Opus Dei
Dinter, Paul E.
good order and upbuilding in Christ: for ministry, leveling it down to a least com- whom, ultimately, all ministers must ren- "the body will perform only as well as it mon denominator...
...A final chapter then teenth century...
...good order and upbuilding in Christ: for ministry, leveling it down to a least com- whom, ultimately, all ministers must ren"the body will perform only as well as it mon denominator assimilation to what der an account of their stewardship...
...at the same time, his clear Though presenting themselves as hyperpresentation brings a critical method of moral discernment to Christian ministry which is rooted in the faith and wisdom of the community...
...C7 viding believers with the teaching which sustains them in faith and knowledge...
...Surely social, or apostolic, but he professed lit- thank its author for ferreting out the source no less is required today...
...ment with the mystery of the world's sal- apace, this stimulating essay will help Finally, he insists that in Ephesians vation in Christ and a whole-hearted bring clarity and depth to a debate often 4:11-13, the author, as the classic theo- adherence to the church as sacrament, deprived of both...
...After a general religious and social world in which she might likely fund their projects and orientation to the book's subject and worked, as well as, her many speeches programs...
...Walsh's readistry in the early church "supposed a pro- had frustrated his investigations...
...As a re- ers will find plenty of reason to ignore the foundly religious engagement with the sult, he had to confess ignorance as to book's minor repetitions and awkward Christian mystery, and was named min- whether Opus Dei's work was political, translation from Spanish originals, and to istry by virtue of this engagement...
...Paper: $15.95 ($10.95) 0-89130-784-2 Code: 01 00 63 Cloth: $34.95 ($24.95) 1-55540-584-3 Paper: $19.95 ($14.95) 1-55540-585-1 Scholars Press 800-437-6692 or 404-442-8633 P.O...
...While it goes through the motions of being "Poorman brings together ethics and pastoral practice in an interactional model that obedient, Opus Dei is seeking to use incaptures the distinctive character of Christian pastoral counseling...
...Catholicism to "priesthood...
...It brings together the fruits of religious voluntaryism, as and cultural anthropology...
...The claim is unchangeable, and everlasting...
...That 1950 document (most of But lack of candor is woven into the God-given purpose...
...to view...
...Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C...
...es all the means necessary to achieve its working...
...deem the nature and purpose of Christ's founder, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer Walsh gives a far more objective porchurch to be...
...But Walsh's investigation relogical climate more given to correct slo- Segura of Seville wrote to the veals that there is a strategy at work begans than to discriminating investigations...
...effective and targeted approach to the Exodus, and the Flood...
...Arguing this point, Walsh contends that, based on Opus Dei's "rules and Higher Education as a Moral Enterprise regulations, its censorship, its control of Edward LeRoy Long, Jr...
...false teaching for a dysfunc- Whereas a scripturally inspired engage- Catholic theology of ministry proceeds tional one...
...xvi / 222 pp., ISBN 0-87840-531-3, paper, $25.00 the minutiae of its members' day-to-day Horizons on Catholic Feminist Theology living, its class-related structures, its asJoann Wolski Conn and Walter E. Conn, Editors sociation with elites of wealth and xiii / 207 pp., ISBN 0-87840-534-8, paper, $30.00 power...
...Horizons the third sector and challenges the clear Code: 00 01 06 Code: 06 14 01 separation of realms that an analysis of Paper: $10.95 ($8.95) 0-89130-763-X Cloth: $39.95 ($34.95) 0-89130-671-4 culture into three sectors often implies...
...In hyperorthodoxy...
...Opus Dei seems to be yond hardened institutional polarizations his letter he mused about his ig- intent on remaking Catholicism in the to recover the radical newness of the New norance of the group and how the rigor- image of Escriva and his spiritualized Testament vision...
...Includes Code: 01 01 79 obtain funds for their organization...
...theology into lively conversation with pastoral experience...
...It has adopted all the which remained in force after Opus Dei very nature of Opus Dei...
...Walsh's in- comfortable, perhaps because of the "decollege students who had joined up were terpretive reading of Escriva's sayings votion" which its members profess to their bishops and to the pope most especially...
...Poor teaching makes for a any concerned citizen would undertake...
...yet not so in- HarperSanFrancisco, $18.95, 230 pp...
...It is less than Christian...
...xii / 240 pp., ISBN 0-87840-530-5, paper, $25.00 olicism...
...that includes the former, it: "A minister is one appointed to the task, from the Lord who commissions and though it places it in a new point of and in this instance the task is that of pro- serves as living norm of its exercise...
...As Collins himself puts its office-holder, but because it derives largement...
...y Albas...
...But, Walsh argues, the sectarian nature of STUDIES IN ETHICS Opus Dei gives it a distinctly "Calvinistic outlook...
...Niditch international scholarship since 1945 and a component of the American third or reveals how Hebrew narratives of chaos, does it through the critical eye of the expert...
