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THEIR KINGDOM COME -- INSIDE THE SECRET WORLD OF OPUS DEI |
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9. Villa Tevere
AT THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, OPUS DEI OPENED ITS FIRST student residence outside Spain, in the Portuguese university town of Coimbra, Portugal being the only European country that looked kindly upon General Franco. For having supported Hitler and the now defunct Axis, Franco's Spain found herself in the doghouse of nations. She was blacklisted by the Allied powers, excluded from the United Nations, her frontier with France sealed and her aircraft banned from Allied airspace. Escriva de Balaguer nevertheless confidently placed Britain, France and Ireland on Opus Dei's post-war expansion list. But it was perfectly evident that if the Work went into those countries as a Spanish institution, it risked not being well received. He decided, therefore, that Opus Dei must become an institution of pontifical right. Opus Dei was already represented in Rome by Salvador Canals and Jose Orlandis. Their work with Archbishop Larraona now turned to crafting a new apostolic constitution that would transform the pious union into an institute subject to the Holy See's jurisdiction and none other. This was an important step, and one that some might have imagined unwarranted for an association with so few members. The Father again despatched Alvaro del Portillo to Rome, this time as a priest of the Holy Cross. He carried with him a file detailing the expansion of Opus Dei beyond the borders of a single diocese, indeed beyond those of a single state, supported by letters from eight cardinals and sixty bishops praising Opus Dei for its apostolate. His mission was not a success, and in order to get around the Curial roadblock, Escriva de Balaguer decided to go to Rome himself. He was briefed about what to expect. Half a million Italians were homeless. In the province of Reggio Emilia roving Marxist bands had murdered fifty-two priests since the Liberation, while in Rome every evening the Communists took over the square in front of the Lateran' Palace, and wooed thousands of Romans with music, speeches, banners and grub. The Italian Communist newspaper, L'Unita, was hammering at the Church, and accused its favourite target, Giovanni Battista Montini, of being a 'meddler in politics'. On his way to Rome, the Father stopped at Saragossa to beseech the Virgin of Pilar to intercede in Heaven and Rome, at Montserrat to pray before the Black Madonna, and in Barcelona to pray before Our Lady of Ransom. Once in Rome he waited five days before obtaining a meeting with Montini, who presented him with an autographed photograph of Pope Pius XII and recommended patience. Dealing with the Roman Curia, no matter how you looked at it, cost money. By then Opus Dei maintained four persons in Rome, soon to become six or seven. This required cash -- not pesetas, but lire. With exchange controls, however, lire were not easy for Spaniards to come by. While the Rome delegation was by no means wallowing in funds, it had sufficient resources -- Ministry of National Education resources -- to enable its staff to concentrate on assisting Larraona in his work of rearranging canon law better to accommodate Opus Dei, turning it into a new type of association that would be known as a Secular Institute. Before returning to Madrid, Escriva de Balaguer obtained papal recognition for his endeavours in the form of two documents: an Apostolic Cum Societatis, signed by Pius XII, conceding a number of papal indulgences to Opus Dei members. These included 500 days of remission every time a member kissed 'with devotion' the plain wooden cross placed at the entrance of all Opus Dei oratories. The other, a Brevis sane, signed on 13 August 1946 by Cardinal Lavitrano, amounted to the Holy See's 'approval of Opus Dei's aims', not only in Spain 'but also in other regions, carrying the light and truth of Christ especially to the minds of intellectuals'. Once back in Madrid Escriva de Balaguer told his children that his first contact with the Roman Curia had robbed him of his innocence. It also taught him that when it came to promoting God's work some holy hi-jinx might be needed. He had decided by then to return to Rome in November and take charge of the final stages of Opus Dei's incorporation as a universal institution. He was not particularly well; in spite of daily insulin injections" his diabetes made him tired, often cranky and he was gaining weight. Montini, who Escriva de Balaguer claimed was the only friendly soul he met in the Curia under Pius XII, counselled him on how to proceed. The Vatican was transfixed by events in eastern Europe. Very quickly the Soviets