By: Randy Engel
[NOTE: Like Part One of this iissue (available HERE), the following is comprised of extracts; loose translations of a cross-section of the book, Opus Judei, José María Escriba, Orion Publications, Santa fé Bogotá, Columbia, 1994, 246pp. Distributor: Editorial Solar Ltda., Carrera 9a, No.19-59, Of.402, Santa fé Bogotá, D.C., Colombia
In this post, we will consider the highly dubious “biography” of Jose Maria Escrivá de Balaguer and the mythical image so widely promoted by Opus Dei.
At present, an English translation exists only for Chapter II, Subheading 1. We will post the remainder of the chapter as translations become available. – Louie]
Chapter II : The Hidden Life of Escrivá de Balaguer
1 The Lie Without Pity
2 Family Environment
3 Seminary & Adolescence
4 A Seer With a Great Vision: Divine Revelation
5 Infamous Tendencies
6 Escriva & Women
7 Escriva & the Seven Deadly Sins
8 Man With No Name. Delusions of Grandeur
9 Freemasonry
10 Death & Resurrection
11 Saint & Sign
12 The Scandal of a Beatification
The Unconscionable Lie: Subheading 1, Chapter II
The biographies of the “Father” suffer from a fundamental question regarding the story of the mundane facts and travels of the charismatic leader of Opus Dei. Falsehood and lies are the norm, dates and essential references for his life and true personality are concealed if they are disturbing. We have been presented a portrait of Escrivá that departs substantially from reality; it is a false and deceiving picture, retouched and sweetened.
It is impressive, certainly, “monsignor’s” capacity for all type of assemblies. Assemblies that, undoubtedly, have made him prominent. And the Father is the man and his assembly. (1)
A great part of the propaganda and publicity apparatus that Opus Dei has installed at great expense is entrusted with diffusing and promoting some manipulated images of Escriva, full of emotion and not without certain extreme touches, a personal history made to order for the gullible and simple-minded, where they put on of relief and they are stood out, enlarging them to unimaginable limits, some supposed details of prestige, while in the meantime “they hide important data of his biography and pieces of information of great significance are whisked away at the behest of The Work that he founded.” (2) Characteristics that are positive signs in the eyes of any human being are mentioned exhaustively, with grandiloquent pomposity, even as they lie brazenly and unconscionably.
In the laudatory biographies that Opus Dei circulates and that are written to extol Escriva’s character, his academic background is outstanding, and a whole series of studies and degrees are attributed to him without any justification. Thus, for example, among the most far-fetched lies we meet are those that maintain that he “was the Superior of the Seminary of St. Francis of Paola in Zaragoza,” – a lie.
That he was “Professor of Canon Law and of Roman Law in Zaragoza and in Madrid,” – a lie.
That “I attained a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Papal University of Zaragoza,” – a lie.
That “I taught classes in General and Moral Ethics (Deontología) in the School of Journalism of Madrid,” – a lie.
The curious and thought-provoking fact is that he became a Doctor of Law of the University of Madrid without ever having stepped onto a university campus in his entire life, (3) apparently thanks to a doctoral thesis that was written solely for Franco’s confessor, Father Bugar.
But the lies and the farce around Escrivá are not limited solely to the realm of the studies that he never made: they try to provide him a with an ancestry, ending up by writing that “it was of the oldest and purest stock on both branches of the genealogical tree,” – a lie, fraud and fiction.
That when “he was 15 years old he had already discovered his divine election to found Opus Dei,” this is an invention.
That “the Virgin appeared to him with a rose in her hand, requesting him to found Opus Dei,” – a lie.
That “Opus Dei was founded in 1928 by divine edict,” – a lie.
That “he performed intense pastoral work in rural parishes,” they lie, or that “from 1927 he undertook an intense pastoral work among the poor and sick of the poorest quarters and the hospitals of Madrid,” they lie and invent a genuinely artificial sham, when they know that the reality was very different.
These lies have been fabricated and repeated constantly to give them the stamp of verisimilitude, on the principle that a lie repeated a thousand times can come to be considered as unquestionable truth.
