By Randy Engel
Introduction
This is the third and final installment to my first two articles, “All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain,” and “On the First Anniversary of the Jones/Voris Affair – A Response to E. Michael Jones with Follow-Up Questions.”
My thanks to the over 400 readers who responded via e-mails to the Opus Dei/Jones/Voris Affair, including many former Opus Dei members and cooperators.
In this last segment of the series, I’m including some important postscripts I received from readers in the U.S. and abroad. They included important comments and attachments primarily on Opus Dei and one on E. Michael Jones, the author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Michael Voris and the Homosexual Vortex.
I’ll begin with the singular commentary on Dr. Jones sent to me by Catholic journalist, Rosemary Fielding. It is printed verbatim below in a blue font and needs no additional comments.
Rosemary Fielding on The Truth Behind the Quotation
In the April 20, 2017 letter of E. Michael Jones to Randy Engel (following Mike’s request, Randy posted it in July of 2017), Mike refers to Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). Mike quotes him as saying, “the church has cancer. We can’t associate with the church because then we would get cancer.” Jones gives no citation for this quotation. I think I know what Mike would cite as the source of Bishop Fellay’s alleged quotation. If I am right in my identification of the source, however, this is not a quotation from Bishop Fellay, but a quotation fabricated by Mike Jones that would prove to be as false as a paraphrase or a summary as it is as a quotation.
In April 2009, on Palm Sunday, Bishop Fellay gave an interview from St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, Minnesota, that was broadcast by Gloria T.V. in which was included a discussion of the then-recent controversy around Bishop Williamson and the SSPX’s relationship with the Vatican. For reasons I will explain later, I believe this broadcast is the source that Mike has failed to cite in his letter to Randy. Because the exact words, as well as the context, are important, below is a transcript of that part of Bishop Fellay’s interview that Mike (I believe) reduced to two simple sentences. All the quotation is from Bishop Fellay. The cancer-analogy is in bold.
“The Church for once [i.e. for the first time] is not only attacked from the outside, like persecutions, but you have insiders, inside attacks. St. Pius X has already said, ‘The enemy is within.’…. ideas which may have confusedly spread within the Church… The Church is suffering heavy, heavy diseases. It is not only we who are saying that. You have the popes [Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI]… They all say that the Church is sick. Well, Paul VI, he said, he spoke of ‘auto-demolition’… He used the words ‘smoke of Satan’ within the temple of God. … John Paul II, he spoke of heresies which are spread with full hands, and he spoke of happenings within the Church. So that means that even the present popes, they do acknowledge from time to time that there is a very, very serious crisis in the Church.
Let me compare it to a cancer, and even to a generalized cancer, that means a disease which is spread in the whole body. Now if you have someone who has a cancer, you fight the whole cancer, you disagree with the cancer, so you are strongly against the cancer, but this does not mean that you are going to be against the person who has the cancer. Easily, you will make like a coincidence with both, you will say the one is the other, but that is a simplification. As when we say ‘the modern Church…the conciliar Church and… the official Church’–it is an easy way to deal with the problem, it is not very easy to say where is the cancer ..when it is generalized…when you have metastasis…it is everywhere. So it is a simplification… to say the whole Church is the cancer. But, precisely, very precisely, it is wrong.
If you say so, then you would have a serious problem in saying where is the holy Church. If you just say that the whole Church is sick…is the sickness, then the holiness is gone. And we have to maintain that the Church is the visible body. Even if we see a great part of this visible Church gone wrong, we do not have the right to say that the whole thing is gone. Because if you say so, well, there is no Church. Then we have to make ourselves sedevacantists. So there is a tendency, there is a danger, to just throw the whole thing,..the baby with the water, and it is linked with the terrible situation; which we are in, which has taken great, great parts of the Church. It is very difficult to make that distinction; it is very easy to say I’ll have nothing to do with them [the conciliar Church]…
So when we [the SSPX] deal with having relation with them, we don’t want to have any kind of relation with the cancer. Of course, if you have relation with cancer, you may receive the cancer. It is a bad example, but it is just to say, ‘No, we want to deal with the holy Catholic Church which is still existing, under or below this appearance of disease’…
Sometimes the distinction could appear subtle. And I do agree that such relations are not without danger. It is not an easy situation. But if we do want …expect…the Church to overcome these diseases, we are bound to do what we can, at our place, according to our means, to help. And if by talking we can remind some people in the Church of the right positions, of what the Church taught before, we have to do it, with great prudence, of course…The only thing we want is that the Church get out of the crisis and be what the Church has to be, this beautiful spouse of Christ to whom Our Lord has entrusted His mission, which is to save souls, to bring them to heaven. That is why we deal with it, because we believe that it is the holy Church, we believe that we have a duty now. We also know that it is limited, we are not going to pretend that we are going to save the Church. We try to do what we can at our place, remembering that little things can, in the hands of God, bring much more than it appears…The miracle– that is in God’s hands, not ours.”
My husband and I saw his point. How could anyone who actually listened to it with an honest mind fail to see his point? It was clear that Bishop Fellay believed the cancer is the doctrinal errors in the Church, and not the Church itself. In addition, Bishop Fellay was actually defending the SSPX’s decision to participate in talks with the Vatican; the interviewer had asked Bishop Fellay what he would say to the critics of this decision to enter into talks with Rome. In other words, Bishop Fellay was explaining the reason why the Society was associating with the Vatican / Church. The true meaning of Bishop Fellay’s interview, then, taken in context, is almost the reverse of Mike’s summary of his interview, which summary Mike later put into quotation marks in CW, as I will explain below.
I believe that this interview is the source of Mike’s quotation because my husband and I were the ones who showed Mike this interview when he and his wife visited our home in March 2010. During that visit, we suggested to Mike that he may think better of the SSPX if he would listen to Bishop Fellay’s 2009 interview on Gloria T.V. We thought that Bishop Fellay sounded reasonable and just in his remarks to the point that even Mike Jones might see the reasonableness and justice of the SSPX’s position. So we set him up with our computer to watch it (he watched part of it, not all of it) and then went back to continue our visit with his wife. We heard exclamations from the other room that made us realize Mike was not happy with the interview. When he came out complaining about what Bishop Fellay said, I thought even at the time that Mike had misrepresented the content of Bishop Fellay’s remarks to a stunning degree, and I said with some exasperation, “That’s not what he said!” My husband also briefly expressed his disagreement, but being that it was a friendly visit, we let it drop.
However, the real shock came when we read Culture Wars in September 2010. “Bishop Fellay,” Mike wrote, “one of the four bishops, had been interviewed at the SSPX seminary in Winona, Minnesota and the interview had been posted on YouTube. Fellay began the interview by throwing Williamson under the bus, and it went downhill from there. ‘The Church has cancer,’ Bishop Fellay opined, ‘and if we embrace the Church we’ll get cancer.’” (My italics.)
I was so shocked when I read an obviously ersatz quotation that I listened to the interview again and, at the same time, transcribed some of the interview in the margin of the article in Culture Wars. In the Culture Wars article Mike Jones had not only misquoted Bishop Fellay but had clearly changed the meaning of his carefully presented idea. I was shocked because I would not have thought Mike Jones would go so far as to make up quotations and publish them in his magazine just to make his point. But that is the conclusion I had to come to. It was a sorry conclusion to come to, because, in my mind, this meant that all his previous published work was put under a cloud of doubt. It is also worth noting that the quotation printed in 2010 is different from the quotation printed in the 2017 response to Randy.
It is this same interview that I believe is the source of Mike’s quotation in the April letter that he asked Randy to publish. If it is the source, then he is misquoting Bishop Fellay again. And there should be no “if” in this kind of journalism.
I guess a little history might be of interest: I had been a subscriber to Fidelity since around 1993 or so; a contributor of several articles since 2001; and even had a book review I had written of Mike’s Libido Dominandi published in Our Sunday Visitor in November 2000, a fact which Mike had considered a small miracle. We had purchased and read all his books up to that time. He and his wife and their children had stayed at our house in Pittsburgh several times (it was halfway between South Bend and Philadelphia), and our family had visited them as well in South Bend.
During 2008-2009 our family had attended an SSPX chapel, but at the time of the Jones’ stopover, we were going to the Latin Mass at an Ecclesia Dei Latin Mass Community church. However, we still admired Bishop Fellay and still believed the SSPX had made a largely correct analysis of the condition of the modern Church. Because of our admiration for Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, we had in the past discussed with Mike the situation of the SSPX–always ending in disagreement. I would also add that I knew nothing about the Voris/Jones explosion until this month because we no longer subscribe to Mike’s magazine, nor do we watch Michael Voris. I only found Randy’s article because, having read that Iran was cracking down on Christians more forcefully, I had done an Internet search to check out what Mike was currently saying about this country. The search brought up the Voris/Jones news. Finally–one of those historical footnotes–one of the articles I wrote for Culture Wars was a review of Randy Engel’s book The Rite of Sodomy: Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church.
Our friendship with the Joneses faded to nothing after that visit. We haven’t seen them since; nor were there any friendly phone calls, cards or other forms of communication; in fact, all indications were that they had decided to drop us. (And, yes, we did make some initiatives to stay in touch; Mike responded to one this year, and we shared a brief email exchange and trade of family news.) We often wondered if we became persona non grata because we also said to Mike on that visit that we thought the late Michael Davies won the debate with him, the debate on the excommunication of Msg. Lefebvre.
After that particular visit, my husband and I concluded that Mike was never going to change his mind about what he had once published about the SSPX, no matter what happened, and no matter what he heard or read–and we concluded this not because Mike disagreed with Bishop Fellay, but because we thought he had seemed so unreasonable in his disagreement and he had inaccurately paraphrased what Bishop Fellay had said. And, so far, it appears that we were right about that prediction. I guess if Michael Davies couldn’t do it, no one can.
Back to the matter at hand– I thought about writing Mike in September 2010 to point out the mis-quotation published in CW, but, in the end, for a couple of reasons, (not the least of which is that I did not want to transcribe the section of the interview–a time-consuming job without the right equipment) I thought that it best to leave it to the SSPX to correct it–which I certainly expected someone in that organization to do. But, no one seemed to have done so. We received CW for a few more years after that, and I never saw a correction or a letter to the editor pointing out the actual words of Bishop Fellay.
But now Mike is doing it again. And this time, because of the whole context of Randy’s article on Opus Dei, Jones and Voris, I think it is pertinent to point out that Mike is not quoting Bishop Fellay if he is quoting the same interview of April 2009. And if Mike is not quoting that interview, he should tell us which one he is quoting. As I have told my students so many times, “You need a citation here.”
I gave those instructions almost as often as I corrected with “Only exact words go into quotation marks.” Obviously, I am making the point that a journalist of Mike’s brilliance and experience knows that the same rules apply to him as apply to every other reputable journalist. So what gives with his work? Rosemary Fielding
Note: I transcribed this interview by going to this URL address on July 24, 2017: https://gloria.tv/video/9Z6S1nkPivGB1zyzsr6mxmNW6
No Money for Burial of Opus Dei Members?
On the afternoon of September 13, 2016, a tragic head-on accident in Mexico between a Mercedes Benz Sprinter van, a crane and a truck claimed the lives of eleven members of Opus Dei including two female numeraries and nine numerary assistants as well as the driver of the van. The women were returning from an annual pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan de Los Lagos in the State of Jalisco, one of the most important Marian shrines in Mexico.
Bishop-Prelate Javier Echevarría Rodríguez sent a letter of condolence from Rome in which he offered support and asked for prayers for the deceased and their families. The letter read in part:
I have to tell you that, in the face of so much sorrow, I don’t know how to begin. But I want to accept God’s will; may each word, each letter of what I am writing be a suffrage with the whole Work for the eternal rest of these beloved daughters. I ask the Blessed Trinity to grant them a very rich Heaven, and we will not forget to remember them each day.