had let it be known that the Church would not be spared the Cold War's chill by sentencing Joseph Schlypi, the Major Archbishop of the Ukrainians, to life at hard labour for collaboration with the Nazis. At the same time the Uniate Church, of which Schlypi had been patriarch (and which owed its allegiance to Rome), was forcibly incorporated into the Russian Orthodox Church. This meant that in one swoop Rome lost 8 million souls. Later there would be persecution of the Church in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland. Escriva de Balaguer was able to convince Montini that Opus Dei's 'apostolate of penetration' could be useful in combating the spread of Marxism, and Montini used this argument to persuade Pius XII to make provision in canon law for a type of association whose features were purpose-built for Opus Dei. In February 1947, Papa Pacelli issued a decree known by its opening words as Provida Mater Ecclesia. It established the Secular Institute as a juridical structure under pontifical law and provided an Apostolic Constitution that associations accorded this status were henceforth required to adopt. Provida Mater acknowledged that through the medium of a secular institute lay Catholics could seek to attain a 'state of perfection while living an everyday existence in the secular world. In its canonical sense, 'state of perfection' had over the centuries come to mean living within a religious community according to the three monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Members of secular institutes did not have to wear distinctive habits or live a cloistered existence. Members of secular institutes, on the other hand, were required to take private vows. And they could continue to practise their trade or profession while striving for Christian perfection. Secular institutes nevertheless had certain points in common with religious orders. Responsibility for tl;1eir oversight, therefore, was assigned to the Congregation of Religious in Rome. Escriva de Balaguer and Don Alvaro del Portillo pressed the Congregation of Religious to make Opus Dei the Church's first secular institute. As a matter of prestige, Opus Dei had to be a paragon, because as God's creation it was inimitable. Three weeks after publication of the Papal bull, the Congregation of Religious issued a decree entitled Primum Institutum seculare, transforming Opus Dei into the premier institute of the genre, a singular honour for a body that had less than 300 members, including all of nine priests. Opus Dei now needed to move its headquarters to Rome. But Escriva de Balaguer wanted them to be grand. Montini took the matter in hand. Through his aristocratic connections, a villa was found in Rome's fashionable Parioli district. The villa's owner, known only as Il Nobile Mario (the nobleman Mario), wanted a quick sale, and in Swiss francs. As Escriva de Balaguer did not have enough money even to pay the deposit, he entrusted to the nobleman Mario some gold coins. Supposedly he had intended to melt down the coins and make sacred vessels out of them. Once Mario received the Swiss francs he promised to return the doubloons. In this way the Father secured the title deeds and was able to obtain a mortgage with which he made good the commitment to pay the nobleman within two months. [1] Not only does this explanation provided by Opus Dei smack of sharp practices, it tries the writer's credulity. No Italian bank in 1947 would have provided a mortgage in Swiss francs -- it was against the law. Nor would any Swiss bank have accepted at that time a mortgage in Italy. Moreover, Opus Dei claimed not to know the full name of the owner. The owner was Count Mario Mazzoleni. Opus Dei dosed the deal with him in July 1947. Escriva de Balaguer at last had his grand headquarters, which he named Villa Tevere. And even though he professed not to have money, he immediately planned to build a new wing for his growing court of ministers. Its construction was placed under the supervision of Miguel Fisac, whose architecture studio in Madrid was at the time Opus Dei's biggest money spinner. Fisac donated his skills, but the works themselves were financed through donations from contributors in several countries. 