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THEIR KINGDOM COME -- INSIDE THE SECRET WORLD OF OPUS DEI |
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13. Vatican II
DURING HIS YEARS IN ROME, ESCRIVA DE BALAGUER DEVELOPED A highly idiosyncratic view of the papacy. He held Pius X, the Pope of his childhood, in high esteem, considering him the fairest Pontiff of modern times. He never forgave Pius XII for three times refusing him a bishop's mitre, and intensely disliked him because of it. When Angelo Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice, was elected the new Pope in October 1958, he surprised everyone by taking the name of John, which no Pope had used in more than 600 years. His next surprise followed almost immediately when he removed his biretta, the red skull cap of a cardinal, and placed it upon the head of Alberto Di Jorio, who had been secretary of the Conclave but also was head of the Vatican bank. This act instantly raised Di Jorio to the cardinalate. The world knew relatively little about the 76-year-old Roncalli. He was the third of thirteen children from a frugal Bergamo farming family. Most of his ecclesiastic career had been spent in the Vatican diplomatic service in places like Romania and Turkey, and as nuncio in Paris. Only Opus Dei remembered that in July 1954, the year after becoming Patriarch of Venice, Roncalli had made a pilgrimage to Saragossa and Santiago de Compostela. In both cities he stayed in Opus Dei residences. This indicated that the kindly patriarch was certainly familiar with some of the more open aspects of the secular institute. Opus Dei, however, was far from John XXIII's concerns. His first priority was to rejuvenate the College of Cardinals. Within days of his coronation he distributed another twenty-three red hats. His list included the first cardinals ever for the Philippines, Japan, Mexico and Africa. At the top of the list were Giovanni Battista Montini, by then Archbishop of Milan, and Domenico Tardini, whom John asked to become his secretary of state. A year later, he added to the list Opus Dei's former friend, the 72-year-old Arcadio Larraona. In January 1959, John XXIII announced that he would convene the first Ecumenical Council in ninety years. Within weeks, a committee was formed under Cardinal Tardini, Opus Dei's protector in the Curia. He named Opus Dei's secretary general, Alvaro del Portillo, chairman of one of the sub-commissions. Nevertheless Escriva de Balaguer had to wait almost eighteen months for his first audience with the new Pope. The audience lasted less than thirty minutes. The Father, accompanied by Don Alvaro, wished to explain to John that Opus Dei no longer felt at ease in the clothing of a secular institute. In ten years it had grown from 3,000 to 30,000 members, including 307 priests. The Spanish prelates proposed that Opus Dei should be transformed into a prelature nullius. This would have given Escriva de Balaguer the mitre he so cherished. Pope John was puzzled by Opus Dei. He did not reply to the request for almost two years -- another snub of major proportions. In May 1962, he finally had Cardinal Amleto Cicognani, who had taken over as secretary of state after Tardini's unexpected death, inform Opus Dei's founder that transforming the institute into a prelature nullius would present 'almost insurmountable juridical and practical difficulties' and therefore the request was denied. [1] Within three weeks, Escriva de Balaguer was inside the papal apartments, making known his 'profound disappointment'. Since the previous year one of his leading experts in canon law, Professor Pedro Lombardia Diaz of the University of Navarra, had been working on defining a 'floating diocese' that possessed most of the characteristics of what later became known as a personal pre1ature. Papa Roncalli counselled patience as the Second Vatican Council would begin its work that autumn, and one of the items on the agenda was the creation of a new legal structure for mixed lay and religious organizations like Opus Dei. Escriva de Balaguer was not pleased and came away from the meeting with what some former children have described as 'a profound dislike' of Pope John. Thereafter in moments of anger he referred to Roncalli as 'a peasant with body odour'. [2] One of Escriva de Balaguer's closest collaborators at this time [3] reported that the Founder was obsessed by the notion that popes could be chosen from outside the College of Cardinals and raised to Peter's throne by acclamation. His seventh apostle, Pedro Casciaro, was convinced that this could occur and confided to a member of the Spanish hierarchy that the next Conclave might produce a major surprise. Because of his age, Roncalli was regarded as a transitionary pope whose reign would be short. Three years into John XXIII's pontificate, Escriva de Balaguer sought to establish closer contact with the outspoken Cardinal Giuseppe Siri of Genoa. He knew that