On September 15, a Novus Ordo Mass of Christian Burial was conducted by Msgr. Francisco Ugarte, Regional Vicar of Opus Dei in Mexico at the Church of S. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer in Guadalara for the deceased Opus Dei daughters. In his homily, Msgr. Ugarte stated that “Opus Dei is a family that never separates,” and went on to quote another section of Bishop Echevarría’s letter:
When I first read the names, and even now, my eyes filled with tears. This isn’t being sentimental, but rather the reality that we are a wonderful family, closely united, and therefore this painful happening is so difficult to accept. I don’t want to speak any more about the accident, but rather to dwell on their souls, so that also now they may sense that we are never separated, and this tragic event may lead us to strengthen the fraternity we need to live.
Shortly after the accident, two public announcements appeared asking for donations to help cover the burial expenses of the Opus Dei women killed in the accident – one account was set up at the Banco de Santander, Opus Dei’s largest financial institution and a second at a GoFundMe Website.
The reader may recall that in Part I of this series, “All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain,” I explained the nature and obligations of Opus Dei numeraries and numerary assistants.
Both groups are linked to the Prelature of Opus Dei by simple agreement, but they are also required to make private, personal vows which are between them and God. Unlike religious orders where candidates take public vows and are taken care of by the order, Opus Dei has no legal or Canonical responsibility for the numerary or numerary assistant.
The former, both men and women, live in Opus Dei residences. They are celibate, have professional careers and turn over their salaries to the Prelature. The latter group, the numerary assistants, are generally Spanish-speaking servants and maids. They also make a pledge of celibacy and receive clothing, food and shelter at an Opus Dei facility. They rarely see their paychecks as money is first taken out for their upkeep. Female numeraries shop at high-end fashion boutiques and their poorer counterparts are taken by a numerary to shop at second-hand shops or places like K-Mart.
So here we have professional and housekeeping daughters of Opus Dei who have turned over their salaries for their lifetime in Opus Dei, and yet the multi-billion dollar, multi-national conglomerate cannot cough up enough bucks to bury their dead. What kind of a “family” is this? What kind of a family does this?
I am not the only one to ask these same questions. Here is a rough translation of a portion of comments made by an anonymous former Opus Dei numerary that appeared on the Correspondence website of Opus Libros on Friday, September 16, 2016. Under the title, “How dare you say: A splendid family and very united,” Mediterranean paints a different picture of the Opus Dei “family” as described above by Bishop Echevarría:
… How dare you say: A splendid family and very united!
… A family with more sick members than healthy. A family that ignores the excruciating pain of many of its members; a family that binds its members and deprives them of any personal freedom; a family where the secret to remain is slavery; a family with a high number of suicides… .
So, I ask again. What kind of a family is Opus Dei?
I hope that Opus Dei priests, numeraries, supernumeraries, and cooperators who are reading this column will ask themselves this question. I know they are reading this column because two different sources have reported to me that Opus Dei confessors are telling their penitents that I am an unreliable reporter based on E. Michael Jones’ statement that the Ferndale affair highlighted in Part II of this series was a “fabrication.” Why then hasn’t the Archdiocese of Detroit or Opus Dei disavowed my account publicly? An honest question! And honest questions may yet be the death of the Prelature of Opus Dei.
Opus Dei’s Narnia Clubs – A Fatal Deception
I first learned about Opus Dei’s Narnia Clubs from my dear friend Marge Garvey of New York City, wife of Joseph Garvey, the author of the 58-page booklet Parents’ Guide to Opus Dei, published in 1989 by Our Lady & St. Joseph in Search of the Lost Child – An Ad Hoc Alliance to Defend the 4th Commandment.
While Opus Dei continues to feed off its “pro-family” reputation based largely on the Prelature’s creation and promotion of John Paul II Marriage and Family Institutes, the reality is that it’s systemic cultic practices using deception, manipulation, and mind control are destructive of not only its members, especially its numeraries, but also the families from which Opus Dei members are drawn (and spiritually quartered).
As noted in the Parent Guide, “Opus Dei members are trained in a recruiting technique called ‘the path of friendship’ and/or ‘friendship and confidence.’” Major recruitment centers include Opus Dei residences, hostels, catering colleges, Opus Dei parishes and private schools, Catholic and secular elite universities such as Notre Dame, Harvard and Yale, and cultural and catechetical centers for children and teens, as well as Vatican-endorsed events such as World Youth Day.
The New York-based Narnia Catechetical and Cultural Center, aka, Narnia Clubs, is located at 163 East 81st Street. The red-brick cooperative represents a prime piece of real estate on the Upper East Side where apartments, and offices and penthouses sell for $1 to $3 million and rent monthly for $3,000 to 5,000 and upwards to $24,000.
The Narnia Clubs bills itself as “A personal approach to teaching the Catholic faith in the heart of Manhattan.” The Center was founded by Mrs. Mickie Teetor in 1981. She is credited with the idea of teaching Catholic children the faith in an atrium or home setting using the techniques developed by Sophia Cavalletti and her Montessori collaborator, Gianna Gobbi in Rome in the mid-1950s.
The database Buzzfile indicates that the Narnia Clubs is a religious organization which has been located at its current location for 15 years and has an estimated annual revenue of $110,000.
The following information was taken from the official website of Narnia Clubs.
The Atrium Program [$500] enrolls children ages 3 to 5. Classes are held on a weekly basis at the Narnia Office. Teachers use the Montessori method in a prepared environment to introduce each child to the basics of the Christian faith according to his or her individual needs and curiosity.
Program for Penance and Holy Communion Year One [$645] Year Two [$745] prepares children ages 6 to 7 for the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion. Topics include “human persons made in the image of God, the life and presence of Jesus, the importance of prayer, distinguishing right from wrong.”
Third, Fourth and Fifth Grade Religious Education [$645] Topics include the Corporal Works of Mercy and God’s plan of salvation from the Incarnation to Pentecost; Exploring and comparing the Old and New Testament; and the Creed and saints.
Program for Confirmation Year One [$645] Year Two [$745] prepares Narnia students for the Sacrament of Confirmation.
The Socractic Circle [$150] Those in grades eight and above who have completed Confirmation are “invited” to join the Socractic Circle. Its stated purpose is to “To encourage critical thinking through scholarship. With an aim to foster the habit of discernment, the students and leader will examine various sources and viewpoints on the topics being discussed. The program will contemplate, among other topics, the relationship between faith and reason, freedom and human passions, the distinction between science and technology, the nature of work, leisure, and culture, as well as the role of ethics and conscience in human acts.” [Note: A Socratic circle is a form of “values -clarification.” In a catechetical setting, student understanding of a particular text or doctrine is arrived at by dialogue and the use of the dialectic. Instead of the student being the active recipient of revealed truths of the Catholic faith and Catholic doctrine, he is told by the group facilitator to suspend assumptions and biases and that there is no right or wrong answer or approach to the question or problem set before him. Instead of accepting revealed truth the student is encouraged to question revealed truths and discover his own truth.]
Regarding the intellectual caliber of its students and teaching staff, the website exudes snob appeal:
… we recognize that these children are often precocious and require a religious curriculum that is at least as challenging as that offered by their schools.
As they come to understand their catechism, these children need a sense of deeper Catholic values to cope with the intense secular pressures of New York City life. An emphasis on personal moral and spiritual development is crucial, as many of these children may be leaders in the next generation.
Our volunteer teachers are dynamic, successful, busy people from various walks of life, including bankers, professional writers, educators, as well as mothers and fathers of our own children. Our teachers are well-informed and generous with their time because they care deeply for our children and the mission of the Church.
If the reader’s brain has been automatically acting as a cash register, he will note that the total basic cost per child for his Narnia religious education ranges between $4,715 to $7,000. Yet the Narnia Catechetical and Cultural Center insists it’s a “charity:”
Financing: The Narnia program relies on contributions in order to continue its mission. Mindful of the expenses to families, we try to keep tuition as low as possible. Unfortunately, tuition revenues do not cover all of our costs. Like any charitable organization, we rely on donations large and small. Please do consider making a tax-deductible gift by visiting the Donate tab.
Today, the Narnia Clubs enrolls more 250 children, ages 3 through 17, in its various classes and programs.
The Narnia Catechetical and Cultural Center states it “operates under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of New York and is in compliance with Archdiocesan guidelines.”
A Conversation with the Catechetical Office
The New York Archdiocesan Catechetical Office coordinates Catholic religious education on the parish level for children of all ages from pre-school through grade 6, adolescents from grades 7 to 12, and children with special needs. Leadership, policy development, training and support for this vast network is provided by the Central Office in Manhattan; Regional Catechetical Offices located throughout the Archdiocese; Parish Directors and Coordinators of Religious Education; and trained catechists at the parish level. The Director of the Central Catechetical Office which “oversees total religious education in all parishes” is Sr. Joan Curtain, CND.
On Wednesday afternoon, September 13, 2017, I had the pleasure of speaking with Sr. Curtain from her First Avenue office. She was accompanied by Sister Nancy Elizabeth Doran, SSC, the Liaison for Catechist Formation and Regional Director for Manhattan.
Prior to our conversation, I sent Sr. Curtain an e-mail asking for information on the Narnia Clubs operating in Manhattan. Specifically, I wanted to know what was the nature of the relationship, if any, between the Narnia Clubs and the Archdiocese of New York. I also asked if Narnia candidates for First Confession and First Communion, and Confirmation received the Sacraments through their own parishes; and if Narnia volunteer/teachers receive any training from the Archdiocese; and if the Archdiocese sponsored the Narnia Clubs’ annual day of retreat?
I believe that both religious spoke truthfully when they explained that they knew of the existence of the Narnia Clubs, but contact with the group over the 15 years of its existence had been limited to just a few meetings, although it was the sisters’ hope that communication would be expanded in the future. Their office, however, played no role in the training of Narnia instructors, and no role in the development of Narnia programs and policies including retreats. One of the sisters did inform me that the Narnia candidates received the Sacraments at St. Thomas More Parish in Manhattan.
I asked the sisters if they did not think it odd, that the Narnia Clubs operated outside the oversight of the Archdiocese, but that did not appear to engender any verbal reaction one way or the other.
That’s when I asked them if they were aware that the Narnia Clubs is an Opus Dei “apostolate.” Both sisters reacted with great surprise and said no. Thus, while the head administrator of the Archdiocese Catechetical Office of New York had some limited knowledge of the Narnia Clubs, neither she or her assistant, Sr. Dolan, were ever informed by the Narnia Clubs that it was an Opus Dei apostolate.
At this point the conversation switched over to a discussion of why the Archdiocese of New York in general, and the Catechetical Office in particular, should be concerned about Opus Dei’s control of Narnia Clubs and the implication for parents who have children enrolled in the Narnia programs.
I explained that as the Catholic Church’s only “personal prelature,” Opus Dei is a kind of “universal, floating diocese,” which can establish “apostolates” like the Narnia Clubs without publicly identifying itself as an Opus Dei entity.
Readers of this series are already aware of the Ferndale scandal in the Archdiocese of Detroit as described in Parts I and II of this series.
I noted that one of the most serious objections to Opus Dei’s cultic behaviors and early recruitment practices was its violation of the Fourth Commandment – Honor thy father and thy mother, and I promised to send the Catechetical Office a copy of the Parents’ Guide to Opus Dei from which the following examples of the Prelature’s deceptive practices and attacks on the family are taken:
It [the Opus Dei movement] takes over the parental role in the lives of children very early, and very gradually, and in an undercover kind of way… this is certainly nefarious. Now there may be parents who get involved in it themselves… who don’t feel this is the case. But for parents who don’t get involved in it themselves and buy the whole thing, it [Opus Dei] will eventually come between them and their children. [Statement of Canadian parish priest, Fr. Jim MacDonald, whose nephews were surreptitiously recruited by Opus Dei.]
Under the persuasive influence of “get-togethers” and “circles,” recruits (as young as twelve) are gradually encouraged to unfold their private and personal lives for “fraternal correction” and “formation.”
From the very beginning, recruits are culled from their families into peer groups for their weekly “circles”; elementary school students, high school students, etc. … Isolating them further one by one within these carefully circumscribed “circles,” the “spiritual director” (a lay numerary) indoctrinates the younger recruits in four ways: first, by winning their confidence; second, by projecting a highly attractive image of Opus Dei…; third, by establishing regular spiritual direction and confession with an Opus Dei priest; and fourth, by directing the adoption of the all-important “plan of life. …”
Although Canon law forbids admitting anyone younger than eighteen, Opus has a way around that: the category aspirant. … From the Opus point of view, expressing a desire to join thereby can make juveniles as young as twelve secret members of the Work, with no notification necessary to the competent authorities, their parents.
