Opus Quotes

“57A las numerarias les pedían que se dirigieran a chicas atractivas, ya que así tendrían más éxito a la hora de atraer más miembros para la causa.58Sin embargo, cuando se trataba de dar consejos sobre el bienestar espiritual o físico de los reclutas, no había una verdadera orientación o supervisión.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: Ingeniería financiera, manipulación de personas y el auge de la extrema derecha en el seno de la Iglesia católica

“Mientras el Opus Dei establecía directrices detalladas sobre cómo reclutar a menores, su atención al bienestar de los niños puestos a su cuidado era secundaria. «El Opus Dei pretendía extender el reino de Dios mediante el engaño —recuerda Vladímir Felzmann, un sacerdote de la Obra que pasó veintitrés años dentro del movimiento—. Se animaba a los miembros a trabar falsas amistades con la aristocracia de cerebro, sangre y riqueza. Hoy en día eso se llama grooming.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: Ingeniería financiera, manipulación de personas y el auge de la extrema derecha en el seno de la Iglesia católica

“Los abusos espirituales —y sexuales— de menores solían pasar desapercibidos en ese entorno. En Nueva York, un numerario daba clases de catecismo para niños en el sótano de una familia católica grande e influyente. Durante esas reuniones, a veces animaba a los chicos —algunos de los cuales solo tenían trece años— a masturbarse delante de él, según un participante.39Los llevaba de viaje a casas del Opus Dei y les decía que tenían una vocación, al tiempo que los sometía a horribles abusos sexuales.40«Eras un recluta especial. Me dijeron que sentían la llamada en mí», explicaba una persona que sufrió abusos sexuales reiterados por parte de un numerario cuando tenía entre doce y dieciséis años.41Estaba convencido de que otros lo sabían. «Era un delito que podía pasarse por alto si traías dinero o reclutas», añadió. Más tarde, el numerario fue seleccionado por la sede central del Opus Dei para hacerse sacerdote y enviado a Estados Unidos, donde dirigió actividades juveniles en Nueva York.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: Ingeniería financiera, manipulación de personas y el auge de la extrema derecha en el seno de la Iglesia católica

“76Al igual que hizo con Tapia, Escrivá probablemente amenazó con utilizar su influencia en el régimen franquista y en el mundo empresarial español para hacerle la vida imposible si desobedecía. Pronto le siguieron otros peces gordos. Raimon Panikkar, un sacerdote que había reclutado a cientos de jóvenes en la residencia de estudiantes de Moncloa, también abandonó. Cuando Miguel Fisac, uno de los primeros discípulos de Escrivá, perdió a su hija de seis años a causa de una vacuna contra la polio, recibió la visita de dos sacerdotes del Opus Dei que le dijeron que la muerte de su hija era un castigo de Dios por abandonar la Obra.77”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: Ingeniería financiera, manipulación de personas y el auge de la extrema derecha en el seno de la Iglesia católica

“En Madrid, las órdenes llegaban a los miembros, a quienes se animaba a hacer lo que fuera necesario para promover la Obra de Dios, incluso si ello implicaba abusar de sus puestos de trabajo, traicionar a sus amigos y familiares o actuar en contra de su propia conciencia. Se pedía a los miembros que elaboraran listas de personas a las que podían estafar. Luego, esas relaciones se enviaban a los superiores para garantizar que no hubiese duplicidades.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: Ingeniería financiera, manipulación de personas y el auge de la extrema derecha en el seno de la Iglesia católica

“La nueva categoría también era una astuta jugada comercial; como otros numerarios, se esperaba que las sirvientes entregaran su paga al Opus Dei, lo cual significaba que el movimiento ahora contaba con equipos de mujeres que cocinaban, limpiaban y servían en sus residencias gratuitamente. Una numeraria que ayudó a reclutar y formar a varias sirvientes confesó más tarde que el sistema permitía al Opus mantener el nivel de un hotel de lujo para sus miembros a través de un trabajo barato o incluso semiesclavo.69Escrivá se deleitaba en la brillantez de la idea.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: Ingeniería financiera, manipulación de personas y el auge de la extrema derecha en el seno de la Iglesia católica

