Opus Dei and politics

Opus Dei and politics is a discussion on Opus Dei's view on politics, its role in politics and its members involvement in politics.

General political matters

Opus Dei has been accused of supporting Totalitarianism, during the first part of the 20th century, and afterward far-right governments. Opus Dei's history parallels that of Francisco Franco's conservative dictatorship in Spain, and was first developed during the troublesome years of the interwar period, along with the dictatorships of António de Oliveira Salazar and Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. Some of Franco's ministers were from Opus Dei.

left|thumb|150px|Rt. Hon. Ruth Kelly MP. Although accused of favoring a right-wing and anti-woman agenda, two of the most visible politicians connected to Opus Dei (Kelly and Paola Binetti of Italy) were for a time members of center-left parties and are women, reported Allen in 2006.

However, supporters of Opus Dei point out that accusations of support to Hitler, Franco or totalitarianism have been often based in scattered information and individual testimonies of former members of the organisation.|date=December 2022 They also note that the main position of the Socialist and Communist parties in the 1920s and 1930s was against organized religions, especially in mainly Catholic countries such as Spain, where the Church massively took side for Franco during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

Hitler and Nazism

The Unofficial Opus Dei Webpage says: An article in the Telegraph also reports that Felzmann heard Escrivá, "Vlad, Hitler couldn't have been such a bad person," the Father apparently said. "He couldn't have killed six million. It couldn't have been more than four million."[https://web.archive.org/web/20051025070253/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/01/18/bbdavi16.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/01/18/ixartleft.html] Opus Dei supporters state that Fr. Felzmann, on saying these things, is being inconsistent with a testimony he wrote in 1980 saying that Escrivá is "a saint for today." (Documentation Service Vol V, 3, March 1992) They claim that former members, called "apostates" by their former organization, often lend their voices to coalitions fighting their previous religious organizations (see Dr. Bryan R. Wilson).

Escrivá responded to these accusations in 1975, professing his "love for the Jewish people" [http://www.conelpapa.com/quepersigue/opusdei/ackerman.htm][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvDj8YE8Bek]. In addition, according to Opus Dei supporters, the one oral testimony regarding the supposed sympathies of Escrivá towards Hitler is disputed by various documented testimonies of non-members and members who He also allegedly condemned Nazism for being a "heresy," "anti-Christian," "pagan," "totalitarian," "a political aberration," and "racist." About the Nazi persecution against the Christians and the Jews, he was reported to say: "one victim is enough to condemn it". (Urbano 1995, p. 118-199) He condemned it, even going against Spain's public and official attitude of keeping silent about Nazism, despite the Holy See's condemnation of Hitler's ideology. Thus, del Portillo, the Opus Dei prelate who succeeded Escrivá, said that the attacks against the founder of Opus Dei are "a patent falsehood," part of "a slanderous campaign." (del Portillo 1996, p. 22-25). Though members of the Jewish community have defended Escrivá in the past, the issue was far from resolved at the time of his beatification in 1992.

Francoist Spain

Opus Dei was founded in 1928 by an Aragonese Roman Catholic priest, Josemaría Escrivá, and it was subsequently recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as its first secular religious institution , then later a personal prelature, a secular jurisdictional structure of the Catholic Church akin to a diocese.

There are written by investigative journalists, particularly those written outside Spain like the United States, Britain, Germany and Italy, which agree that Opus Dei was and continues to be "apolitical", meaning that Opus Dei has no purposeful strategy as a whole or secret agenda as some have suspected. John Allen (2005), an American journalist, drawing from the latest historical research, said that "some members worked in Franco's Spain, became ministers of his. But Opus Dei people are free to do whatever they wish politically. Other members were against Franco." Allen cites the dissident Rafael Calvo Serer, who was driven into exile in the early 70s and saw the newspaper he published closed by the government. Allen confirms that by the latter stages of the Franco era, Opus Dei members in Spain were divided "50/50" over the regime.