An example of biased (private) instruction (publicly denied) used to shape impressionable minds is the Opus Dei interpretation of the Finding of the Boy Jesus in the Temple. From a recruit’s notes we read: “He [Jesus] allowed His parents to suffer [before announcing His mission]. From then on, Jesus obeyed them, within limits. He allowed them to take care of Him, just as He allows us to take care of Him in the sanctuaries in the world.” Finally, the underlined statement, “When God enters the picture, parents’ rights cease. (emphasis added).”
In virtually every talk, homily, and exhortation to the members, “the Father” refers to them as “my children. …” Inexorably, this helps to effect the radical transfer of normal family loyalties to the “new family” of Opus Dei. No natural family can compare with this family of the sainted monsignor. …
The conversation with Sister Curtain and Sister Doran ended on a cordial note. I hope to engage them both in a follow-up call after this article is released.
For the record, I also contacted Jon Woods, the editor of Catholic New York, the largest diocesan newspaper in the nation, to find out if the paper had ever done a story on the Narnia Catechetical Clubs on the Upper East Side? He replied that he didn’t think so. When I contacted the Archdiocesan Office of Youth Ministry asking the same question, the respondent told me she didn’t know about the Narnia Clubs, but she would try and find out.
Also, although the Archdiocesan website under the title “The Council of Ecclesial Movements and New Communities of the Archdiocese of New York” listed a number of familiar groups including Communion & Liberation, Cursillo Movement, Focolare, Neocatechumental Way and Regnum Christi NY [Legion of Christ], Opus Dei was not listed. According to Director Fr. Brian E. McWeeney, the reason for their omission is very simple. The Prelature has never asked. “They would be welcome, of course,” he said.
Narnia Clubs Refusal to Answer Questions
On September 14, 2017, one day after my conversation with Sr. Curtain and Sister Doran, I e-mailed Miss Nivi Toth, the Narnia Clubs’ Program Director. I explained I was doing a story on the charity, had reviewed their official website, but still had some unanswered questions. I asked if she would prefer to answer them by phone or communicate by e-mail.
A few minutes later, I received a reply from the Assistant Program Director, Allison Baughman. According to her Linkedin profile she is a graduate of Ave Maria University, a self-employed free-lance writer and a volunteer teacher at the Narnia Club. Miss Baughman stated she wanted more information “before we answer any questions.” A rather curt response for a non-profit religious charity, I thought.
In my second e-mail, I explained I was doing a story on Narnia Clubs and how they operate and that my questions were open and straight forward, for example, “Are you a 501 (c) (3) charity?”
The next day I received the following reply: “Dear Randy, you are correct, we are a 501 (c) (3) in good standing with the IRS and the Archdiocese of New York. We would prefer not to do an interview.”
In my final follow-up message to Miss Baughman I noted that I was not seeking an interview, but merely asking some basic questions that any tax-exempt, tax-deductible public charity should be willing to answer regardless of the questioner.
I asked her under what title the charity was registered with the IRS since I could not find any reference to the Narnia Catechetical and Cultural Center, Narnia Club, or Narnia Clubs on Guidestar which maintains a national data-base on non-profit organizations. I also inquired about where Narnia students receive the Sacraments, where their volunteer catechetical teachers were trained, and if any of the volunteer teachers and host families were numeraries, supernumeraries or cooperators of Opus Dei? Finally, I formally requested copies of Narnia Clubs’ tax returns for 2013, 2014, and 2015 [990 or EZ forms]. IRS disclosure laws mandates that tax-exempt organizations must provide copies of their tax-returns to persons requesting them within a 30-day period.
Opus Dei Dominates Board of Directors
The Narnia Clubs’ listing of its Board of Directors reveals the presence of a several high-level Opus Dei Members. Here is a sampling:
Mary Elise Eckman is an Opus Dei numerary. She resides at Alderton House, 117 East 70th Street, in Manhattan, an Opus Dei residence for women. As President of the multi-million dollar Rosemoor Foundation, whose officers and directors are all female numeraries, she oversees “financial support for apostolic initiatives, centers and activities whose origin and mission are inspired by the Catholic Prelature of Opus Dei.” In addition to providing grants to Echman’s residence, Alderton House which has $12 million in assets, The Rosemoor Foundation provides financial grants to:
- Arnold Hall, Inc., Mass. – Opened in 1964, it is a Conference Center for religious and educational programs, retreats, and other activities. Total assets over $2 million.
- Palm Trail, Inc., Florida – With $1 million plus in assets, the charity helps women shape society.
- Vancourt, Inc. – A cultural, educational and religious resource for women.
- Association for Educational Development, IL – With $10 million in assets, engages in supplementary education in areas of character formation, philosophy, and theology.
- Murray Hill Place, Inc., NY – With just under $50 million in assets, the 17-story luxury U.S. headquarters of Opus Dei in the center of Manhattan caters to professionals and university students visiting or living in New York City.
- The Heights Foundation, Inc., NY – With over $5 million in assets, the foundation provides chapels, residences and retreat facilities for Roman Catholic worship, instruction and moral guidance.
- Corporation for Social and Educational Development – Founded in 1968, the $ 4.7 million charity promotes intellectual, moral, cultural and religious development irrespective of race, color, creed, nationality and financial resources. In 2015, it gave grants to the Rosemoor Foundation, Woodlawn Foundation and the Petawa OD Residence in Wis.
- Trimount Foundation, NY – Provides chapels, residences and retreat facilities for Roman Catholic worship, instruction and moral guidance. Among its properties is the Frederick Ayer mansion in Boston designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany purchased by the Trimount Foundation and Bayridge Residence and Cultural Center.
- Lexington College, Trains women in Hospitality Management. Closed in 2014.
- Grandevue Study Center – Opus Dei Women’s Residence and Study Center, Pittsburgh, Penn. All officers are numerary/volunteers. Sponsors retreats and Days of Recollection.
- Longlea Conference Center, Inc., Provides a chapel and chaplain as well as lodgings and meals for its guests attending retreats and workshops.
- Clevemont, Inc. Washington, D.C. – Connected to Yuma Center, provides classes in spirituality and social ethics classes for parents.
- Yuma Study Center, Washington, D.C. – Provides leadership programs for girls and women on work and life that “bring fulfillment and freedom.” Total assets of $16 million.
- Shellbourne, Inc., IN – With $7 million in assets, the Shellbourne Conference Center sponsors “traditional, silent retreats, conducted by priests of the Prelature of Opus Dei for either men or women.”
- Wiggins House – Opus Dei Princeton Women’s Cultural Center. All officers/director members are numerary/volunteers.
- Trumbull Manor, Inc., San Francisco. Opus Dei Retreat Center with assets over $3 million.
- Roseaire Retreat, Inc., Florida – With over $6 million in assets, the center sponsors educational and charitable activities. Spiritual Direction provided with a lay person or priest.
- American Initiatives For Social development Foundation, N.Y.C. – In 2015, this charity provided educational and nutritional funds for Ethiopian women and pre-school children [$17,050]; basic education and technical assistance for poor women in the Dominican Republic [$3,948]; and raised money [$2,505] to expand a vocational training center for girls and women in India.
- Association for Cultural Interchange (Saxum Project) – The biggest grant and most interesting grant of $5,258,860.00 made by the Rosemoor Foundation in 2015 went to the ACI for the Saxum Project in Israel. The $60 million Conference Center/Multimedia Center/ and Hospitality Training Center, aka OD maid and cleaning training center for local girls, is located on the road between Jerusalem and Emmaus. Its stated purpose is to create “dialogue among people of different religions and cultures,” and “highlight the Christian heritage and the Jewish roots of the faith.” “The Prelature of Opus Dei will provide for the spiritual needs of those attending Saxum’s retreats, workshops, and conferences inspired by the writings of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer.” [Note: Visitors will also receive instruction on the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews as enunciated in Vatican II’s “Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions,” Nostra Aetate.]
George Sim Johnson III is another of the Narnia Clubs’ Directors. The former investment banker is a highly placed Opus Dei operative who sits on the Board of Directors of the Woodlawn Foundation, whose assets exceed $70 million. The Woodlawn Foundation is an Opus Dei holding company which solicits money and provides grants to Opus Dei and its non-profits. In 2014, it gave million-dollar grants to Murry Hill Place, the ACI (Saxum), and Shellbourne. Grants of half-million dollars and down went to about 40 other Opus Dei residences, study centers, private schools and foundations including Roseaire, Heights Foundation, Arnold Hall, Longlea, Association for Educational Development, Trimount, and Rosemoor, all mentioned above. Opus Dei’s Scepter Publishers has printed some of Sim Johnson’s writings.
Sim Johnson is a parishioner of the historic St. Thomas More Church in Manhattan about nine blocks from Narnia headquarters. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was a member of the parish. And a private memorial service for John F. Kennedy, Jr. was conducted there in 1999. The Narnia Club holds many of its sacramental events, receptions and meetings at the parish.
Among the other dozen members of the Narnia Club’s Board of Directors are professional women, well-known in their own right, and women married to influential, wealthy New York men in the fields of business, healthcare, banking and finance, wealth management, real estate and the arts. They include Mrs. Thomas Lehrman, a member of the Lehrman family. Lewis E. Lehrman is an investment banker and former candidate for the Governor of New York and a famous convert of Fr. C. John McCloskey, Opus Dei’s priest among the rich and famous.
Lawrence Kudlow, the famed economist and pundit is another of McCloskey’s successes who was baptized in a small chapel adjacent to St. Thomas More. On February 28, 2017, Kudlow gave a “Faith in Action Talk” titled A Spiritual Rebirth: An Evening with Larry Kudlow.
Narnia Clubs Speaker Barbara Falk
Parents whose children are registered for Narnia Clubs’ First Communion classes are required to attend special programs usually held at St. Thomas More.
The Narnia Clubs’ calendar for October 2017 featured a talk to parents titled “Practical Tips for Raising Children of Character,” by Barbara Falk. Who is Ms. Falk? The calendar doesn’t say and I don’t know if her Opus Dei credentials were given to Narnia Clubs parents at that meeting, but she is well known in Washington D.C’s. elite social circles and among EWTN watchers.
Falk is a celibate numerary who joined Opus Dei at the age of 24. From 1990 to 2001, she was the headmistress of Oakcrest School in the Metropolitan area of Washington, D.C., an independent school for girls in grades six to twelve. Since leaving Oakcrest she has become a well-known lecturer in Catholic and conservative circles. Asked to comment on the movie The Da Vinci Code, Falk said, “We’re [Opus Dei] out to change the world. But we’re not shrouded in something weird.”
Really?
Transparency Needed for All Opus Dei Apostolates
“Shrouded?” “Weird?” These words bring us to the reason I included the Narnia Clubs in this concluding segment to the Jones/Voris story.
How incredulous is it that the Director of the New York Archdiocesan Catechetical Department did not know that the Narnia Clubs is an Opus Dei cash cow and recruiting operation?
Why is it that the Narnia Catechetical and Cultural Center does not, in any way, publicly and clearly identify itself as an Opus Dei “apostolate.” Indeed, as of September 7, 2017, neither the words Opus Dei or the Prelature of Opus Dei appear anywhere on their website?
The statement that the Narnia Center “operates under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of New York” is misleading at best. A more truthful statement would be that the Center operates in the Archdiocese of New York, but is under the control of Opus Dei and not the Archdiocese.
What’s with all the secrecy? Why doesn’t the Narnia official website clearly carry an up-front statement such as:
WARNING: The Narnia Clubs is an apostolate of Opus Dei. If your child or teenager exhibits strange and unusual behavioral patterns after attending Narnia classes, he or she may be the target of premature, aggressive recruitment tactics. Seek immediate help from competent spiritual and legal sources.
It is an obscenity of the highest degree, especially under the Narnia pre-school and grade-school program, that very young children can be pre-selected as “aspirants” by Opus Dei teachers and their consciences can be systematically deformed without their parents having the slightest clue, since these youngsters are told not to discuss their “vocation” with anyone other than their Opus Dei tutors.