“Las numerarias sirvientes eran una novedad en el Opus Dei.68Escrivá había tomado juramento a las primeras en una ceremonia a las afueras de Madrid solo un año antes, creando así una nueva clase de miembros que se distinguían de los numerarios y numerarias, los cuales solían ser personas cultas y de familias acomodadas. Por el contrario, las numerarias sirvientes eran mujeres sin estudios y procedentes de familias pobres empleadas como personal doméstico en las diversas residencias del Opus Dei y reclutadas paulatinamente por numerarios superiores”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: Ingeniería financiera, manipulación de personas y el auge de la extrema derecha en el seno de la Iglesia católica

“Asimismo, animaba a los reclutadores a utilizar cualquier recurso que tuvieran a su disposición, incluyendo fondos públicos y edificios gubernamentales. Con un número de miembros que apenas alcanzaba las dos cifras, Escrivá había creado un sistema que sustentaría su expansión durante los siguientes noventa años: un sistema basado en el secreto y el engaño.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: Ingeniería financiera, manipulación de personas y el auge de la extrema derecha en el seno de la Iglesia católica

“La mortificación era un principio central del Opus Dei y se fomentaban los actos regulares —por pequeños que fueran— a lo largo del día, ya fuera darse una ducha fría o beber café sin leche. Una vez a la semana, los hombres debían dormir sobre una tabla de madera; las mujeres lo hacían todas las noches porque se las consideraba más sensuales y, por tanto, debían hacer un esfuerzo extra para evitar la tentación. Los sábados, la disciplina suponía una mortificación adicional: un látigo en forma de cuerda que los miembros golpeaban por encima de los hombros contra la espalda mientras entonaban una oración a la Virgen María: «Dios te salve, Reina y Madre». De vez en cuando, dicha práctica dejaba manchas de sangre en la pared.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: Ingeniería financiera, manipulación de personas y el auge de la extrema derecha en el seno de la Iglesia católica

“La fachada que se vende a la gran mayoría de sus miembros, esto es, defender la doctrina de la Iglesia y ofrecer orientación espiritual para que los católicos vivan su fe, es falsa. Lo único que mueve al Opus Dei es el culto a su fundador y su propia expansión. Sus métodos y prácticas han lavado el cerebro incluso a sus propios dirigentes, que una y otra vez se han mostrado reacios e incapaces de reformarse, incluso cuando se les han presentado pruebas indiscutibles de abusos y coacciones en sus filas. La Obra es un peligro para sí misma, para sus miembros, para la Iglesia y para el mundo.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: Ingeniería financiera, manipulación de personas y el auge de la extrema derecha en el seno de la Iglesia católica

