there have been all kinds of allegations against Opus Dei, and in many years…
i- in many ways, the, book is a kind of a, summation of, those allegations. There are some, new things in there too, but, yes, absolutely. It’s a summation of, this, whole dossier of abuse. But I think what the book does that’s kind of new is kind of link… is basically show how this is systematic of the organization, and that’s, something that I really kind of emphasized in my meeting with the Pope, that I think it’s impossible to just kind of make a few reforms around the edges and maybe to…
And, to tell Opus Dei to stop doing this or that or the other. Because The members truly believe that the things they’re doing are divinely inspired. They quite literally believe that the founder of Opus Dei received a vision for the organization directly from God, and that these rules and regulations that he wrote down are literally kind of d- they come from God.
They’re divinely inspired. And so I, I made the point to the pope that if you really want to reform this group, you have to tackle that issue at its roots. You have to you have to challenge this narrative that these rules and regulations were divinely inspired. You perhaps need to challenge this notion that Escrivá received a divine vision full stop.
And, I made the point also that it’s… [01:06:00] What makes it even more problematic is the fact that you don’t just have this one priest who says he received a vision from God. But then, years later, the Catholic Church, with all of its power and might, decided to canonize this guy. And so they’ve kind of made this problem even more complicated for themselves.
And so I, I don’t envy Pope Leo in having to reform this group and having to tackle the abuse, abuses that have been perpetrated by Opus Dei over the years. I think it’s gonna be an extremely complex issue for him to take on. And yeah, I mean, we’ll see what happens.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, it’s y- yeah, and it’s like there, there’s a doctrinal risk in, this group inherently, I think. Because, if you have a church that says there is only one representative of God and then you have an organization that says, “No, we are the work of God,” that’s that seems heretical on its face.
But I’m not Catholic, so, what do I know?
GORE: Yeah, it, is a mess. And, the whole concept of canonization as well is the process of deciding whether to canonize someone or not involves basically, and I kind of like paraphrase, but basically confirming that they’re in heaven. And they do that through the kind of miracles that are supposed to have happened, from people who prayed to this particular guy, and he responded by performing miracles or whatever.
And the process of canoniza- canonization is suppo- supposedly confirms that these things happened. And so to kind of unwind that and say, “Just a minute, maybe we were wrong,” is, I think, gonna be extremely problematic for the church. And so, I, do wonder whether or not Pope Leo and the church more generally is ready to kind of open up this whole can of worms.
We will see. I mean, I do think there is a potential kind of get-out clause for [01:08:00] them in that there’s strong evidence that the process of canonization was flawed. There were many people who weren’t heard, who had evidence to to basically say that Escrivá should not have been canonized. They, they were basically turned away by the commission that was that was deciding this.
And so I think there’s a, there are very… There’s a very strong argument that you could argue that the, canonization process didn’t actually play out properly, and you could reopen the process and say, “Actually, we want to now hear from these other people.” And, that might be a way of arriving at a conclusion that this guy maybe shouldn’t have been canonized and that they, could remove the sainthood from Escrivá.
I’m not sure. But I think to allow him to remain a saint is potentially quite problematic because you then, It’s a very confusing message to say if, if you’re going, if you’re going to tackle the abuse but allow the guy that basically enshrined this c- which… who codified this system of abuse to continue being a saint, then that sends very mixed messages, and you’re just basically giving carte blanche to people who want to continue believing and doing these kinds of things.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and also undermining your own leadership if in the church, regardless of even if you agree with them, you’re undermining your own leadership by tolerating this group in this way. Yeah.
All right. Well, so, this has been a, informative conversation here. So, obviously I’ll let you plug your book one more time here and then any social media platforms or whatever you want people to follow you on.
GORE: Well, yeah. If you want to learn more, please go out and buy the book or borrow it from your, local public library. It’s called Opus. And yes, you can find me on Substack. I generally put out updates whenever a bit of news happens, so that’s probably a good place to follow me if you want to have the latest on what the Pope might do about Opus [01:10:00] Dei.
I’m also on X and, Bluesky. But yeah. Thank you very much, Matt, for having me on. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.