Think I am exaggerating? Think again!
An Opus Dei Life Plan for an Eleven-Year-Old
On October 2, 2017, Opuslibros.org carried a story from a very angry mother from Spain whose 11-year-old daughter had been attending an Opus Dei school. The mother states that she and her husband sensed something was not quite right with their young daughter, but didn’t have a clue what it was.
Then, at the end of the summer upon the start of a new school term, the mother was carrying her daughter’s backpack and chanced to look inside. There were attractive leaflets, one for each month of the year, with pretty, pastel covers picturing Our Lady of Fatima and cute children’s faces. Good. Fine.
Upon opening a brochure, the mother saw a curious list of proposed readings and actions for each day – 5 minutes of reading and 5 minutes of talking with God – and “A Life Plan ‘Only for the brave ’” which included:
- Heroic minute
- Visit to the oratory
- Pray the mysteries of the Rosary
- Make an examination of conscience
- Prayer – Mary’s Psalter
There was a chart with boxes marked off by 15-minute intervals with instructions to mark X every time her daughter performed a specific task such as praying the Angelus or studying, or performing an examination of conscience at night.
The mother of this child was a faithful Catholic who took an interest in her daughter’s school activities and played an active role in the life of the school. Yet at no time did any teacher or tutor inform the parents of the “Life Plan” Opus Dei had initiated for their daughter. The parents are looking for a new school for their child.
Just maybe some parents who have children in Opus Dei nurseries, and elementary and secondary schools or catechetical classes will want to do the same. Better late than never.
Transparency in Opus Dei Membership
Why, except for designated public OD figures like Fr. John McCloskey, do members of Opus Dei keep their membership a secret, especially when these members have public careers such as journalists, politicians, and, yes, catechetical teachers?
Even at a personal level, non-disclosure of Opus Dei membership prostitutes and poisons true friendship between persons. It is a bitter experience to find out that what you believed to be a legitimate caring and loving friendship turns out to be mere systematic, exploitive recruitment tactic which may or may not have panned out.
If the Vatican will not insure the right of the Catholic faithful to full disclosure of Opus Dei’s activities, programs and membership, then that duty falls to the Ordinary of the diocese. If both fail to carry out this task with due diligence, then faithful Catholics must rise to the challenge.
Opus Dei WATCH
For any reader who is interested in learning more about Opus Dei, I am creating an informal e-mail list called Opus Dei Watch. If you would like to receive periodic news and commentaries on the Prelature of Opus Dei just send your name to me via e-mail at rvte61@comcast.net.
Thank you Randy and a thank you to Mrs Garvey (RIP) and her husband who wrote and published ,”A Parent’s Guide to Opus Dei”to alert parents to avoid placing their children in the hands of Opus. Our Lord kept Himself subject to his Parents until he was 30 , I believe God knew what He was doing better than the SD of Opus Dei or any institution.
This from the mind of one of their own…..not exactly a ringing endorsement from the actions of a “Saint” for whom the “Devil’s Advocate ” was removed prior to his canonization. Where has discernment gone?
“In fact, I know that the founder of the Legion, Fr Maciel, received much help from St Josemaria Escriva during the foundation…..”
“http://experienceswithopusdei.blogspot.com/2009/07/experiences-with-legion-of-christ-and.html
For all the reasons expounded in this article Opus Dei is the most disliked & distrusted CC organisation in Spain. Next exposé should be about the Knights of Columba – no more than ‘Catholic’ Freemasons. These organisations do a huge amount of damage internally to the Bride of Christ. They work on a pyramid system as do so many secular businesses & those at the bottom are treated as slaves.
Thank you , Randy. Excellent article, as always.
This sounds very much like a cheaper version of climbing the Bridge in Scientology. That, too, is a money-making scam cult.
Dear Randy,
You have certainly earned your reputation of being a thorough, accurate and honest investigative reporter especially regarding the suspicious evil intent of various persons and organizations within the (Un) holy catholic “church”. Not too long ago, I watched a documentary on a secular TV network about secret societies, which included Opus Dei. I was surprised when one of the commentators advised parents to caution their children not to get involved in any school functions, clubs or programs run by Opus Dei because they will take over the student’s life in many areas without the knowledge or consent of the parents. Your article here confirms what I heard which surprised me considering the source. Thank you for these warnings. When does it end and can anyone in the V2 establishment be trusted? Keep up the good work, Randy!
You’re fair better served not publishing this meandering, inconclusive, drivel.
Why are you indulging this crap, Louie?
I’d urge readers not waste their valuable time reading this garbage.
Mr Murphy you would certainly be singing another tune if you knew families who had been torn apart or injured emotionally and or physically because they lost a child to the numerary or numerary assistant branches of this organization.
There are far too many testimonials of members being treated with psychiatric medications through opus dei owned psychiatric facilities in Spain and elsewhere.
I urge you to educate yourself before you advise others what to read.
Can you yourself ……Read that is?
It’s isn’t the point of the article but how about Bishop Fellay’s excellent analogy of a person’s body with cancer and comparing it to the cancer/crisis that’s been going on in the Church since VII. In other words, no matter how much we may hate the deadly cancer that spreads in a persons body that body is still visibly alive and we still love and try to do everything possible to cure that body. We hate the cancer but not the body or person itself. So we should take same approach with the cancer/crisis in the Church or else like Bishop Fellay concludes we may be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
An analogy proves nothing. They seem erudite and may convince some, but in the end they only illustrate a conclusion. Its the conclusion that must be proven by facts. Your conclusion that heretics are Catholics simply cannot be proven. How can you demostrate that a man who does not profess the Catholic faith is the leader of the Catholic faith? Its absurd how you can hold such a contradictory position. Since you can never demonstrate such a preposterous notion, the most logical conclusion is that the See is vacant.
The most comtradictory and damaging position ever held in Church history was that of Pope Pius IX when he proclaimed in 1854, to paraphrase “there is NO salvation outside of the Church” BUT ON THE OTHER HAND “there IS salvation outside of the Church.” Can one possibly ever get more contradictory than that. It’s even worse when one realizes this contradiction wasn’t just about some unimportant teaching but actually was about and destroyed what was always considered the Primary Dogma of the Church, EENS. PPIX didn’t mess around, took the axe to the root, and Church teachings have been falling like dominoes ever since.
An excellent expose of Opus Dei can be found in the book “Beyond the Threshold,” by Maria del Carmen Tapia, who was a ranking member for about twenty years until she was expelled in the late 1960s. As well, the website ODAN is very valuable.
Paul Morphy–Show us your investigative skills by proving how Randy is wrong.
To johnjobilbee: Amen! to every word you wrote. God bless you!
Should healthy cells fight cancer cells or should they seek “reconciliation” with the cancer cells?
If Pius IX spoke heresy when teaching Invincible Ignorance and all the Popes since Galileo are in error concerning Geocentrism, then Johnobilbee and Johnno are describing a defectible Church. If Popes can err in these grave matters then nothing can be believed. What is your logical conclusion to these “contradictions” that you believe you have proven? For if your conclusion is that the Church can err in matters of faith and morals, then ball game over, modernists win, all faith is subjective. Is that what you are advocating? For if the Church cannot err in matters of faith and morals, then there by reason and logic must be another explanation to explain what you believe is a contradiction. Which is exactly what the sedevacantist position argues. Seeing no logical explanation for the contradictions of V2, the only logical explanation left is that it could not be from the Church. There are logical explanations regarding geocentrism and EENS/II, you simply refuse to accept them. And by not accepting them you seperate yourself from the Authority that issued them. Now I willing admit that I have seperated myself from the V2 NO sect. What you are saying is that you have seperated yourself from what you consider the V1 sect or the post Trent sect. Is this the path of destroying the Church that you are taking all to justify someone like Francis is Pope?
Speaking as a former Opus Dei-neoconservative-neocatholic who finally discovered True Tradition after a lengthy apostasy from the Faith, this is terrific.
I have read most of Dr. Jones’ work and value his insights into the sexual and cultural revolutions of recent times and such contained therein, but when it comes to Tradition he’s in error. Not to mention his equivocation of Allah with God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Aside from being a blasphemous notion it’s quite simply wrong as the Koran explicitly blasphemes the Holy Trinity.
Hopefully he will realize his error and correct himself.
Mr Newtick,
To really understand how OD operates as a business that renames itself as a Catholic Apostolate or Organization, and what Mrs Engel
was originally reporting in answer to …….you must read Jones’ short ebook and be prepared for quite a few shocking revelations ! Then and only then will you understand the real nature of just how the Prelature operates. It is neither NO Catholic, neo conservative Catholic or Traditional Catholic. In fact, it isn’t remotely Christian in any sense .
The Man Behind the Curtain: Michael Voris and the Homosexual Vortex Kindle Edition by e Michael Jones
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Behind-Curtain-Michael-Homosexual-ebook/dp/B01IAIIOE2
It is no wonder why opposing entities ( OD members, CMtv followers and Jones’ friends) all wish people avoid reading her articles on the ebook and how Opus Dei operates.
Read it last summer. Thank you though!
Re: A partial defense of Opus Dei
I have known Opus Dei priests since around 1970. Both the “internal” priests and those priest external to Opus Dei and who owe obedience to a bishop.
All of these priests, without exception, have struck me as virile, virtuous and straight forward.
And this also in an age when all too meant bishops and priests appear effeminate.
Further, I have not heard of even a single case of an Opus Dei priest molesting a child. Sadly this seems to be an exception among today’s Church organizations.
Finally. it appears to me that Opus Dei, like the U.S. Marine Corps, is not for everyone. We live in a fallen world. Just because Opus Dei is not our cup of tea does not make it evil.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Quite clearly you disagree with the teaching of Pope Pius IX on the issue involving EENS, but you have literally taken what he said entirely and unfairly out of context. Respectfully, when you feel it necessary to denigrate the teachings of this Holy man, at least provide an accurate context of what he has said, and then make whatever argument you believe compelled you to reach the conclusions that you did. Over the years a great many other Catholics have read what he said and have drawn very different conclusions than you have––including five subsequent pre-Vatican II popes: Pope Leo XIII, St Pope Pius X; Pope Benedict XV; Pope Pus XI; and Pope Pius XII.
The misleading interpretation of the substance of the statement you have attributed to Pope Pius IX on EENS was lifted from his letter to the Italian bishops known as “Quanto Conficiamur Maerore”. And while you have your opinion as to what was taught at that time, a contrary opinion (widely accepted by most faithful Catholics) is that while no salvation may be found outside the Catholic Church, God does understand that not everyone will have the opportunity to avail themselves of the true faith, and that they, nevertheless, may be saved under certain conditions. These are the people that Pope Pius IX defined as including the “invincibly ignorant”.
Interested readers would do well to simply read the encyclical itself, rather than rely upon the opinions of commenters like you or me. It is short, to the point, and as the title itself suggests, was addressing issues “On Promotion of False Doctrines”. It may be found at http://tinyurl.com/y85jcd9d.
Additionally, a more detailed discussion of this subject may be found on the SSPX website at http://tinyurl.com/ckzc6g
Richard I’m very much “on the same page with you” with regards to the Opus Dei …specifcially with regards to our respective associations with the Prelature based upon what you have posted here.
I do not judge the heart and soul of any individual person within the Opus Dei whatsoever anymore than anyone else in the world simply because I haven’t the ability to such. Only God can do that.
However, the main problem with the Opus Dei as an organization is that it usurps and corrupts the essential ecclesiastical nature of the Church. It makes the lay faithful the fundament of the church. It speaks of “sanctifying one’s self and the world” through vague and suspect means. That’s heresy and moreover silly and out of touch with what the Church has always done and what Christ Himself gave to the Apostles. Now, certainly the sensus fidelium of the faithful has corrected the priesthood and hierarchy in the past on many occasions, but that is a different thing from what the fundament of the Church is- Jesus Christ giving us Himself through the sacraments administered by human proxies (the clergy and hierarchy). It’s all just a typical modernist mishmash.
HN
correction for clarity: The OPUS DEI is a “typical modernist mishmash”… and that said I will add It’s no so much evil as just incoherent and silly.
mr hn
thank you for your reply.
but i cannot agree with your critique of opus dei if it has so many holy priests in an age of unholy priests.