It remains to discover the motive for these misrepresentations and the false biographical data that consist, principally, in wanting to demonstrate that Escrivá has been everything: seminary superior, village parish priest, lawyer, curate, etc. (4)
And thus, all the efforts of these pseudo-historians of Opus Dei are focused on presenting, for the internal consumption of the Work of God and other careless people, the priestly figure, the university student, and the worldly-wise founder of Opus Dei, all of whom are this same Escrivá de Balaguer who was the first one that was firmly interested in maintaining the lie of his own life.
If, on the one hand, questionable facts, stories and hoaxes have been spread about the “Father’s” life, there are others – authentic, genuine and true – that have been maintained in the greatest secrecy, guarded zealously under the shield of silence, concerning important and crucial questions about his existence, such as the Jewish origin of Escrivá de Balaguer, the crypto-judaic roots of his doctrine, his peculiar and shortened intellectual development up to his idea of Opus Dei, his hidden inspirations, the homosexual tendencies of Escrivá, their connections to certain subversive ramifications and, of course, the real and ultimate objective of the foundation whose fire he started.
Who was the inventor of this fictitious biography that Opus Dei has used to confound us?
It was Escrivá himself, the expert of sectarian tactics, who gave to himself an image and a stature that are not within the realm of crude reality. His followers picked up on his suggestion and after being spread by them the result has been the fraudulent mythification of a vulgar figure who was, in many respects, worthless.
There is a duplicity, a concealment, a sense that something does not fit in the personality of Escrivá. He is authentic and false, real and mythic, artificial and natural, friendly and bitter; a bundle of contradictions, the one that they want to sell us with bombast and publicity and the one that was the reality, open and hidden, public and behind the scenes.
The creation of the myth, the “divinization” of the figure of the charismatic leader is one of the techniques employed in all sects. He is transformed into the object of a cult of adoration and is placed beyond reach, a standard of perfection for his devotees and followers who, with a little appropriate brain washing, will fix themselves so obsessively around his thought and his feelings that they can be manipulated with the object of exploiting them.
The “father’s” biography mixes reality with fiction, confusing facts deliberately with tendentiousness and, above all, saying, in many cases, exactly the opposite of what is true.
Many times the deceit is achieved by a mere semantic change of concepts, emptying the words of their original sense and filling them with another content, as it has been in the case of Escriva, who has used Christian terminology in the beginning of his work to introduce, surreptitiously, a selfish and judeo-talmudic sensibility into our society.
His biography is so artificial that it hides and even renounces his true name of Escriba, that was given to him at birth, and which is listed in the Civil Register as the name of his father and which etymologically means “a doctor and interpreter of the Law of the Hebrews.” (5) Escrivá de Balaguer was not his name then, neither is it now.
The only explanation from Opus Dei is the Father-figure, which presupposes that to understand him it is necessary to understand the founder’s spiritual basis.
José Ortega, professor of Penal Law, is correct when he responded this way to a journalistic interview on June 26 1975: “I have read a biography of D. Josemaria Escrivá. Then, I thought about the man; and I have reached the conclusion that it is impossible to write a biography of D. Josemaria.” (6)
The Father’s abstruse personality is inaccessible to a normal understanding unless you take into account his specific role of falsifier. An analysis presupposes studies and knowledge of an anthropological-historical and characterological type that require a significant intellectual effort.
The authentic biography of the Father is one of the taboo questions that are hidden and exaggerated. The accessible literature on the matter is silent or it conceals the important facts that are incontrovertible: that the essence of Opus Dei is a single person; The Work is the Father and his personality is the corner stone on which the whole building of The Work is sustained.
As a result, we have imposed upon ourselves, following Pope Leo XIII’s guidelines in his encyclical “Humanum Genus,” (1884) the task of demythifying the false myths and of exposing the deceits, taking the encyclical as an appropriate watchword to penetrate into in the personal and hidden life of this paper-máché personage, a pretender and an enigma, who is the instigator of Opus Dei.
Florentine Pérez Embid, the official biographer of Escrivá de Balaguer, repeats with suspicious insistence that “the development of The Work in all the aspects is the same as the biography of its founder,” or also “the history of Opus Dei is the same as that of its founder’s biography.” (7)
Even at this most transcendental level it is not known how to investigate dispassionately the reality of Escrivá and his Work. (8)
Yvon le Vaillant writes that “frequently one wonders if the leaders of The Work, beginning with the founder, have decided once and for all to laugh at the world.” (9) And it is the sneer of this pharisaical smile that we will try to figure out.