...Though Escriva is a ily impoverishes the sense of Christian made them seem like a cult operating man who labeled "honors, distinctions, ti22: 12 March 1993 Commonweal Scholars Press New & Recent Titles Themes and Womanist Justice, Foundation Variations Womanist Hope Guide A Study of Action Emilie M. Townes for Religious in Biblical Narrative Ida Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) was an Grant Seekers Robert C. Culley African-American activist, social Fourth Edition This work examines reformer and churchwoman...
...Such good, therefore, of such a revolution that and nurtured them to maturity in knowl- ministry is authoritative, not because of alters not by exclusion, but by an enedge and love...
...faithfulness to the Father," xx / 176 pp., ISBN 0-87840-536-4, paper, $21.00 that is, Escriva, not God...
...Particular attention is dare information about 588 foundations punlshnlent, rescue, achievement, paid to her participation in the anti- with a history of religious grant making, reward, announcement, and prohibition lynching campaigns of the late nine- As well as information about the grant are identified...
...Womanist Justice, seeking process, facts about religious examines themes in variation, using Womanist Hope is a methodologically philanthropy and building constituency illustrative material from the books of I sophisticated Contribution to the support...
...about whether they themselves belonged Catholicism could be saved only by those Both before Vatican II and since, Rome to the institute, and recommended that willing to practice "holy intransigence, has bent the rules to allow Opus Dei to young recruits not divulge their member- holy coercion, holy shamelessness...
...He recognizes, with some bemuse- as evidence that it operates above board ment, that such assertions risk appearing and that its work has the approbation of "reactionary" in an ecclesial and theo- n July 1941, Cardinal Pedro the Vatican...
...Box 6996, Alpharetta, GA 30239 ties, things of air, puffs of pride, lies, furious with my contention that they were might be charged with taking them out of nothingness," he petitioned Franco's gov- not members of the "personal prelature" context...
...He brings moral stitutional Catholicism for its own ends...
...Yet their fetishizing of "rigid dogma," a product, perhaps, The Ethical Foundations of Economics of Spain in the 1930s, when organized into John J. Piderit, S.J...
...When we late twentieth-century Christians turn [the author of Ephesians] FAITHFUL TO THE FATHER word into a nondescript service within the capacity of any believer, we gravely distort his meaning...
...xxi / 339 pp., ISBN 0-87840-535-6, cloth, $35.00 a timeless religious system, cannot seem Goodness and Rightness in Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae anything other than a deformed CathJames F. Keenan, S.J...
...The Guide provides up-tomethodology, repetitive patterns of and publications...
...Defenders of this ecclesiastical hybrid clusive as to surrender all differentiation often cite the "correct" relations that Opus among the baptized members of Christ's Paul E. Dinter Dei maintains with the Catholic hierarchy body...
...Beginning with a edition of the Foundation Guide for been studied according to character and brief biographical sketch of Wells- Religious Grant Seekers helps "religious point of view, little attention has been Barnett, the volume examines the organizations locate foundations that devoted to action...
...But, the clerical leader- was given by God and, hence, beyond hiswork, but discouraged almsgiving, rec- ship of Opus Dei constantly touts it as an torical context: "as long as there are men ommending instead the "apostolate of not organization that pre-empted Vatican II's on earth, there will be Opus Dei...
...it is holy, giving...
...it is not merely, as a sect, less than Before April 1, 1993: After April 1, 1993: Catholic...
...For the work of min- ously secret character of the organization bourgeois authoritarianism...
...OPUS DEI within the Catholic church...
...What we understand min- Walsh has carried out in writing of the his- stitution, and from stories of a few istry to be about depends upon whom we tory, operations, and ecclesiastical shenani- higher-up defectors, Walsh traces the consider Jesus Christ to be and what we gans of Opus Dei and its newly beatified anomalies in the organization to its founder...
...allowed Opus Dei to maintain an aura of church from public life with caudillaje, Its excessive clericalism makes the Vatican "chosenness...
...But in fact, following their leadernment in 1968, and was granted the title as such...
...papal nuncio in Madrid, replying hind this correctness (as well as its Yet the thrust of his analysis moves be- to his queries about Opus Dei...
...Catholics, they have set out to "save the --William C. Spohn, S.J., Santa Clara University church by...
...Ministers, therefore, stand both within and "over against" the body of believers...
...tle confidence in the group since it seemed documents and minimal "paper trail" that A noteworthy feature of Collins's study to be adopting methods that were alien to this secretive society has allowed into the is its implicit recognition that reflection the tradition of the church...
...public eye...
...laid plans for his own canonization...
...E 24: 12 March 1993 Commonweal...
...Womanist Kerry A. Robinson, repeated but varied Justice, Womanist Hope recovers her lice editor patterns in biblical narrative, with and historical context and examines the particular focus on what the author extent to which her perspective is a With over one hundred snore pages than describes as "action sequences...
