Opus Dei

In the wake of Dictator Francisco Franco's government "crisis" and Cabinet shuffle (TIME, March 11), the cafe wits in Spain last week were passing around a punning version of the old Latin saw, Finis coronat opus (The end crowns the work). Crisis coronat Opus, they said, and the Opus they meant was Opus Dei--a little-known organization of Roman Catholic priests and laymen which, it was rumored, had nine or ten members in Franco's new 18-man Cabinet.

This was an exaggeration. Though Opus Dei members do not advertise their membership, they may not conceal it, and the new Cabinet contains only one full-fledged member (Commerce Minister Alberto Ul-lastres) and three "cooperators"--Mariano Navarro Rubio (Finance), Cirilo Canovas (Agriculture), and Lieut. General Camilo Alonso Vega (Interior). But this was enough to focus a spotlight on the organization long regarded among suspicious Spanish Jesuits as "the White Masons."

Total Effort. Opus Dei (official title: Sociedad Sacerdotal de la Santa Cruz y del Opus Dei) was founded in Madrid on Oct. 2, 1928. The founder was a young Marist priest, Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer, whose aim was to tie the struggle for spiritual perfection to the struggle for professional perfection in the modern world. Instead of retiring into monasteries, he felt, men with a secular calling as well as a sacred one should be able to follow both at once. The solution: in addition to vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, a man pledges to God all his professional talents.

For years Opus Dei inched ahead, an unofficial studying and worshiping commune of men who used old houses in Madrid as headquarters. They were in one of these on the city's outskirts when Spain's Civil War broke out, pinning them down in the line of fire between attacking Loyalists and Nationalists defending a barracks. After a two-day battle the Loyalists won; the Opus Deists slipped out of the house (Father Escriva in worker's coveralls).

After the Civil War the new movement found itself opposed by ultra-conservative Spanish Catholicism as well as by the Jesuits, but in 1947 Pope Pius XII gave Opus Dei official recognition, and the group established headquarters in Rome.

Total Freedom. Today there are more than 200 houses of Opus Dei throughout the world, with four classes of membership. Top class is called Numeraries--an estimated 7,000 members of the professions (both priests and laymen), who take full vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Most of them live and study together, contribute all their income above bare subsistence to Opus Dei. The second class: Oblates, some 12,000 intellectuals, workers and peasants, who must take the vow of chastity but do not have to take the others. The next class: Supernumeraries, some 25,000, whose vows are conditional. Thus, if married, they are pledged to observe to the letter the church's teaching on conjugal fidelity, sexual intercourse, etc. Largest class: the Cooperators, approximately 50,000, are not required to take any vows at all, and even include non-Catholics. Their aim is to achieve a life of spiritual perfection through scrupulous fulfillment of their best working potential. Women are admitted in all classes.

U.S. headquarters of Opus Dei is in Chicago, with other leading branches in Washington, D.C., Boston and Madison, Wis. U.S. membership is still small--not more than 200. In some quarters Opus Dei is believed to be a chosen instrument for liberalizing the reactionary Spanish church and possibly even the Franco regime itself. Members heatedly deny any political role, but admit their strong liberal leanings. Said one Opus Dei priest in the U.S. last week: "We did not like the idea in Spain that all higher learning must be government-approved and government-controlled. So four years ago we set up our own university in Navarra. The government did not openly resist us. This is consistent with our idea of freedom. We are Catholics, but outside the teachings of our church we believe in total freedom for the individual."

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