And yet JPII canonized this guy? What kind of Kool-Aid did JPII drink? Who did he listen to from the appropriate authorities inside the Vatican regarding the cause for sainthood? Good grief.
…excerpts from “Fatima in Twilight” by Mark Fellows
“John Paul’s relationships with Solidarity (there were 1 mln., Communist Party members), and Opus Dei preceded his election to the papacy. ‘Poland was Opus Dei’s first deep-penetration operation’……home base was Vienna. By coincidence, an influential community of Polish intellectuals-in-exile also resided in Vienna, and they were actively recruited by Opus. During this time, the early to mid 1970’s Cardinal Wojtyła frequently visited Vienna……it was rumored inside Opus Dei that Wojtyła had been inducted as an associate into the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross…..Opus Dei had supported Karol Wojtyła since he was Archbishop of Cracow. He had been frequently invited to address its members…..in the days just before the conclave the that elected him Pope, he went to pray at Escriva’s tomb.” Escriva, who died in 1975, would later be canonized by Pope John Paul II…..less then a month after his elction as Pope, he declared that ‘the transforming of Opus Dei into a Personal Prelature, was a necessity that can no longer be delayed.” Father Stanisław Dziwisz (who very quickly became a bishop and Cardinal), wrote: “Opus Dei’s ‘milites Christi’ brought to Poland the financial means to form a Catholic underground that would act, if not in outright defiance of, at least in parallel to the government.’ And for what it’s worth, it is claimed by those who have studied the situation that Opus Dei, not the CIA, was Solidarity’s cash cow.”
…..’Fatima in Twilight’….
“Although John Paul II has kept silence concerning the latest Fatima distortion campaign, his intentions in releasing the Third Secret and the CDF document were explained by Vatican spokesman (Opus Dei member) Joaquin Navarro-Valls:
……..‘The publication of the prophecy will provide no papal support for the ‘anti-ecumenical traditionalism’ which has improperly seized hold of certain aspects of the Message of Fatima….the decision to publish it arose from the conviction that one could not allow Fatima to become hostage to a partisan position…..”
“Alas for our stricken Holy Father and his efforts at peace, for there will be no peace without the Queen of Peace. After Our Lord has once more allowed Satan to sift Peter like wheat, he will prove himself worthy, and confirm his brethren; Peter, that is. For we have it on Heaven’s authority that God’s will, as manifested at Fatima by the Blessed Virgin Mary, shall prevail – thanks to the Pope: “In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and a period peace will be granted the world.”
“Lech Walesa ‘was paid Communist informant”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35602437
“The election of Pope John Paul II resulted in the installation of many Opus affiliates within the hierarchical structure of the Vatican. The canonization of Escriva solidified the sect’s legitimacy. There is confusion about Opus Dei since traditionally, the Catholic Church always condemned Secret Societies.”
In payment for their role in the demise of the USSR, Opus Dei has been allowed to establish a presence in Russia. This is something the Eastern Catholic Rites have found nearly impossible due to objections from the Russian Orthodox Church. But not so for Opus Dei.”
“When you meet people who, as a result of Opus Dei, give up religion and don’t want funeral prayers to be said, then that matters.”
https://www.henrymakow.com/opus_dei.html
Then we have the next President of Poland after Walesa. He was confused as to why his one time friend Walesa, placed so many communists right back in positions of power . when it was discovered Walesa had been a communist agent , he condemned him. Walesa then stated publicly that someone must stop him. They did. He died along with his entire cabinet in a plane crash in the woods right outside of Moscow. His family and friends believe to this day that it was ordered by the KGB ( STB ) in (former) soviet Russia.
and now this………….
“Was Opus Dei in Charge of a Sister Lucy Switch and the Falsification of the Fatima Message and the Third Secret? Will this Investigation Bring Down “St.” Josemarie Escriva as well? ”
http://radtradthomist.chojnowski.me/2018/03/was-opus-dei-in-charge-of-sister-lucy.html
Catholics owe Mrs Randy Engel a huge debt of gratitude for opening the door into this secret cult.