God bless
richard w comerford
When Mrs Engel gets her Opus Dei Watch up and running I know you will see the gravity of problems within the business of Opus Dei. It is relatively a new phenomena here in the States and most visible members are Super Numeraries who feel quite proud , set apart and defensive to be members.
However , there are hundreds of testimonials from foreign members which when translated give explicit instance of the methodology practiced by those who live in these OD houses.
One that I just read today which seems prevalent since the Garvey’s booklet also warned about the same and was confirmed by Fr James Lebarr , former Exorcist for the Diocese of NYC, is the practice of lying , known as a “Shield” amongst the members and encouraged by the resident priests.
Lies are theft that demons use to steal the truth from everyone and cause confusion. Who then can one trust? The liar himself gets the most tangled in the confusion because his own conscience tells him or her they are liars so then they rationalize everyone else must be too. The result is a loss of Faith. Eventually all souls must look at themselves honestly in the light of Gods revealed Truth.
Most commonly testified to by youthful recruits into the Prelature is the instruction ,”Don’t tell your parents”, and as the article points out above ,the belief that parents give up their rights as parents to God. But God states something quite different in His Commandments and He surely never said , Lying is a virtue, even by any other name.
sweepoutthefilth
thank you for your reply.
where are the criminal actions? where are the civil actions?
God bless
richard w comerford
Healthy Cells should take care of there own progeny and there own salvation, Let the cancer die off on its own. Its better to attract by example and there own good fruits, although that should be the secondary goal. The Good Lord made the family a primary model for a reason. And that go’s for the SSPX also. Stop trying to convert Modernists . Not your job.
Who do so many mental Randy Engel’s word as gospel when she passes on a nasty rumor as a likely fact?
Her she is in “Rite of Sodomy” killing the character of Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val
How comes she doesn’t understand what she did in print by this rumor-mongering is a serious sin?
Rafael Merry del Val y Zulueta, was born in London, England on
October 10, 1865. He was six years younger than O’Connell. His distinguished
father’s ancestral roots went back to 17th century Ireland and
England and later to Seville, Spain, and his beautiful mother was of Dutch,
Scottish, and Spanish blood, the daughter of the founder of the famous
banking firm of Zulueta and Company in London.25
In 1885, after the young del Val had graduated from the Jesuit College
of St. Michel in Brussels and completed minor orders at Ushaw Seminary
in England, he had planned on enrolling at Scots College in Rome. But a
providential audience of the del Vals with Pope Leo XIII arranged by the
Spanish Ambassador to the Holy See changed the course of Rafael’s life.
The Holy Father ordered his entrance into the Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici
and waived the requirement of noble birth.26 After his ordination on
December 30, 1888, he remained at the Accademia to complete his courses
in theology and canon law at the Gregorian University. It was at this
period in his life that del Val developed a special interest in the welfare of
working-class boys from the slums of the Trastevere.
It was the tradition of the time that a spiritual director from the Accademia
be assigned to the Pontifical Mastai School for the poor under the
direction of the Christian Brothers. On January 25, 1889, del Val was formally
assigned to the post by Lucido Maria Cardinal Parocchi of Bologna, the
pope’s vicar. Del Val said Mass, heard confessions and administered the rite
of Confirmation for the young boys and young men of the neighborhood.27
In 1890, he established the Pius Association of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
for the youth of the neighborhood and a recreational area for boys of all
ages just outside the Porta Portese. Some of the neediest boys’ families he
aided with money to pay rent. For others he secured medical help or found
them jobs.28 In later life, the walls of his room would be filled with pictures
of his family and of his boys of the Trastevere some of whom died in the
Great War.
It was about the time that he began to minister to the boys of the
Trastevere, that del Val met Msgr. William O’Connell at the American College
and he soon began to visit O’Connell on a regular basis. The friendship
grew through the years with each man aiding the other in the advancement
of their ecclesial careers.
Del Val’s ecclesiastical career was a meteoric one.
Following the death of Pope Leo XIII in 1903, del Val was chosen Pro-
Secretary to oversee the election that would bring Giuseppe Sarto, Patriarch
of Venice to the throne of Saint Peter as Pope Pius X. Even though del
Val favored the election of Cardinal Rampolla, a fellow graduate of the
Accademia, over Sarto, the new pontiff was impressed with the 38-year-old
Spanish cleric. On November 9, 1903, Pope Pius X made del Val a cardinal
and three days later appointed him his Secretary of State. Del Val took up
residence in the Borgia Apartments of the Palazzi Pontifici in the Vatican
resplendent with the magnificent 15th century frescoes of Bernardino
Pinturicchio.29
Physically, del Val and O’Connell were a study in contrasts. O’Connell
was large boned and burley and looked taller than his five foot eight frame.
Del Val was also of medium height but delicate of frame and face and graceful
and genteel in his carriage and mannerisms. On the other hand, both
men saw themselves as cosmopolitans—men of the world. They were
both multilingual and accomplished pianists and men of ambition. The two
shared a number of common interests including a love of music especially
Gregorian chant, travel and high culture including the theater and the arts.
Ironically, both men were also the subject of controversy for much of
their ecclesiastical careers and each was tainted with the charge of
sodomitical practices during his lifetime. In the case of del Val, the particular
charge was a singular reference made public in a March 1911 issue of
the German scholarly literary journal Nord und Sud.30
The short article titled “The Homosexual Scandal at the Papal Court,”
charged Cardinal Merry del Val with corresponding with his fellow sodomites
who allegedly held homosexual orgies in del Val’s Borgia apartments.
The charge was made by a Mr. Patrick MacSweeney, said to hold
an important post at the Vatican, (um, what post was that?) who invited del Val to issue a writ of libel against the paper so he could produce his evidence against the cardinal.
According to MacSweeney, by the time del Val informed the Irishman that
he would not in any case respond to the charge against him, the statute of
limitations had run out on his “evidence,” some 38 letters, making them
worthless in court. The article ended with a final note that del Val had
asked MacSweeney to destroy all letters bearing his signature that had
been written to religious leaders.
The reference to the Nord und Sud article was contained in Charlotte
Wolff’s 1986 biography of Magnus Hirschfeld. Wolff admitted that she did
not know if the charge was “more fiction than fact,” but she believed that
so important a journal would not have published so libelous a story without
some foundation for the charge against If the story was true, then
there would appear to have been a darker side to del Val’s interest in the
boys of the Trastevere.
OK, who is Magnus Hirschfeld?
https://monthlyreview.org/product/magnus_hirschfeld/
Following the death of Pope Leo XIII in 1903, del Val was chosen Pro-
Secretary to oversee the election that would bring Giuseppe Sarto, Patriarch
of Venice to the throne of Saint Peter as Pope Pius X. Even though del
Val favored the election of Cardinal Rampolla, a fellow graduate of the
Accademia, over Sarto, the new pontiff was impressed with the 38-year-old
Spanish cleric. On November 9, 1903, Pope Pius X made del Val a cardinal
and three days later appointed him his Secretary of State. Del Val took up
residence in the Borgia Apartments of the Palazzi Pontifici in the Vatican
resplendent with the magnificent 15th century frescoes of Bernardino
Pinturicchio.29
O, so Rafael Cardinal Merry del Vak was chosen secretary because he favors Rampolla?
That claim makes n sense because he was chosen to ice the Rampolla faction…
A Profile of Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, Secretary of State of Pius X
by Gianpaolo Romanato
DESCRIPTION
At the eightieth anniversary of his death, L’Osservatore Romano published this profile of Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, secretary of state to Saint Pius X from 1903 to 1914. The author of the portrait is Gianpaolo Romanato, a professor of Church history at the University of Padua, a member of the pontifical committee for historical sciences, and one of the leading scholars on the popes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
LARGER WORK
L’Osservatore Romano
PUBLISHER & DATE
Vatican, February 26, 2010
Pius X and Rafael Merry del Val. It is hard to imagine two personalities more different from one another. The former was born in the Venetian countryside to a family of very modest means, which knew hardship and probably hunger as well. He was able to go to school thanks to a scholarship, and spent his entire life, before his election to the papacy, among the poor people, in rural rectories and provincial chanceries, far from the spotlight and from places of power.
The latter, on the other hand, came from one of the most prominent families of the continent, had received a cosmopolitan and polyglot education, and was at home in the embassies and most exclusive circles of every European capital.
Their lives, which seemed destined to go separate ways, crossed almost by accident and ended up being so closely interwoven that it is hard to separate them even today.
FROM SECRETARY OF THE CONCLAVE TO SECRETARY OF STATE
The meeting took place during the dramatic conclave of 1903, the one in which Austria vetoed the election of Cardinal Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro, and which over the span of four days, at the seventh ballot, brought to the papacy, with the name of Pius X, the relatively unknown patriarch of Venice, Giuseppe Sarto.
By a singular coincidence, the secretary of the college of the consistorial congregation, who was also the secretary of the college of cardinals and therefore of the conclave, Monsignor Alessandro Volpini, had died almost at the same time as Leo XIII. In great haste, the cardinals chose as his successor Merry del Val, who at the time was president of the pontifical academy of ecclesiastical nobles, and had been ordained a bishop only three years before.
The choice had been made from a pool of three names. The two rejected candidates were the substitute at the secretariat of state, Giacomo Della Chiesa, the future Benedict XV, and Pietro Gasparri, who was then the secretary for extraordinary ecclesiastical affairs. The preference shown to the youngest and least experienced of the three was interpreted as the first defeat of the Rampolla coalition, and a foreshadowing of what would happen at the conclave.
So Merry del Val, who could not vote because he was not a cardinal, had to shoulder the heavy burden of preparing and conducting the most difficult conclave of the past two centuries.
Sarto had met him, was able to evaluate him while the circumstances of his election were maturing, and a few hours after he became pope, informed him, leaving him stunned, that he had decided to keep him as interim secretary of state. “I don’t have anyone so far,” he is said to have told him. “Stay with me. Then we’ll see.”
Giving the key role of the pontificate to this Spaniard – the first non-Italian to head the secretariat of state – who was only thirty-eight years old, young enough to be the son of the 68-year-old pope, elicited comments and reservations that weighed upon later events. After a trial period of just two months, Pius X dispelled the uncertainty and on October 18, 1903, appointed him secretary of state and made him a cardinal. From that moment, the life of Merry del Val would never again be separated from that of the pontiff.
FROM AMBASSADOR’S SON TO THE POPE’S AMBASSADOR
Who was Rafael Merry del Val, the eightieth anniversary of whose death we are commemorating? Born in 1865 in London, where his father was the Spanish ambassador, he grew up between England and Belgium, and in 1885 was sent to Rome by the archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, to complete his preparation for the priesthood at the Pontifical Scots College.
Here began one off the fastest-moving careers in all ecclesiastical history. According to his biographer, Pio Cenci, it was Leo XIII himself who placed him in the academy of ecclesiastical nobles and used him for diplomatic missions in England, Germany, and Austria even before his priestly ordination. He knew the main European languages perfectly, but linguistic expertise is certainly not enough to justify so much attention. In a pontifical curia that was laboriously seeking to regain its international role and scope after the loss of temporal power in 1870, the descendant of the illustrious English Merry family and of the even more illustrious Spanish house of del Val must have demonstrated extraordinary ability to have risen through the ranks so quickly.
After graduating from the Pontifical Gregorian University, he became one of the most influential and consulted figures of pontifical Rome, especially when it came to problems regarding Anglicanism. His perfect knowledge of the environment and of the language, his frequent trips across the English Channel, and the esteem of Cardinal Vaughan gave him great authority.
Entrusted by Leo XIII with the thorny question of the validity of Anglican orders – at the uncertain, hesitant beginning of the ecumenical journey – he led the Holy See to the negative response, made official in September of 1896 with the bull “Apostolicae Curae,” of which he was the main architect. On the basis of practice that had stood for three hundred years, and of an exhaustive historical investigation, Leo XIII confirmed the “nullity” of the “ordinations carried out with the Anglican rite,” thereby denying the apostolic succession of those bishops. The reconciliation of Anglicans and Catholics, which had been proceeding for some time, came to an abrupt halt, while the young prelate established himself as the spokesman of a stance of doctrinal austerity that was different from, if not incompatible with, the policy of Rampolla, who was secretary of state at the time.