Allen also recounts the story of Giovanni Benelli and Josemaría Escrivá. Cardinal Benelli - right-hand man of Paul VI- wanted a Catholic Party in Spain similar to Italy's Democrazia Cristiana and wanted all Spanish Roman Catholics to adhere to this policy. Escrivá, who was truly desperate in asking the help of Benelli to talk to Paul VI about the foremost concern in his mind, the juridical problem of Opus Dei which can be resolved by becoming a "personal prelature" status for Opus Dei, refused Benelli. And he later complained to Benelli for holding Opus Dei hostage so Benelli could have his way. Allen says: "The Benelli story offers a good case for testing whether Escriva was serious about Opus Dei having no political agenda. If ever there was a set of circumstances propitious for a "power grab", this situation presented them. ...If Opus Dei led the way in the creation of Spanish version of Christian Democracy, its imaginable that its total of 8 ministers in 36 years under Franco would have been swamped by its representation in a new Spanish government."

Escriva and Franco

Critics, however, point to a letter written on 23 May 1958 by Escrivá to General Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain. They also say that Escrivá supported Franco. On the other hand, members of Opus Dei say that the letter of Escrivá (written 8 years after the US, the UN and Allies recognized Franco) shows his exemplary virtues as a citizen and a Catholic priest, as he says: "Although a stranger to any political activity, I cannot help but rejoice as a priest and Spaniard" that Spain's Head of State should proclaim that Spain accepts the law of God according to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, a faith which will inspire its legislation. Escrivá tells him that "It is in fidelity to our people's Catholic tradition that the best guarantee of success in acts of government, the certainty of a just and lasting peace within the national community.... will always be found." According to supporters, by saying this Escrivá was encouraging Franco (together with hundreds of Spaniards who wrote to Franco) to respect human rights, human dignity and freedom. They say that Escrivá acknowledged Franco's role in bringing order to the country but he totally rejected any form of clericalism whereby Catholics have a single-party mentality or use public power as a secular arm of the Church. Supporters also refer to an immediate correction given by Escrivá to Franco when one of the numeraries was insulted by the regime as "a person without a family." (del Portillo, 1996, p. 25-28) However, historians agree that the Catholic Church, of which Escrivá was a member, was a bulwark of the Franco regime, notwithstanding the dictatorship's brutal repression against Republicans and Communists following the Spanish Civil War .

John Allen in Opus Dei: Secrets and Power in the Catholic Church (2005) states that from the very beginning to the end of the Franco regime Escrivá maintained a complete silence about Franco's government. He claims that there is not one public statement on the records from Escriva — either critical of the regime or in favor. In the 1930s and 1940s, this silence was even interpreted as passive opposition. By the 1960s and 1970s, when the overwhelming sentiment in Spanish Roman Catholicism had become critical of Franco, his silence was interpreted as a kind of covert support. This silence, according to Allen, meant there was no corporate position of Opus Dei towards Franco.

“[I]t’s worth noting that in the context of the Spanish Civil War, in which anticlerical Republican forces killed 13 bishops, 4,000 diocesan priests, 2,000 male religious, and 300 nuns, virtually every group and layer of life in the Catholic Church in Spain was ‘pro-Franco.’” Allen goes on to note that despite this fact, “there is no instance in which [Escrivá] either praised or criticized the regime” throughout its long reign. “In the 1930s and 1940s, when the overwhelming sentiment in Catholic Spain was pro-Franco, Escrivá’s silence was therefore often read to betoken a hidden liberalism; by the 1960s and 1970s, when Catholic opinion had shifted, that same silence was interpreted as masking a pro-Franco conservatism,” he writes. “The overall impression one gets is that Escrivá strove to maintain neutrality with respect to the Franco regime, even if privately he felt some sympathy for a leader trying by his lights to be an upright Christian,” Mr. Allen concludes. “A charge of ‘pro-Franco’ cannot be sustained, except in the generic sense that most Spanish Catholics were initially supportive of Franco.... The most one can say is that Escrivá was not ‘anti-Franco’ either.”

Opus Dei members in Franco's government

Critics underline that several Opus Dei members were appointed ministers in General Francisco Franco's government