It is difficult to briefly summarize our two-year transformation in a short email but I just wanted to mention a recent observation that is part of that process.

A little personal history: Our daughter became a Numerary at college and only then, after years of being nominal “cooperators” and ignorantly favorable to Opus Dei, did we realize the nature of the organization. A significant part of our understanding involved finding a document, Parents’ Guide to Opus Dei (English and Spanish versions available), re-released after more than 20 years via Amazon by a daughter of the author who was motivated by his family’s bad experiences, mostly with two other daughter-numeraries. In this timeless booklet, the author beautifully assesses Opus Dei in light of official Vatican guidance about cults and sects. We then realized that one of his daughters is now our daughter’s Director. Connecting illuminated data points and many other lies and oddities of Opus Dei has been a challenging process.  

I jump now to a related anecdote. One of our daughter’s popular professors was a Numerary employed in her non-Opus Dei college. He was recently selected to be an Opus Dei seminarian and was ordained May 9 in Rome. In an Opus Dei promotional video he and his class of ordinandi discuss the priesthood. His contribution is surprisingly edited to include the words “to be concerned about the poor, the people on the periphery, the excluded...and also we should be people who are dedicated to peace, in our families, in our nations…” These uncharacteristic sentiments are almost certainly the kind of posturing already alluded to in posts about Mariano Fazio and Opus D’s relationship with Pope Francis.

El Roble