The following year, he went on a long mission in Canada, as apostolic delegate. Torn between the opposing temptations of severity and laxness, young Canadian Catholicism had asked for help from Rome. Merry del Val acted with moderation there, especially in relation to the problem of the Catholic schools in Manitoba, and was publicly recognized by the pope for this in the encyclical “Affari Vos” of December 1897. In words that were highly unusual for an official document, Leo wrote that “our apostolic delegate has carried out perfectly and faithfully that for which we had sent him.”
Back in Rome, he was made head of the academy of ecclesiastical nobles, and was made a bishop. His extremely rapid ascent was due to his solid historical-juridical education, his innate capacity to relate to anyone, and to the “swiftness,” as Benedict XV would later say, with which he solved problems.
But everyone knew that the capable diplomat was a priest of great piety, with monastic habits and an austere, ascetic lifestyle.
In 1903, as previously mentioned, came the decisive leap to the top of the Vatican organizational chart, favored first by the unexpected death of Monsignor Alessandro Volpini – he was not even sixty years old – and then by the unexpected decision of the newly elected Pius X.
THE RIGHT MAN FOR A POPE FAR MORE RELIGIOUS THAN POLITICAL
To the new pope, elected precisely to mitigate the excessive political exposure of the Holy See that had taken place during Rampolla’s tenure, Merry del Val, who was widely known to be an outsider to that administration, seemed to be the right man to make the transition.
He moved gracefully in the diplomatic world, could handle the problems of international politics, and understood the Roman curia perfectly. In other words, he had everything the pope lacked. By appointing him as secretary of state, Pius X was counting on all of this. But he was also counting on his youthfulness and on his boundless devotion to the papacy: he would be a faithful coworker who would never stand against him.
But Pius X had certainly taken into account one of Merry del Val’s other qualities: his life of piety. The praise that pope Giuseppe Sarto addressed to him on November 11, 1903, the day he received the cardinal’s berretta, is so unusual, even in its language, that it deserves to be quoted in full: “The good odor of Christ, lord cardinal, that you have spread in every place, even in your temporary dwelling, and the many works of charity to which you have dedicated yourself constantly in your priestly ministry, especially in this our city of Rome, have won for you, with admiration, universal esteem.”
The positive assessment of the pontiff, more than at the political capacities of his coworker, was aimed at his moral character, at his works of charity among the young people of the Trastevere neighborhood, in which he exerted himself without reserve. An essentially religious pope chose for himself a secretary of state with his own characteristics.
The events of Pius X’s pontificate are well known. Relations with states deteriorated across the board, even to the point of open division. The best-known case is that of France, where the law of separation between Church and state was passed in December of 1905. Six years later it was Portugal’s turn, which approved an even more brutal law. There were similar tensions in various Latin American countries. The pope didn’t do much to alter the course of events. He protested, he wrote very strongly worded encyclicals, but he carefully avoided trying diplomatic channels.
In the case of France, the law stipulated that “associations of worship,” from which the ecclesiastical hierarchy was excluded, would manage Church property, becoming a counterweight to the bishops. The intention to dismantle the Church’s hierarchical constitution was clear, even if not everyone had perceived it.
The pope grasped the heart of the problem perfectly, and staunchly opposed it. It was a real and proper “legal suicide,” as it has been called, since the Church of France, required by Rome not to accept the law – in less than a year, between 1906 and 1907, the pontiff wrote three encyclicals dedicated to the case of France – lost its legal standing and with it its entire patrimony, beginning with the churches in which religious services were held every day.
But in this way, the Church of France regained its freedom and full control of the appointment of bishops, which up until then had been granted to the state by virtue of the Napoleonic concordat. Pius X’s decision – between the “good” and the “goods” of the Church I have chosen the former, the pope would say – which afterward would obtain the applause of Aristide Briand, the inspiration of the law – “the pope was the only one who saw clearly” – had with a single blow wiped out three centuries of Gallicanism, of a national Church, bringing French Catholicism back, even in disciplinary terms, to complete fidelity to Rome.
It was a fundamental shift – “a painful and traumatizing event,” as John Paul II called it in the letter to the French bishops written on the occasion of the centenary of the law – that caught people at the time off guard, and continues to divide historians. This was the occasion that led to the emergence of the anti-temporalistic idealism that, in the view of various scholars, was the truly revolutionary aspect of the pontificate, the great novelty in the relationship between the Church and the world that emerged in the decade of Pius X and Merry del Val.
So with Pius X, the end came for an entire season of the Church’s history, that of interference in politics, of diplomatic entanglements, of outdated connections between throne and altar, of the bishops “in cilindro” and the “cardinals of court,” of the opposition toward some states and concessions for others.
Unlike his predecessor, Pius X never engaged in “foreign policy,” he never tried to weaken on the international stage the countries that demonstrated hostility toward the Church, he never tried to exploit for his own advantage the rivalries, interests, and alliances of the various nations. And this stance, which has not yet received the attention that it deserves from the historians, was not a tactical retreat, but a precise strategic decision, as pope Sarto said one day to the future cardinal Nicola Canali, at the time a young recorder of minutes in the curia: “You are young, but always remember that the Church’s policy is that of not engaging in politics, and of always going by the right path.”
BETWEEN CHURCH RENEWAL AND CURIA REFORM
Merry del Val supported this policy with loyalty and conviction, just as he did with Pius X’s decisions of radical Church reform: from the suppression of the right of veto in the conclave to the reform of the curia to the codification of canon law.
The overhaul of the Roman curia, approved in 1908, directly concerned its competencies, which were expanded, but within a plan of governance in which the secretariat of state was second from the bottom among the five Vatican offices. The heart of Pius X’s curia was not the secretariat of state, as it would be under the reform of Paul VI sixty years later. The heart was represented by the eleven congregations, with the Holy Office placed at the top.
This may be the reason why Merry del Val’s role coincided, almost to the point of merging, with that of the pope, unlike the role of his predecessors and successors. By engaging in little or no politics, and attending to governing and renewing the Church, Pius X took away from the secretariat of state much of the leeway that made it an autonomous actor, and strengthened its bond with the papacy itself.
This bond became even closer during the saga of modernist Catholicism, which until now has appeared to historians as the true “punctum dolens” of Giuseppe Sarto’s pontificate.
Much has been written about this unraveling, and one of the unresolved matters concerns precisely the operation of the secretariat of state. But whether Merry del Val played a leading or supporting role, a role of action or inspiration, does not seem to be a decisive element of judgment. What is decisive is the fact that he was a full participant in the pope’s antimodernist stance, a staunch supporter of the urgency of stopping those instances of renewal in which both saw the looming danger of a catastrophic crisis of faith.
WITH PIUS X, EVEN ON THE PATH TO SAINTHOOD
It was inevitable that a secretary of state so closely identified with the pontiff he had served would not be confirmed by his successor.
As soon as he was elected pope, on September 3, Benedict XV in fact appointed as secretary of state first Cardinal Domenico Ferrata, who died almost immediately, and then Pietro Gasparri. We thus find at the head of the Church the two bishops – Della Chiesa and Gasparri – who had been leapfrogged by Merry del Val on the eve of the conclave in 1903.
For the former secretary of state, the sixteen years he had left to live must have been a difficult period. He received the same treatment from Benedict XV that Pius X had reserved ten years earlier for Rampolla: he became secretary of the Holy Office – the prefecture of this congregation was at the time the prerogative of the pontiff – a function that he held until his sudden death, which happened on February 26, 1930.
Merry del Val maintained a boundless devotion to Pius X: he was at the origin of the petition that opened his canonization process. On the 20th of each month, the day of the pope’s death, he celebrated a Mass for the repose of his soul. He asked to be buried “as close as possible to my most beloved father and pontiff Pius X.”
But his time had passed, even if in 1953, during the pontificate of Pius XII – who had begun his own career under del Val – his canonical beatification process was opened, in conjunction with the ascent to the honors of the altar of Pius X, proclaimed blessed in 1951 and a saint in 1954.
This section of her book features rumor-mongering and erroneous historical claims.
But I guess what she says is gospel
Richard C, and for all Catholics who need a little lesson in legal matters concerning the institutions that fall under the auspices of the Church.
There have been Civil suits won in Europe against persons in these Opus Dei Houses, as the one mentioned by Mrs Engel in France in her previous aticle.
Judicial systems are loath to decide grievances against church owned institutions such as a case launched by a seminarian in Camden Diocese who was placed in his final year as an intern before Ordination in a rectory where he alleged he was harassed by the pastor and his friends to participate in homosexual sex. He complained to both his Spiritual Director and the Diocesan Vocation Director asking to be moved. He was not ,so he applied to a neighboring Diocese to be Ordained there, he was blackballed.
He left his vocation behind and his Faith UNTIL his widowed elderly mother was presented with a large tuition bill by the Diocese. He hired a lawyer and sued Borromeo Seminary for invalidating their contract as clearly stated in the brochure requiring chastity of seminarians and priests. The Judge stated he could not rule because this was a private religious institution and their policies also belonged to the private sphere. ( Get it?) But the Judge also said had he sued for sexual harassment during the window of time for the Statute of Limitations he would have had a totally different case. Sexual harassment and abuse are illegal acts .
The same applies to Opus Dei and their internal policies.
BTW……the allegedly rabid gay clique of priests were happy to tell their parishioners the case was “dismissed” ( as if the young man lied about them).
Parishioners with some brains looked up what really was said and went on in court via Rutgers Online Law Library.
The tuition charges were was dropped by the Diocese.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/1999_03_24_Sokolic_Diocese4_Anthony_Manuppella_1.htm
Civil suits rarely make the news but when they do such as the French Case against Opus Dei, you certainly will not see it i the US News.
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Thank you for your reply.
The French case in question involves, I believe, a former adult member of Opus Dei who also worked for Opus Dei and was, essentially, demanding back wages. But regardless of the merits of the case in question the French ruling elite, and their courts, are notoriously bigoted against anyone or anything even remotely Roman Catholic.
Ms. Engel’s attack, however is directed against Opus Dei in the USA and its alleged usurpation of parents rights. Contrary to your claim American Courts are more than happy to involve themselves in internal Church affairs. See the Boston Globe Spotlight Team.
If Ms. Engel’s allegations were true then one would expect a string of civil and even civil actions wherein Opus Dei is named as defendant. I cannot find one, single case.
Also, world wide, there is not even a hint of scandal associated with Opus Dei priests regarding sexual predators of sodomy. Given the present very sad state of affairs in Holy Mother Church this is truly remarkable.
Yet this remarkable lack of scandal appears to have escaped Ms. Engel’s notice?
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Cancer doesn’t die off on its own. It must be attacked.
One thing I missed. Is the writer saying Michael Voris belongs to Opus Dei?
A really thought-provoking article. I had read something about Opus Dei perhaps a year ago, after never having known much about it, and my conclusion then is the same as now, it sounds much like Scientology, self-interested, and a pyramid scheme of sorts, with pushy recruitment tactics and a bizarre life inflicted on it’s members. I mean, to have a permanent underclass of Latina maids and servants, it’s positively racist and unfair to do to these women. It sounds more like human trafficking than anything else. And to divide children from parents in any way, can only be diabolical.
i am referring to the girl who was recruited at 4 and whose parents sued several years later because she was ill. 8o pounds and on psycho therapeutic medications prescribed by one or more Physician members of the cult.
I surmise they also included back wages in their suit.
Sexual abuse in OD. I doubt it, but exploitation of labor by the business ,yes absolutely. Young women from economically deprived areas working ten hours a day , who have little to no hope of ever rising out of the situation because they are never allowed alone outside of the residence and are often in a foreign country , paid very little and required to donate most back …that’s slavery.
FYI. The Boston Globe revealed actual crimes against the law of the land because the sexual abuse of minors was never reported to the proper authorities by the Bishops who were well aware of it and just transferred the pedophiles from place to place to abuse again and again.