“Banco Popular helped to finance a global network of so-called vocational schools that targeted young women, many of them still children, from poor backgrounds and coerced them into a life of servitude for Opus Dei. Many were trafficked around the world to meet the needs of the movement. Robert Wilkinson / Alamy”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“If Francis dies before real reform happens—and if his successor proves unwilling or unable to carry on his initiative—then Opus Dei will emerge from its near-death experience invigorated and defiant. Revitalized, backed by its army of donors, the movement will plow forward with its plans to re-Christianize the planet, whether that’s what people want or not. Gay marriage, secular education, scientific research, and the arts will fast become its next targets. Given its supporters’ unexpected victory over abortion, it’s quite possible that Opus Dei and its sympathizers could mastermind equally devastating victories in those areas.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“For me, it’s an honor that Americans are attacking me,” Francis later told reporters aboard the papal aircraft, when asked about the “Red Hat Report” and the involvement of Tim Busch.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“Benedict had resigned against a backdrop of scandal and outrage, following leaks of documents exposing widespread corruption and misuse of Church funds right across the Holy See, in what became known as the Vati-Leaks scandal. Francis was keen to put a distinctive stamp on his papacy and return the Church to what he considered the true mission of Jesus Christ, after more than thirty years of domination by conservative forces under John Paul II and Benedict XVI.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“The financial troubles were bad enough, but Saracho soon discovered he had another, even more unexpected problem to deal with. The board—the people he needed to support his efforts to turn around the bank—seemed oddly divided into two rival Catholic sects. After almost forty years of dealing with companies of all sizes, from every corner of the world, he had never before seen anything like it. He had walked into of the middle of a religious turf war—Opus Dei versus the Legionaries of Christ.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“One Popular board member even learned that Del Valle had been overheard talking about his investment in the bank as part of a much larger plan to join the forces of Opus Dei and Legionaries of Christ, in a move that would restore the tarnished religious movement to prominence.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“The refusal of Opus Dei to talk to Del Valle relit his longstanding hatred toward the religious order. As a young man he had been a member in Mexico but left under mysterious circumstances. Years later, he had joined the Legionaries of Christ, a movement set up in the late 1950s by Marcial Maciel, a Mexican priest who was later revealed to have been a long-time drug addict who had sexually abused the boys and young men in his care.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“In 2011, Leo teamed up with Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni to co-found another nonprofit that successfully opposed an Islamic center being built near the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York, denigrated as the “Ground Zero Mosque.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“Having just been named the number one business school in the world by The Economist, the institution’s plans were already underway to assemble a large research team in the city, which would be tasked with advising the country’s largest companies on important topics such as globalization, innovation, regulation, and corporate governance.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“She confessed this to Father Danilo, who offered to return it on her behalf—a rare demonstration of compassion within the center. Opus Dei would eventually take away all the responsibilities that Father Danilo had toward its members. His body was later found on the train tracks a short distance away, with a note asking the police to inform the residence of his suicide.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“It was an arduous, backbreaking existence—one that had been meticulously designed by the Opus Dei founder.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“For years, the residence in Buenos Aires, where it now entertained the There Be Dragons cast and crew, had allegedly been home to one of Opus Dei’s largest and most ruthless slave labor operations. This prime piece of real estate had effectively been gifted to the organization by the military junta in 1972, in a sign of its cozy relationship with a regime that, at the time, was “disappearing” tens of thousands of people across the country—first torturing them in illegal detention centers and then throwing them, drugged and beaten, out of military planes over the Atlantic Ocean.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“Escrivá had told Luis Valls-Taberner to always avoid any connections to Opus Dei, even when specifically carrying out deeds in its name. “Don’t use ‘we,’ conjugate using only ‘I,’ ” he had said.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“In May, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was the main speaker at a fundraiser event for the new numerary residence that Opus Dei was building in Reston, Virginia.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“Over the coming months, a feeding frenzy ensued, with pieces in the Chicago Tribune and Newsday, and on National Public Radio giving voice to former members willing to talk about its abusive practices. CNN aired a segment on Opus Dei as part of a series it was doing on secret societies, with host Anderson Cooper hearing from a former numerary assistant who talked about the “cult-like” practices of life within the prelature. To make matters worse, Sony Pictures acquired the rights to turn the book into a film. Bohlin wrote an angry letter, demanding a meeting with the studio’s head of motion pictures and requesting that the name of Opus Dei not be used. The request fell on deaf ears.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“Also in attendance was Mother Teresa, whose own popularity was the envy of the conservative wing that now so dominated the Vatican. “Why does the press speak so favorably of Mother Teresa but it doesn’t do the same when it speaks about Opus Dei or about me?” the pope had remarked in a private audience with Del Portillo.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“country—as a tax-efficient way of running its finances, and as a way of protecting the movement from any potential legal problems. During deliberations with the judge, Opus Dei successfully argued that it had only been responsible for the spiritual formation of the young numerary assistant—and not for any breaches of labor law or alleged enslavement. It was the first of many times over the next three decades that such a tactic would prove successful.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“Catherine Tissier had been fourteen when her parents signed her up for the three-year hospitality course at the École Hôtelière Dosnon. She would later become the first public whistleblower of the systematic abuse of numerary assistants.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“Spiritual—and sexual—abuse of minors festered in such an environment.”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

“Opus Dei also routinely violated canon law regarding minors. The Church specifically prohibited the recruitment of anyone younger than eighteen. Publicly, the movement acknowledged this in its official statutes that had been presented to the Vatican. But in its secret guidelines for members, Del Portillo effectively encouraged numeraries to target children as young as fourteen”
― Gareth Gore, Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church