...Great by men and women "equipped the saints immense dignity and responsibility...
...The two In this, they are only obeying the insisted that his followers claim their fi- wouldn't believe that they were just or- founder, who taught that the organization nancial just due from their professional dinary lay folk...
...During his life, he equivocal" in its restriction of member- than timeless...
...Armed with that code, he decided to fill lows women's religious institutes from The secrecy that Walsh chronicles has the vacuum created by the removal of the being dependent on their male equivalents...
...the student in the humanities will find library, even the personal libraries of those This interdisciplinary collection both Nidltch's imaginative interpretation who teach scripture...
...As the "paradigm shift" in Roman slack body...
...To me, as a university chaplain trait of the founder and the "Catholic" sect A merely moralistic view of Christ or for fifteen years, Opus Dei's secretive he left behind than emerges in Opus Dei's a utilitarian approach to church necessar- and highly dubious methods had clearly own hagiographies...
...It may even help to adlogical tradition has maintained, describes celebrant, and witness of that salvation pro- vance the ardent hope that Coleridge, in the work proper to ministry as one where- motes a sense of ministry conscious of its other circumstances, thought vital...
...Escriva, whose authoritarian trappings to boot: an absowas made a "personal prelature" in 1982) 999 Maxims are one of Walsh's sources, lute leader, a timeless law, a hierarchical enjoined secrecy on Opus Dei members, was convinced during the anticlerical structure with more ranks than the army, forbade their speaking to nonmembers days of the Spanish Republic that and with women in secondary roles...
...He ship to deacons and priests...
...In the mid-eighties, two his unquestioned leadership...
...independent sector of culture, has creation, and cosmos structure a mythicIts bibliographies provide springboards for sought to adopt the forms and strategies llterary world and create an order for further investigation on the part of the of social influence without losing its human existence...
...He also notes that some observers from GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PRESS see the organization "falling into the error of Pelagianism," of "believing that, with Interactional Morality the guidance of the founder's wisdom, they A Foundation for Moral Discernment in Catholic Pastoral Ministry can attain sanctity by their own efforts...
...Piecing together material from upon the specificity of ministry proceeds This vignette is but one example of the Opus Dei's publications, from an anonyfrom a wider Christological and ecclesi- genuine investigative work that Michael mously donated copy of their 1982 conological vision...
...resource for a contemporary woulanist the third edition, this expanded fourth Although biblical narratives have often Christian social ethic...
...reveals the contribution of religion to illuminating...
...Walsh's study The outcome of Collins's study is to de- An Investigation into the Secret corroborates my experience and validates lineate a specific identity to ministry: one Society Struggling for Power within my fears about an organization that has that is more expansive and accessible than the Roman Catholic Church been juridically engrafted into the Body its restriction in pre-Vatican II Roman Michael Walsh of Christ since 1982...
...He repeatedly claimed that there rehabilitation of the laity...
...is educated...
...To this (202) 687-6063 (Telephone) (410) 516-6995 (Telephone) reviewer, it is a well-argued point in a well(202) 687-6340 (FAX) (410) 516-6998 (FAX) documented work...
...Opus Dei was nothing secret about Opus Dei, while disingenuous because, beneath the veneer has canonized the ecclesiology of the seeking permission from the Vatican to of lay leadership, the prelatu.re is exactly early twentieth century and considers itwithhold its entire constitution from bish- that: an organization in which the clergy self a "perfect society," one that possessops in whose dioceses its members were are preferred...
...indexes to authors and biblical citations...
...Cloth: $29.95 ($19.95) 1-55540-682-3 Code: 00 15 06 Code: 06 06 23 Paper: $19.95 ($14.95) 1-55540-683-1 Paper: $19.95 ($14.95) 1-55540-677-7 Cloth: $44.95 ($29.95) 1-55540-757-9 Paper: $29.95 ($19.95) 1-55540-758-7 Religion, the Independent Chaos to Cosmos Sector, and American Studies in Biblical Patterns of The Hebrew Bible Culture Creation and Its Modern Interpreters Conrad Cherry and Susan Niditch Gene M. Tucker, Rowland A. Sherrill, "The hook is fresh, well-informed, Douglas A. Knight, editors editors remarkably free of jargon.' -Hori-,on "This is the kind of volume that everyone in A part of neither govern- A fresh took at Genesis 1-I1 from the the field of biblical study will want to ment nor of commerce, perspectives of comparative literature acquire...
...This is an indispensable tool for Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Judges, and recovery and articulation of African- grant seekers who wish to use the trios[ Joshua, as well as the stories of Joseph, American xomanist experience...
...Both the scholar and reader_ ._This resource should he in every distinctive identity and contribution...
...function, contravening the law that disalship to parents...
...The Code of Canon Law is "un- er, Opus Dei presents them as nothing less of Marques of Peralta...
Vol. 120 • March 1993 • No. 5