Opus Dei chooses their clerics from their own residences . Therefore , unlike the seminaries, these men have been living celibate lives and being watched for years . They are taught and teach others to lie regarding the Prelature and it’s activities.
Correction to the above post .”recruited at 14″
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Thank you for your reply.
Are you referring to the Catherine Tissuer case who was a” numerary assistant” in Opus Dei in France? The prosecutor entered a finding against Opus Dei. But after a ten year inquiry the case finally went to Court and the Court ruled AGAINST Ms. Tissuer and in FAVOR of Opus Dei.
This is the only case in the world regarding Opus Dei on this or any other matters and Opus Dei was found not guilty in a very hostile secular environment.
Despite your claims and Ms. Engel’s claims ro the contrary there is simply no independent evidence to substantiate the allegation that Opus Dei engages in either slavery or kidnapping or the alienation of affection of children from their parents.
It appears that both you and Ms. Engels are illinformed.
Now what evidence do either you or Ms. Engel possess that the admittedly chaste Priests of Opus Dei “are taught and teach others to lie regarding the Prelature and it’s activities”?
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Ms. Evangeline:
If true. Yes. Diabolical. But as I get more into this matter it appears that there to be no, absolutely no, evidence from independent sources to substantiate Ms. Engel’s case allegations Opus Dei..
World wide over the past half century there has been exactly one case on this matter and Opus Dei was found not guilty.
Not one of its priests has been accused of sexual impropriety never mind found guilty in a secular court.
This in itself is an amazing record.
It appears that Ms. Engel’s case against Opsu Dei rises only to teh level of gossip and tale bearing.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. sweepoutthefilth
Re: Opus Dei Not Guilty
I have done an admittedly amateur online search for secular court actions, both criminal and civil, wherein Opsu Dei was named the defendant.
So far I have found that world wide, over a 50-year period, that there is only the Catherine Tissuer case in France wherein, after a 10-year inquiry and a civil court action, Opus Dei was found NOT GUILTY.
I am stunned. Ms. Engel’s case against Opus Dei appears to belong in the same category as Dan Brown’s Opus Dei albino, monk assassin – namely fiction.
Perhaps Ms. Engel can cite either criminal or civil actions wherein Opsu Dei was named a defendant anywhere in the world that I not aware of?
Otherwise this entire affair appears to be nothing but gossip.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. my2cents:
Ms. Engel iss quiet wrong
Consult Mr. Google. World wide, over a 50-year period, I can only find one case, a civil action in France, wherein Opus Dei was named a defendant. After a 1-year inquiry and a court hearing Opus Dei was found not guilty.
Even more shocking the Opsu Dei priests appear to be 100% clean when it comes to accusations of being sexual predators. In today’s Church that is, sadly, quite a record.
I invite Ms. Engels to cite a single civil or criminal action wherein Opus Dei was found guilty.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Excellent and thorough investigation once again, Randy Engel!
You are a gift to the Catholic Church in a time when your skills are most needed.
Thank you! May God bless you and reward you.
You are a modern day St. Joan of Arc!
Me thinks those protesting loudly against Ms. Engel might be OD or OD in spirit? To clear it up….Would Comerford et al please state “Yes” or “No”….Are you or any family member or close friend or associate, however, or wherever they may appear, in any way, whether direct, indirect or otherwise connected with, or a member of, OD or any of their entities?
Opus Dei is a secret society. What are they hiding?
Mr. Jacobum:
Thank you for your reply.
Please. The Communists since the inception of Opus Dei have hated it. So I might ask:
Me thinks those protesting loudly against Opus Dei might be Marxists or Marxists in spirit? To clear it up would Engel et al please state “Yes” or No”…Are you or any family member or close friend, or associate, or the family dog or pet goldfish, however or wherever they may appear, in any way, whether direct, indirect or otherwise connected with, or a member of, the Communist Party or any of its entities?
That is a fair question is it not? And where exactly does Ms. Engel get her money to attack full time Roman Catholics? Ask Mr. Google. That is all she does. Attack, attack endlessly, Roman Catholics.
And as for me I belong to my Church, My wife and my country. That is it.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. my2cents:
Does Opus Dei hide the identities of its leadership? Does it hide the locations of its schools, centers and institutions? Does it hide its money from the IRS? Does it hide the number of its priests? Does it hide the number of its members?
And why do you hide behind a false name?
And where does Ms. Engel get her funding to publicly attack on a full time basis Roman Catholics?
Kindly reflect.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Ms. Ana Milan
You posted in part: “For all the reasons expounded in this article Opus Dei is the most disliked & distrusted CC organisation in Spain.”
For about the last 40-years the Spanish government, media, education system and entertainment industry has been dominated by Socialists and Communists. The Spanish Bishops in the main publicly support abortion, sodomy and other evils. And in some Spanish cities more Muslims attend Mosque than Catholics attend Holy Mass.
And you claim none of these people either like or trust Opus Dei?
Opus Dei must be doing something right.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Dear richard w. comerford—To prove I’m not totally suspicious of everything, I will trust that richard w. comerford is your real name even though I can’t prove it.
God bless you.
Mr. my2cents:
Thank you for your reply.
My social security number: 037-36-7062. Now you can. It is a federal felony to misuse a SSN.
And I am being far more forthcoming than Ms. Engel in the instant article above wherein she relies purely on gossip: neither civil actions, nor criminal actions nor social service findings; to publicly defame with accusations that essentially boil down to slavery and kidnapping.
And you remain another anonymous internet party.
How can you witness to Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ while hiding in the cyber shadows?
Kindly reflect.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr Comerford,
Mrs Engel is probably the most courageous and intelligent Roman Catholic I have ever had the pleasure to read. Her research skills are impeccable as evidenced by her book,” The Rite of Sodomy “.
Catholics from around the world have been finding her a source to contact because they know she will do an honest investigation to uphold the truths of the Roman Catholic Faith.
Re: French lawsuit story ……
I might add that the average Catholic ( and that is who is recruited to work as numerary assistants} knows to fight for your rights against Opus Dei requires exhaustive funds like the organization itself owns. They also know Opus will spend everything to avoid public revelations about their practices .
“According to Tissier, in 1985, when she joined the Dosnon Hotel School, and the adjoining International Center for Meetings of Couvrelles in France at the age of 14 to train for hospitality work, neither she nor her parents were ever told that ACUT, the university and technical culture association that runs the school, was tied to Opus Dei.
When her assigned “spiritual director” pressed her to join Opus Dei and take vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity, she agreed, but she was not permitted to tell her parents. Opus Dei restricted her visitation rights to go home to once a year.
For 13 years, Tissier worked from 7am to 10pm, cleaning, washing and other domestic chores in Opus Dei residences and meeting places. When feeling unwell, an Opus Dei physician treated her with anti-psychotic drugs. What remained of her monthly wages was almost nothing as Opus Dei extracted payment for her rent, food, and clothing. When her parents finally rescued her from Opus Dei her bank account was 10 euros. Her weight was 86 pounds.
The first of the Tissier trials took place on September 22-23, 2011, after a 9-year probe of the Opus Dei facilities. Members Claire de Segonzac and Agues Duhal were acquitted of charges of “mental manipulation,” and “illegal employment.” This verdict got wide coverage by the international press. Tissier’s lawyers appealed.
In a ruling of March 26, 2013, the Paris Court of Appeals found ACUT and the Dosnon Hotel School and Opus Dei members, de Segonzac and Duhal, guilty of concealment of employees and insufficient remuneration for the work of a vulnerable or dependent person. ACUT was heavily condemned and fined 75,000 euros and the members 3,000 euros each. This court ordered two of Paris largest newspapers, Le Figaro and La Croix to disseminate the judgment. It is unclear if Opus Dei appealed the ruling.”
Mr Comerford ,
Opus Dei’s specialty in corruption appears to be in banking.
Start reading the documented facts in the News.
Cdl Ugo Poletti ,P2 Lodge member was a friend of Escriva’s and the Postulator for his Cause. He obtained the Basilica Appolinaire in Rome for the Prelature and subsequently gave permission for mafia boss Enrique de Pedis to be buried in it’s crypt with popes and Saints. More recently his coffin was opened by Italian special investigators looking for clues in the kidnapping and disappearance of Emmanuela Orlandi
The girl’s family still believes opus members were involved with the mafia.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/9275065/What-is-the-Vaticans-sinister-secret-behind-teenager-Emanuela-Orlandis-1983-disappearance.html
Mr. Comerford,
Louie Verrecchio invites commentators to use their real name or a tag. When you get your own blog, make your own rules.
Kindly reflect.
God bless
Mr. my2cents:
Thank you for your reply.
I am not making rules. You questioned, in much the same way Ms. Engel approaches her targets, the veracity of my name and identity without cause.
I provided, under penalty of law, proof of my identity. I also pointed out to you that a follower of Jesus Christ cannot provide witness to Him by hiding in the shadows.
Kindly reflect.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Thank you for your reply.
Mr. Google could not tell me anything about the 2013 appeal court ruling. Perhaps you could provide a link?
Mr. Google did tell me that Ms. Tissier filed her first case in 2001, which was dismissed; and then a second case in 2011 wherein a judgement was entered in favor of the defendants.
Which case was appealed?
And where is your evidence that Opus Dei has “exhaustive funds”?
And if you are correct in that Opus Dei is holding all these people as slaves in their institutions then why have not the authorities raided said institutions and freed the alleged slaves?
Again, world wide, this is the only case to surface against an institution and parties linked to Opus Dei. But you and Ms. Engel claim that Opus Dei engages in slavery and kidnapping on a massive scale? is that correct?
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. sweepoutthefilth
Thank you for your reply.
Your proof that Opus Dei is corrupt is that a Cardinal, who was also allegedly a Mason, was allegedly a friend of the founder of Opus Dei?
And that a missing girl’s family believes that Opus Dei members are members of the Mafia?
Is that it?
Are flying saucers and alien abduction also featured in your proof?
Your “documented facts” are merely documented gossip”.
You and Ms. Engel must do better than this.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
More to reflect on:
http://radtradthomist.chojnowski.me/2017/10/e-michael-jones-well-supported-advocate.html
Mr. sweepoutthefilth
Thank you for your reply.
Your proof that Opus Dei is corrupt is that a Cardinal, who was also allegedly a Mason, was allegedly a friend of the founder of Opus Dei?
And that a missing girl’s family believes that Opus Dei members are members of the Mafia?
Is that it?
Are flying saucers and alien abduction also featured in your proof?
Your “documented facts” are merely documented gossip”.
You and Ms. Engel must do better than this.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Fr Hesse Opus Dei
https://youtu.be/wnIj4bD2Dt0
30mins 55 secs
I would suggest for any who haven’t heard this talk before to listen to the full tape
Mr. Comerford,
Though a skeptical person could, in fairness, reserve judgment, your suggestion that Randy Engel’s exhaustive investigation and exposition if Opus Dei activities uamounts to “fiction” is unjust to the point of appearing malicious. Ms. Engel has done good Catholics a great service in exposing some extremely troubling history regarding this group which operates in such secrecy as to make the Freemasons envious, and all with the blessing of Rome. You have quite the gift for insult, sir, but not such a good grasp of honest debate .
Mr. Comerford,
You seem to be arguing from the false premise that Randy Engel claimed that Opus Dei has been convicted in criminal or civil court. Did you read her very well researched and argued articles?
The reason Opus Dei is a danger is precisely because it has NOT been exposed to criminal proceedings, in spite of its obviously suspicious conduct. When secret societies engage in the actions Ms. Engel has revealed, the public (in this case, Catholics) is at risk of being deceived and harmed. What kind of man are you, to imply that we should be kept in the dark? Why do you continue to suggest that it is improper for these articles to shine the light of truth in ANY direction? What is your interest here?
Very good point!
Irishpol, I’m not denigrating anyone, I’m just repeating exactly what he has said. It could be Pope A, B, or C. whats the diffeerence the bottom line is he clearly broke so-called principle of non-contradiction especially the time he used the phrase “on the other hand” where Pope C is openly and even blatantly admitting himself that he’s about to contradict what he just wrote in the previous sentence. There is nothing being taken out of context at all. There’s really no need to read, even though I did, the whole encyclical to understand that.