….excerpts from “Fatima in Twilight”;
“A New York Times reporter saw the body of the priest, Father Jose de la Cora, crucified, head down, on the main door of the church. Other priests were doused with gasoline and set on fire. Still others were buried alive………Even so, not many priests followed the unusual example of a young priest named Jose Maria Escriva, who avoided persecution by discarding his cassock and faking insanity at a psychiatric hospital in Madrid. Father Escriva must have put on a convincing act, for it was three months before the hospital staff got wise and told him to leave. He hid out until he found some of his followers, members of an embryonic religious group called Opus Dei, and escaped to safety.”
“After Franco’s victory Father Escriva stopped wearing his mother’s wedding ring, put his cassock back on, had his long hair re-tonsured, and published a little book called ‘The Way”. His fledgling lay organization, Opus Dei, soon had members holding key positions in Franco’s new government. In less than ten years, Opus Dei had acquired a publishing house, numerous newspapers (three in Madrid), a large interest in a major Madrid bank, an appetite for international finance, and a marked inclination to secrecy (Richard Herr, ‘Spain’, 1971).”
“It was doing these years that Msgr. Montini first met Father Jose Maria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei. Montini’s intervention with Pius XII on Escriva’s behalf, resulted in the latter leaving Rome with two documents; one, signed by Pius XII, contained indulgences for Opus Dei members; the other was a general ‘letter of approval’ of Opus Dei’s international mission of ‘carrying the light and truth of Christ, especially to the minds of intellectuals. According to investigative journalist Robert Hutchison, “Escriva de Balaguer was able to convince Montini that Opus Dei’s ‘apostolate of penetration’ could be useful in combating the spread of Marxism. In exchange, Montini influenced Pius to grant juridical status to secular institutes like Opus Dei. This change in status caused Escriva to return to Rome, where Msgr. Montini facilitated Opus Dei’s purchase of the new headquarters, Villa Tevere, in a fashionable district in Rome. Montini then arranged for Escriva to be made a domestic prelate of the papal household (Father Escriva became Msgr. Escriva), and introduced Escriva to influential Italian Christian Democrats like Giulio Andreotti. Montini’s lack of regard for Franco’s Spain had not lessened over the years, so his attentive mentoring of Jose Escriva, the supposedly conservative Spanish Catholic nationalists seems curious (this is how we have to discern among these so-called conservatives…..my emphasis). The contradiction is resolved by understanding what Msgrs. Montini and Escriva had in common. Neither man relied on Pius XI’s declaration of the ‘intrinsically evil’ nature of Communism, much less the now published accounts of the Blessed Virgin’s messages about the necessity of consecration Russia. Instead Montini believed Communism was reformable, and saw Communists as potential allies of Christian Democrats.
I never knew anyone who was a member of opus dei. I first heard about OD when I lived in Northern Virginia and heard about the Hansen spying case. I thought the connection was rather strange. What raised my antenna were their demands for absolute obedience and the levels of secracy.
I believe that Opus Dei functions on “catholic” college campuses under a variety of names. Perhaps, Randy or someone knowledgeable about this, could provide a list as a warning to parents/students. “Let the buyer beware!”
“Let the buyer beware” , indeed. Modernists and OD have taken their cues from Protestant Evangelicals and now all types of groups operate on college campuses . Especially OD which has been very active. Steubenville and other ‘Catholic’ colleges even have Profs who invite students to their homes for OD “circles”. One mother complained to me that Hahn’s wife engaged female students in her home with OD circles and also selected girls who would home school her children for her.
http://www.uscatholic.org/culture/environment/2012/01/new-man-campus-new-approach-catholic-campus-ministry
College campuses are known to have been OD recruiting centers almost from the very beginning of the organization.
http://www.odan.org/media_spotted_history.htm
Nota Bene: even NO catholics are becoming wary of Super Numerary Hahns brand of charismatic Katholicism on campus.
http://dymphnaroad.blogspot.com/2007/05/scott-hahn-makes-some-unhelpful.html
Many years ago I decided to go to a secular university instead of a Catholic college. I saw peers all around me lose their faith, and that was in high school. It seemed to me that the faith was under attack in Catholic venues. I looked at secular university as a more protected place for my faith. One thing I couldn’t give up was a Catholic spouse. I was fortunate to be able to marry someone in a Catholic alumni group of comparable education and background and live and raise our children in the faith. I never encountered OD. I’m sure it was there.