Siri, one of the electors of John XXIII, regretted that he had helped place the rotund Roncalli on the papal throne. Escriva de Balaguer wanted Siri to know that they shared similar concerns. He was convinced that, in the name of reform, evil forces were eroding the Church from within and he saw in Siri a potential ally in stopping the decay. Siri's archdiocese of Genoa, with one million Catholics, was one of the richest in Christendom. He had established an administrative section to manage its finances, placing the archiepiscopal treasury under the direction of a young mutual fund salesman, Orazio Bagnasco, who was later adopted as one of Giulio Andreotti's proteges. Andreotti, Siri and the two Spanish prelates considered John XXIII's diplomatic opening to the Communist world as dangerous. Siri began describing Pope John's pontificate as 'the greatest disaster in recent ecclesiastical history'. By 'recent', Peter Hebblethwaite claimed, Siri meant the last 500 years. [4] Siri and Escriva de Balaguer were said to view the Second Vatican Council as an unnecessary sideshow destined to complicate 'the work of the Pope's successor. Getting Vatican II under way was no easy task. Papa Roncalli made it clear that he intended to open its doors to all religions -- a revolutionary step. Pope John would also turn the procedural rules upside down. Pope John's opening address to the Council explained Vatican II's purpose: to ensure that 'the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine -- the common patrimony of all mankind -- be preserved and taught in a more effective way ...' But Roncalli had no plan. It was Montini who offered a plan. He proposed that the Council focus on one theme: the nature of the Church and her aggiornamento (renovation) in preparation for the third millennium. The Council fathers were called upon to consider the roles of the Church's constituents: bishops, priests, religious and lay people. Montini also reasoned that the council should consider the mission of the Church at the end of the second millennium, and he proposed a discussion on the Church's relationships with other religions, including her traditional 'enemies'. Vatican II took place in the public eye. This also went against Opus Dei's principles. Moreover the Father feared that the large number of experts whom Pope John allowed to take part would overwhelm the less sophisticated bishops. A bishop needed strength of mind to remember that his authority came from his mystical consecration as Christ's apostle and not from the divergent opinions of counsellors, no matter how learned...Because of this, the Father believed that 'the potential expansion of the Devil's field of action' which Vatican II provided was 'beyond the Council fathers' imagination'. [5] Escriva de Balaguer refused to participate in the work of Vatican II. It is said that Pope John wanted to appoint him a consultor, but he would have nothing of it. Pope John, therefore, made Don Alvaro del Portillo the secretary of the Commission on Discipline of the Faith. Throughout the three years that the Council sat, Escriva de Balaguer brooded in the Villa Tevere, dubbing it the 'Council of the Devil'. Pope John did not live to see the work of his great enterprise completed. He died on 3 June 1963. Escriva de Balaguer believed that the 'peasant Pope' had embarked upon a destructive exercise. Cardinal Larraona commented more charitably: 'John's goodness and simple-mindedness had led him astray.' [6] Siri, more direct, remarked, 'It will take the Church four centuries to recover from John's pontificate.' [7] Montini became the next pope. Although the Father had not forgotten Montini's help in transforming Opus Dei from diocesan association to an institute of pontifical right, he considered the Archbishop of Milan, now Paul VI, weak on important doctrinal issues. Montini was also strongly anti-Franco. Rather than rejoicing over Paul's election, Escriva de Balaguer was indignant, especially as Paul VI made it clear that he was committed to completing the work of the Council. The second session closed in December 1963, with Paul promulgating a new Constitution on Liturgy, which was said to have made Escriva de Balaguer tremble with rage. Paul opened the third session in September 1964, for the first time admitting women -- religious and lay -- as auditors, and closed it in November 1964. At Escriva de Balaguer's first meeting with Pope Paul he pressed for a revision of Opus Dei's status. Paul counselled him to wait until the close of Vatican II, still almost two years away. The Founder fretted, but Pope Paul remained firm, and when Gaudium et Spes was finally published in December 1965 it offered Opus Dei a few pearls. For example the Church accepted for the first time that work was part of the divine plan: 'We hold that through labour offered to God man is associated with the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.' [8] While Escriva de Balaguer