'The construction of the central offices was considered the work of everybody,' Opus Dei explained. Spain maintained exchange controls well into the 1980s, and Italy kept them until the beginning of the 1990s. That Opus Dei had access to large quantities of Swiss francs in 1947 was an indication of its growing resources. The situation may have been influenced by the fact that in 1947 the NSRC opened a Rome office with the aim of continuing the progress of Spanish science and research in the Eternal City, and of developing and co-ordinating the work of Spanish researchers in Italy'. [2] At the time at least six Spanish researchers were in Rome, all members of Opus Dei. The material needs of Escriva de Balaguer and his disciples in the Italian capital were becoming increasingly extravagant. Construction work at Villa Tevere commenced immediately and continued for the next twelve years. No figures were ever published, but the final cost has been estimated at more than $10 million. It was now that Opus Dei obtained permission to alter its internal rules to allow married, noncelibate persons to join the Work as 'supernumeraries'. True to Opus Dei's 'strategy of discretion', Alvaro del Portillo also obtained extraordinary authorization to have the complete text of Opus Dei's Constitutions placed under seal in the secret archives of the Congregation of Religious. This remained the case until the 1980s, even though a purloined copy was published in 1970 by the Spanish author Jesus Ynfante in his expose of the Spanish phenomenon. But Opus Dei's insistence on secrecy had served its purpose, preventing other Church groups from modelling their statutes along similar lines. The spiritual life of Opus Dei members was likewise given a secretive norm, as the institute's Constitution shows:
Shortly after the Villa Tevere acquisition, Escriva de Balaguer was made a domestic prelate of the papal household, which gave him the right to be called Monsignor, add a touch of purple to his robes and wear buckled shoes. One of his biographers tells us that the Father, who found his own name so common that he ennobled it by adding 'de Balaguer', was reluctant to accept this honour. [4] Escriva de Balaguer's promotion in clerical rank was organized by Montini, who by then had introduced him to a rising young politician and future stalwart in the battle against Communism, Giulio Andreotti. Montini knew the twenty-nine-year-old Andreotti from before the war when he had been chaplain to the Italian federation of Catholic student unions, of which Andreotti had been a president. Pius XII had given Montini the task of putting some political backbone into Catholic Action in Italy, which had significantly more members than the Italian Communist party, and Montini asked Andreotti to handle liaison between it and the Christian Democrat party during the 1948 election campaign. Two factors marked the campaign: first, the enormous resources poured into the fray by Washington through the newly created Central Intelligence Agency; and, second, the Vatican's own covert activities, coordinated by Montini. Both were decisive in defeating the Communists. CIA funds on deposit with the Vatican bank, the IOR (Istituto per le Opere di Religione), were used to stage popular rallies throughout the country. Catholic Action also organized a Youth Congress whose theme was 'Christ has overcome Marx', and its members plastered campaign posters over the entire peninsula at a rate of 1,000 a day. In the end, the Christian Democrats triumphed with 48.5 per cent of the vote against 31 per cent for the Communists. From the Christian Democrat victory emerged a Vatican strategy to counter Communism in which Opus Dei, with its growing financial resources, would play a role. The strategy was defined by Montini with help from Andreotti and it revolved around developing a secular network to alert public opinion to the Marxist threat. It enjoyed CIA backing and marked the beginning of a working relationship between Opus Dei and the CIA. As the strategy took shape, Montini told the French ambassador that the Vatican hoped to see Europe's three leading Catholic powers -- Italy, France and Spain -- come together in an anti-Communist union. He castigated the French for keeping their border with Spain closed. Escriva de Balaguer meanwhile reported that Opus Dei had 3,000 members, including twenty-three priests, and more than 100 centres in a dozen countries. But as the organization continued to grow he became disenchanted with the status of secular institute and began working on a 'final solution' that he anticipated would make him a prelate nullius -- in other words, a bishop without a diocese. He was disenchanted, he said, because Archbishop Larraona had cheapened the secular institute concept by raising seventy other church groups to the same status. He never forgave Larraona for this. Seventy institutions in the world like Opus Dei did not exist. The Work was unique. Moreover, he claimed in Cronica that the concept was supposed to have been reserved for Opus Dei, and Opus Dei alone. _______________ Notes: 1. Opus Dei UK Information Office, 30 October 1994. 2. Ynfante, Op. cit., p. 44. 3. The 1950 Constitutions, articles 189-91. 4. Vazquez de Prada, Op. cit., p. 249.
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