OD and freemasonry share two characteristics, secrecy and ironclad obedience. It wouldn’t surprise me if they have other connections as well. In other words, OD being the masonry of the Catholic Church, is connected to and works with the judeo-masonry of the New World Order, in order to advance the judeo-masonry agenda of de-Catholicizing the Catholic Church, especially among the young. And once these graduates enter the world they are groomed and directed to the destruction and subversion of their societies. Does that sound like the OD you ladies are familiar with?
Escriba sounds like a total counterfeit, whited sepluchar, deceiver, dissembler exaggerator of his “Work” as well as of himself. No confidence can be placed in him or in his organization. It’s a complete fraud from top to bottom. And JPII insisted on the sanctity of this guy and the existential worth of OD? This alone should make any one exploring the sanctity of JPII to come to the conclusion that he too was a fraud, top to bottom, inside, out. Any valid examination of the sanctity of either one by a Canonization commission of Leo XIII would have found both of them qualified to go to hell, but certainly not to be brought to the altar.
To me the absolute horror is for the families whose children were recruited to be Numeraries and live in the OD houses .They are isolated to a great degree from their family and the poor girls who enter in as cooks and housemaids are paid little .From that, their mandatory OD donations are withdrawn and if and when they want to exit ,they find they have barely a cent. The older ones leave with no friends and or many times family left . often the young women (slaves) are recruited from poor countries and families and sent to another part of the world. When they leave these homes to shop or go to the Physicians they are always accompanied. If they fall into a depression ,they are medicated by Opus Dei Physicians. OD even has it’s own hospital in Spain. One wonders how many are checked into the mental floor.
Are families notified? I have a friend whose brother died as a Legionnaire of Christ .His family waited three weeks in Mexico before they were allowed into the hospital to see him. Because once you join one of these cults , they say they are your family now.
If I remember correctly, OD paid an enormous amount of money to the Vatican to have Escriva canonized. The first time I saw a movie about him on EWTN (years ago), I was totally creeped out.
In no way do I intend to slight the victims of these scams. The point is that these institutes should not exist. The silence and cooperation of the Vatican in the continuation of these scams speaks volumes about them. Robert Hanssen was an OD member and a spy for The Soviet Union for years before he was caught. His OD priest told him to make contributions to charity and then he wouldn’t need to turn himself in as long as he gave up spying. I’m telling you these kinds of tactics are the same ones any mafia-type organization would use. They keep secrets, demand unconditional obedience and cover for each other. Whether its the masons, OD, LC, or the Communists, Antifa, the CIA , does it matter??? With morals like these, these organizations should not exist.
With the money they purloin from their members – and slaves – it’s no wonder they would be able to buy a canonization, particularly if the pope is a heretic freemason infiltrator himself.
Sadly many converts and reverts during the Pope JP2 era joined the Legion and it’s lay affiliate Regnum Christi. Once Maciel and other LC pedophiles were exposed they jumped into OD. It seems they were looking for something more other than the NO happy clappy entertainment fests or charismatic whoop dee doos.
They do not know what we had and lost.
………..and adding to the above at the risk of being verbally tarred and feathered,
they will not find it either in SSPX ,an Indult OR FSSP.Something that was very natural for all of the Pre Vatican Two cradle Catholics was a unified Church which offered both high and low Masses with choirs of laity singing Gregorian Chant minus the affected professionals featured at some special event Masses today. We all knew the Latin and the prayers that were being said at mass and the responses after a lifetime of using the Latin missals with the translation on the other side. We all knelt for Communion without confusion and the ladies heads were covered……..
Then the Sunday masses were being offered later in school gyms and auditoriums which ushered in the casual outfits along with shorter and shorter novus ordo masses with guitars and folksie music. The frogs never knew they were being boiled.
sweep-what you describe is the diabolical transition orchestrated by the evil Modernists. The Catholic world didn’t know what hit them. Now the vast majority doesn’t have a clue how things were before the take-over. How many know the meaning of the word “genuflect”. Genuflect to what a chair? a table? The tabernacle is hidden. Do they know the word tabernacle means? The list goes on and on. So sad!