might have privately cursed the Council, Opus Dei publicly claimed that Lumen Gentium, the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity and Gaudium et Spes all drew their inspiration from his teachings. The Council now over, Pope Paul began implementing its decisions, steering the Church through a period of difficult change. He substituted the vernacular in the liturgy, and in pursuit of ecumenism he held meetings with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Patriarch Athenagorus I. Then in July 1968 he issued Humanae Vitae, condemning artificial methods of birth control. But it disappointed many, not least because a majority of the pontifical commission appointed to examine the subject had been in favour of contraception under certain conditions. Pope Paul had ignored the majority view. He was said to have been profoundly shaken by the critical international reaction this harvested. A horrified Escriva de Balaguer had actually worked to oppose Humanae Vitae, because he felt it was not strong enough in its rejection of contraception. He was, on the other hand, encouraged by the role that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla had played in turning Paul's hand. It was said that Wojtyla had convinced Pope Paul to pull back from changing Church doctrine in favour of artificial birth control. Escriva de Balaguer was convinced that he was living in a time of heresies. He increasingly viewed Opus Dei as the core of the real Church, a lean and sleek Church. His sons were her guardians, the Catholic counterpart of Islam's Mutawah, a religious police sworn to maintain discipline and silence dangerous revisionists. 'God', he believed, 'has chosen Opus Dei to save His Church.' [9] Inside the Work, his word was law. He established Opus Dei's own Index of Prohibited Books, similar in intent to the one established by Paul IV in 1557 and renewed by Leo XIII in 1900. He bombarded his regional vicars with written directives that were filed in each centre's praxis manual. The subjects varied from Note S-4 of 30 August 1952, which in one curt sentence warned against talking about internal matters to persons outside the Work, to the latest additions to the Index. [10] One theme that recurred over and over again was the vigilance needed to prevent 'philo-Marxism' from corrupting the doctrines of the Church. He instructed Opus Dei's sons and daughters 'in positions of government or teaching' (contrary to its public statements that it never interfered in the professional lives of members) to root out and report on Marxist infiltration. Six months later he issued another directive forbidding members to read certain Catholic publications he deemed contaminated by Marxist philosophy. For several years numeraries had been reading in Cronica such affirmations as, 'the heritage of heaven comes to us through the Father', [11]or were informed by their spiritual directors that, '... the will of the Father is the will of God.' [12] Escriva de Balaguer believed he was in possession of divine confidences. These confidences told him that Humanae Vitae, because it was too weak, had thrown the Church into disorder. John Roche said, 'The Opus Dei hierarchy in Rome was starting to prepare us for schism. They said, "Saints have been in schism before." They were preparing us for the possibility of leaving the Catholic Church and becoming a separate church. This was an indication of the paranoia that spread through Opus Dei in the early 1970s. I remember asking one of our Irish priests who he would choose if it came to schism, the Pope or the Father? "The Father, of course," he replied.' [13] In the early 1970s, Escriva de Balaguer pulled back from schism. According to former insiders, Alvaro del Portillo counselled a more subtle approach to solving the Church's problems. Portillo pointed out that, like Opus Dei, many cardinals were convinced that Paul VI's pontificate was a disaster. He proposed that Opus Dei should attempt to form a common front with the more conservative members of the cardinalate. Few cardinals knew very much about Opus Dei. If the secular institute was to make itself heard, it had to open its apostolate to the hierarchy of the Church. Portillo proposed the creation of a Roman centre for priestly gatherings -- the Centro Romano di Incontri Sacerdotali (CRIS) -- and to use it as a forum for putting across to the hierarchy with as much tact as possible Escriva de Balaguer's fears for the Church. Before agreeing to this proposal, the Father wanted guidance from the Virgin Mary and he embarked on a pilgrimage to four Marian shrines in Spain, Portugal and Mexico. One of these was at Torreciudad, where he had commissioned an imposing basilica, which he termed 'my last folly'. Construction began shortly before his April 1970 visit and required five years to complete. The fact that the Father had chosen another member, Heliodoro Dols, and not Miguel Fisac, to design the basilica was because the ninth apostle had turned his back on Opus Dei. After nineteen years in the Work, during which he had paid over all his earnings -- a separate revenue account in the Spanish ledgers carried the label 'Estudio Fisac' -- he was surprised by how little baggage he had to take with him. 