Investigative reporter goes inside ‘work of God’

Since Opus Dei is not a religious order, members do not take "vows," nor does their status under Church law change when they join. Laypeople remain laity. Instead, they affliate themselves by means of that quintessential secular instrument, a contract. Essentially, members strike a deal with Opus Dei: They agree to live in the spirit of Opus Dei and to support its apostolic activities, and in return Opus Dei agrees to provide doctrinal and spiritual formation.

The formula of the contract is as follows:

Member

I, in the full use of my freedom, declare that with firm resolve I dedicate myself to pursue sanctity and to practice apostolate with all my energy according to the spirit and praxis of Opus Dei. From this moment until next March 19th, I assume the obligation:

First, to remain under the jurisdiction of the Prelate and the other competent authorities of the Prelature, in order to dedicate myself faithfully to everything that has to do with the special purposes of the Prelature;

Second, to fulfill all the duties of a Numerary/Associate/Supernumerary member of Opus Dei, and to observe the norms by which the Prelature is governed, as well as the legitimate rulings of the Prelate and the other competent authorities of the Prelature regarding its government, spirit and apostolate.

Representative of the Prelate

I, representing the Prelate, declare that from the moment of your incorporation into the Prelature, and for as long as that incorporation continues in force, Opus Dei assumes the obligation:
First, to devote constant care and attention to your doctrinal, spiritual, ascetical and apostolic formation, and to provide you with the special pastoral attention of the priests of the Prelature;

Second, to fulfill its other obligations with respect to its faithful, as determined in the norms by which the Prelature is governed.


Members remain free outside the terms of this contract, as does Opus Dei. At least in theory, members have no right to "represent" Opus Dei in their professional work, or to act on its behalf, and Opus Dei does not seek to influence them beyond their spiritual growth. To take a concrete example, Luis Valls, a seventy-eight-year-old Spanish member of Opus Dei, recently stepped down as executive chairman of Banco Popular, Spain's third-largest commercial bank with $47.9 billion in assets. Valls, who lives in an Opus Dei center in Madrid, has always insisted that nobody in Opus Dei dictated banking strategy to him, and that at no time were any resources from the bank diverted for Opus Dei purposes. He was not an "Opus Dei banker," but a banker who happened to be in Opus Dei. The impact of Opus on his business career and on his life, he insists, has been of a different order: "Without religious convictions, I would have been a rascal."

Excerpted from “Opus Dei” by John L. Allen, Jr.  Copyright © 2005 by John L. Allen, Jr.  Excerpted by permission of Doubleday Religion, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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