'I remember that, when I left the Diego de Leon residence with a very small suitcase, I told myself all the way to my parents' home, "Now, Miguel, you will always tell the truth and you will try to be a good person, and nothing more." This thought underscored the moral anxiety in which I found myself, with so many secrets, so many lies, and also this indignation for rules and prayers that corseted the lives of Opus Dei's numerary members.' [14] Fisac, by then one of Spain's most famous architects, described his relationship with Escriva de Balaguer as that of the servant to a grand dame of the stage. The servant knows all the grand dame's foibles and secrets. 'She tells me in confidence about her agent, her lovers, her fellow actors on the stage and her fans. Well, with Escriva it was very similar; he told me everything ... I could recite for you in the smallest detail what he said about the people he liked a lot and who held him in great respect -- people like Jose Ibanez Martin or Ricardo Fernandez Vallespin. In the final analysis; however, I do not want to nauseate you ... With the exception of Alvaro del Portillo, he never had a good word to say about anybody,' Fisac wrote to a fellow architect many years later. [15] Three months after leaving Opus Dei, Fisac married an architecture student who knew nothing about secret societies. His sister, Lola, who had joined the Work soon after the Civil War, was not permitted to attend the wedding. But Antonio Perez Hernandez, Opus Dei's secretary general in Rome at the time, sent a telegram with the Pope's benediction. The Fisacs had three children, the third of whom died, aged six. On the day of the funeral, Fisac and his wife were visited by Francisco Botella, who had been his confessor, and Antonio Perez Hernandez, then back in Madrid as rector of Saint Michael's church. According to Fisac, in offering their condolences 'they made gestures of horror and let it be understood that what happened was God's punishment for having left Opus Dei.' [16] Fisac showed them the door. Fisac revealed that a vain and often choleric Founder actively prepared for sainthood during his lifetime. 'Escriva told us about a discussion he had with several Jesuits who complained that the original companions of St. Ignatius did not consider it important to conserve the objects, buildings and sites which were important in Loyola's career. He added that it would be stupid if we did the same thing ... Then one day, a long time after I left Opus Dei, Juan Jimenez Vargas came to my office with a collection of photos of the region of our flight across the Pyrenees: the outdoor oven and chapel [where Escriva found the rose], and other places where we stopped along the way. He told me that Opus Dei was in the process of buying these sites in order to conserve them as relics. The question he wanted to ask me was whether the ladder used to climb into the oven shown in the photo was the original one ... And at the time Escriva was still alive!' Torreciudad was designed as yet another stage in Escriva de Balaguer's journey towards sainthood. While dedicated to the Virgin of Torreciudad, it was in reality a shrine to the greater glory of the Founder of Opus Dei. With proper humility, Escriva de Balaguer affirmed that the sanctuary was conceived purely and simply to promote Marian devotion and therefore he insisted that it was to be a place of conversion and reconfirmation. Consequently, the specially cast water fountains throughout the sanctuary were clearly marked 'Natural Drinking Water' so there could be no suggestion that it was holy water. He would not allow shops or souvenir stalls inside the sanctuary, not even a restaurant. 'People will come here to pray, to honour Our Lady and to seek God's way, not to buy baubles. I dislike the idea of God's house being turned into a bazaar,' he said. Heliodoro Dols had not fully understood the message. On that April 1970 pilgrimage, the architect was on hand to explain for the Father the plans, including where in the basement level he intended to place a self-service cafeteria. The Father would not hear of it. He ordered that a display of ceramic murals depicting the Mysteries of St Joseph take its place. 'That will prepare pilgrims for confession,' he said. Dols took note and suggested that ten confessionals would be sufficient. The Father insisted on forty. 'Everybody told him it was too many,' Torreciudad spokesman Manuel Garrido recalled. 'It may seem like too many now, but the time will come when it will seem too few,' he replied with assurance. Escriva de Balaguer returned to Rome feeling relieved and began making plans for the inauguration of the CRIS premises at Opus Dei's Residenza Universitaria Internazionale in the EUR suburb of the city. As a think-tank for Catholic orthodoxy it served Opus Dei better than even Portillo had imagined. CRIS's inauguration marked the beginning of Opus Dei's real power within the Church hierarchy. Opus Dei's vitality could not help but stir the cardinals who attended the CRIS meetings. The meetings were held behind closed doors and participants could speak their mind without fearing indiscreet leaks. The cardinals were able to meet the young priests of Opus Dei who had rallied to Catholic orthodoxy with such evident enthusiasm that it was difficult not to be impressed. Opus Dei appeared to have an inner cohesion which the rest of the Church lacked. The concept worked brilliantly because CRIS was a two-way forum where cardinals gave their views but also received those of Opus Dei. Nobody who attended a CRIS meeting left with any doubt that a crisis of faith, moral confusion and indifference to society's permissiveness was undermining the Occident. Opus Dei was particularly partial to the German bishops since they received $2,500 million annually in tax money to distribute among Catholic charities and aid organizations. One of the German treasure-chest guardians, Cardinal Hoffner of Cologne, made his first appearance at CRIS in 1971. He was followed in 1972 by Franz Hengsbach, Bishop of Essen, a ferocious opponent of Marxism. Cardinal Casariego of Guatemala also made a notable appearance to speak out against the dangers of Liberation Theology and praised the Founder for being 'the only priest who during his lifetime has brought to the priesthood some one thousand men - professionals from five continents, engaged in different sectors of science and the liberal professions'. Of the eastern cardinals, Karol Wojtyla was considered the most receptive to Opus Dei's ideas. When in January 1964 Paul VI named Wojtyla Archbishop of Cracow, he was already considered Poland's most outstanding bishop. Wojtyla's orthodoxy appealed to the Father. Before becoming Poland's second cardinal, it was rumoured inside Opus Dei that Wojtyla had been inducted as an associate into the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, which ran CRIS. He made three CRIS appearances and his talks were bound into a book under the title of La fede della Chiesa. Escriva de Balaguer was unable to break down Paul VI's resistance to transforming Opus Dei into a floating diocese. Paul's appreciation of Opus Dei was said to have been influenced by the views of his most trusted assistant, Archbishop Giovanni Benelli. The son of a bakery worker from Pistoia, Benelli had served under Montini at the Secretariat of State; in 1962 he was sent to the nunciature in Madrid. Benelli's posting to Spain brought him into contact with Opus Dei. Not only did he deplore its secrecy, but he suspected that Escriva de Balaguer wanted to create a church within the Church. [17] In 1969, Paul replaced the ageing Cardinal Cicognani, his secretary of state, with the chain-smoking French cardinal, Jean Villot. At the same time, he named Benelli as VilIot's under-secretary. Back in Rome, Benelli became Opus Dei's most outspoken Curial critic. Forceful, direct and not concerned about walking on the toes of others earned Benelli the sobriquet of 'Gauleiter' or 'Berlin Wall'. He overshadowed VilIot, who couldn't stand him. Villot and Opus Dei therefore became natural allies. If Opus Dei remained indefinitely blocked by Benelli's intransigence, its influence inside the Curia would decline, and gradually it risked being marginalized, proving it was an invention of man and not the divine creation that the Founder claimed. In order for Opus Dei to remain an ascending movement, it became imperative to find a way around Benelli's opposition. _______________ Notes: 1. De Fuenmayor et al., Op. cit., p. 422. 2. Interview with Peter Hebblethwaite, Oxford, 5 October 1993. 3. Antonio Perez Hernandez. 4. Peter Hebblethwaite, John XXIII -- Pope of the Council, Geoffrey Chapman, London 1985, p. 368. Hebblethwaite added, 'In his evidence to the beatification process of Pope John, Siri withdrew this judgement and said that he had been wrong.' 5. Berglar, Op. cit., p. 246. 6. Hebblethwaite, Paul VI (Op. cit.), p. 320. 7. Ibid., p. 321. 8. Gaudium et Spes, paragraph 67. 9. Golias No. 30, Op. cit., p. 65. 10. Note S-4 stated: 'Tell them that we abominate secrecy, but that they must shut up: the things of the family are for the family.' 11. Cronica I, 1961. 12. Maria Angustias Moreno, El Opus Dei - Anexo a una historia, Editorial Planeta, Barcelona 1976, p. 228. 13. Dr. John Roche, 8 October 1994. 14. Fisac Notes, 8 June 1994. 15. Fisac letter to Luis Borobio, 18 February 1995. 16. Fisac Notes, 8 June 1994; also his letter to the Scottish Catholic Observer, 26 March 1993. 17. Hebblethwaite, Paul VI (Op. cit.), p. 563.
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