As far as the SSPX post notice all of their references defending “eens” were before Pope C’s 1854 (never heard of before) proclamation while all those defending “iins” or the possibility of salvation outside of the Church through i.i. were made after Pope C’s 1984 salvation through invincible ignorance statement.
Actually SSPX post only reinforces the exact same point I’m trying to make.
Lake Erie, Thank You and God bless you also. Amen!
Tom A, no the difference is I don’t believe we have authority to decide who is and isn’t the pope regardless of their heresies and I also disagree when you say there is a logical explanation for Pope C’s obvious “eens” contradiction, that he even admits when he states “ON THE OTHER HAND” anymore than neocats have “logical explanations” for Pope Francis’s contradictions against Church teachings.
They should FIGHT the cancer cells.
Well Johnjobilbee, if you believe that Pope Pius IX erred then you believe Vatican I erred and that is why you have no issue attending a NO mass. You have adopted modernism and the ambiguities it promotes. You have accepted an evolving ecclesiology and I have no idea why you are reading traditional blogs. Is it because you simply prefer the aesthetics of a traditional Mass? Do you beleive the essence of the NO is the same as the TLM? Have you accepted Ratzinger’s hermeunetic of continuity? The more you write, the more I see the modernist infection in your thoughts. You obfuscate issues when you imply I said I beleive we have “authority” to decide who is and isn’t Pope. If I don’t have “authority” to say who isn’t Pope, then you don’t have “authority” to say who is Pope. When we question a Pope’s legitimacy and validity we are making an objective judgment on externals. We are not denying the Papacy or the need to submit to the Pontiff, we are withholding our assent because we detect a contradiction that cannot be rectified. You have found that contradiction in the Church long before V2 while most trads/sede see it happening at V2. Your error is thinking that the Church can defect and err so much that it can then promote heresy. If you think that Pope Pius IX taught heresy, then the honest thing for you is to have nothing to do with the post V1 church, become a Feenyite sede and live according to a strict EENS dogma. Instead, you have compromised your beliefs for the sensory satisfaction of attending a well done NO on a daily basis with cloistered nuns.
Ms. pearl87:
Thank you for your reply. However you are quite mistaken.
You are indeed correct. Ms. Engel made no claims that Opus Dei had been a defendant in a civil, criminal or social services proceedings. And worldwide, over a 50-year period I can only find only such case. And not even a hint of scandal surrounds it chaste priests. A truly remarkable record. Sad that today it is so remarkable.
OTH if Ms. Engels accusations against Opus Dei were correct there would have been a host of secualr actions against it.
Contrary to your assertions Opus Dei is not a secret organization. Its leadership, funding, holdings and activities are a matter of public record.
Ms. Engel’s is merely reporting gossip and engaging in speculations. Gossip that originated with teh Communists during and in teh wake of Sapin’s terrible Civil War. Though in not as in such a entertainily a way as Dan Brown did with his albino Opus Dei monk – assassin.
Gossip is, objectively speaking, a sin against the 5th Commandment. Kindly pray for Ms. Engel’s conversion.
I will remember her intentions today at Holy Mass – as I will yours.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Ms. pearl87:
Thank you for your reply.
Ms. Engel’s IMO is engaging in gossip and rank speculation. Much of said gossip originated with the Communists during the Spanish Civil War. In doing so she is neither original nor entertaining.
IMO reading a good Dan Brown novel with Opus Dei albino assassins running around in it is a much better use of time.
Gossip is a sin – or so they tell me.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Sir ,your comments are too reminiscent of a previous commentator from another post, which is a good indication that you are one and the same person. I also question your veracity as a feigned attempt to prove your identity given the fact that most people in their right mind would not post their social security number on a public site, with or without a caveat.
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Thank you for your reply.
And it is, I think, evident from your reply that you, like Ms. Engel, think the worst of people.
It is a felony under the CFR for a party to both misuse a SSN and also for a party not to report an alleged misuse of a SSN. So you now have yourself in a bit of a pickle. I hope that you comply with the law on this matter.
And the blog owner can easily determine if I and your “previous commentator are one and the same or different parties. Why not ask him? But am sure that whoever he was he is handsome and charming!
As for SSN. If I were working a case I bet I could find, among other things, your legal name, SSN, all phone numbers and residential addresses associated with said name within 12-hours. There is no true anonymity on the internet anymore; or anywhere else for that matter. And a Christian cannot witness to Jesus Christ by hiding behind a false name while standing in the shadows.
But the real problem here is that I will not bow down and worship you and Ms. Engel. I consulted with Mr. Google. It appears that Ms. Engel has spent her life attacking Roman Catholics wielding the weapons of gossip, speculation and innuendo.
I will not worship false gods. I believe that there is a Commandment to that effect.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
The cancer analogy is misleading. In a cancer patient, there still exists much healthy tissue. In the “cancer stricken” conciliar church, where is the healthy tissue? No, this analogy, like most, explains nothing. If any analogy is appropriate it is that the Church is undergoing its Passion as did its Head, Christ. We are in Holy Saturday, where the Church appears dead and buried as we await its Resurrection. Man, during V2 crucified His Bride, the Church. The modernists buried Her with the New Mass, New sacraments, new canon law, new evangelization, new rosary, new saints, new cathecism, and new religion. They think they have killed the heir like the parable of the wicked tenants. What will the landowner do to those wicked tenants?
Mr C, It appears you and Mr Google are not very well acquainted.
If I were, “working on a case” OR researching for a book or article , I would certainly learn to use the translation tools “Mr Google” has to offer.
You may recall that a certain Opus Dei Bishop in Paraguay was removed by the Vatican for harboring the pederast Fr Urrutigoity even after he was warned by Bishop Martino of Scranton Diocese that the priest posed a serious threat to minors.
Orthodox Catholics there thought the Bishop to be everything you describe an opus dei priest to be too, until he took in Fr Urrutigoity and placed him in charge of an orphanage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/world/americas/francis-removes-bishop-livieres-under-cloud-in-paraguay.html
Dear Amateur Brain Surgeon,
Ms. Engel’s obsession with male homosexuality (note carefully, only male homosexuality) does not stop at smearing the late Cardinal de Val. If I remember correctly, she has also made similar allegations (based on hints, rumours, hearsay and so on) against a canonized Saint:
https://akacatholic.com/fallen-order-homosexual-pederasty-in-the-roman-catholic-church-part-i/
Now, if the above story was true, do you imagine how much mileage the LGBTQXYZ gang would be getting out of it? That itself should illustrate that it’s built on sand.
In the wilder corners of the Internet, they have a name for bored women who spend too much time writing pages and pages about their morbid fascination with male homosexuals: “yaoi fangirls”. They are generally held in opprobrium even in the secular Internet, and their “aka Catholic” counterparts deserve the same fate.
Dear Richard Comerford,
I agree.
There is far more _proven, legal_ evidence of misconduct among the EWTN “celebrity priest” cult than among Opus Dei.
While I am not a great fan or admirer of theirs, they should be critiqued on more valid considerations (such as possible doctrinal errors, the “cult of personality” around their founder, and turning a blind eye to heterodoxy in the Church while claiming the conservative label) rather than on tabloid journalism such as the article posted above.
It’s an “enemy of my enemy” thing.
Because Jones sees Judaism (or rather, a particular strain of it) as the enemy, he is willing to compromise with Islam. (Note that on his website, the articles critical of Islam are written by others, such as Robert Sungenis, and not him.)
This is an error, but then politics (even Internet Catholic gang warfare politics) is a swamp of error in the first place.
Another OD Bishop convicted of not reporting a perverted priest.
“Finn was convicted on one charge of failure to report child abuse in September 2012 and sentenced to two years of probation.”
Unlike the OD Bishop of Paraguay who was removed by the Vatican ,Bishop Finn resigned early.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/21/bishop-robert-finn-profile-sex-abuse-scandal/26117279/
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
RE: Fr Urrutigoity
Thank you for your reply.
Again it is, I think, evident from your reply that you, like Ms. Engel, think the worst of people. Also, like Ms. Engel’s you uncritically accept Marxist propaganda regarding Opus Dei.
Fr Urrutigoity has never been arrested, indicted, tried, convicted or sentenced in either a secular court or church court in either North or South America.
His Bishop, who apparently was connected to Opus Dei, was one of six in his home country and the only one who was not an open supporter of sodomy and Marxism. His seminary was the only functional one in said country, and it was full of vocations; and he wisely refused to allow candidates from the Marxist Bishops to enter it.
Our Holy Father Francis, who, IMO, is sympathetic to both sodomites and Marxists in the Church, fired the good Bishop when he refused to cooperate with the other 5-Marxist Bishops in his country. His diocese has reportedly since been overrun with the aforementioned sodomites and Marxists.
It is irresponsible to listen to Marxist propaganda which is really gossip. Gossip is a sin against the 5th Commandment.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Professor Q:
Thank you for your reply.
I really know little about Opus Dei. But I like the leper in the parable feel an obligation to come back and say thank you to our Lord. My efforts in this thread are motivated by about 7-priest connected to Opus Dei who over about a 50-year period have done great things for my family.
These Opus Dei priests were masculine, virtuous, intelligent and well educated. They stood in stark contrast (with certain heroic exceptions) to the mass of other priests I had met over the years. Hopefully my experience with other priests was unique.
Ina day and age where priestly scandal has sadly become the norm there is not even a hint of scandal surrounding the Opus Dei priests. Whatever the faults of Opus Dei, both real and imagined, this is truly a remarkable achievement.
An achievement ignored by Ms Engel and other gossips who swallow anti-Opus Dei propaganda originated in the Spanish Civil War @ 1937.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Good Monday morning johnjobilbee,
You had this to say,
“As far as the SSPX post notice all of their references defending “eens” were before Pope C’s 1854 (never heard of before) proclamation while all those defending “iins” or the possibility of salvation outside of the Church through i.i. were made after Pope C’s 1984 salvation through invincible ignorance statement.”.
You profoundly misstate precisely what the Holy Roman Pontiff, Blessed Pius IX, said in the Encyclical, “Quanto Conficiamur Moerore”, in paragraph 7, now quoted:’
“7. Here, too, our beloved sons and venerable brothers, it is again necessary to mention and censure a very grave error entrapping some Catholics who believe that it is possible to arrive at eternal salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity. Such belief is certainly opposed to Catholic teaching. There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.”
Nowhere did Blessed Pope Pius IX state that a person holds, “the possibility of salvation outside of the Church through i.i.”, as you blatantly write. You are actually as literally changing the words of the Holy Roman Pontiff, whether you know it or not. The precision of language and its interpretation as it is used is paramount. Your suggestion that one need not know the context of what the Holy Father infallibly proclaimed in this encyclical is utterly benighted. I pray this is not your intention because it serves your purpose. In the objective context, you are either receiving the “operation of error” to believe the lie as the Truth or you simply erred in your read of the Holy Roman Pontiff, Pius IX. Your response to this admonition as admonition will then speak as res ipsa loquitur.
What Blessed Pope Pius IX actually said, was that anyone, through no fault of their own,–as that is what “invincible ignorance” means–who lives according to the “natural law” inscribed on all human hearts and as thus is prepared to obey God, they live honest lives, and are able to attain eternal life, BY the efficacious virtue OF divine light and grace. Thus, what the Holy Father clearly DID NOT say, is that they “get to Heaven by ii”, rather what he indeed did say is that they “are able to attain eternal life” and this attainment, “by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace.”.
Lastly, as you write of “invincible ignorance” as, and to quote you, “(never heard of before)”, you are again either evidencing a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Holy Roman Pontiff, as the Vicar of Christ in this world, has the singular authority to do in union with his Bishops, and that being to define and teach the dogma of the Holy Catholic Church, or you are attempting to deceive. As the Holy Father defines and teaches, in union with his Bishops, and whether he is defining a new dogma or he is teaching an old one, he in union with his Bishops hold the charism of Ecclesiastical infallibility, period and end, as if not, the gates of hell prevail, with even one iota of error anywhere to be found in the Universal Magisterium. I pray this helps. In caritas.
Richard, the fact thay these OD priests are not effeminates or sodomites like their NO counterparts is no bearing on the subject. They are part of the conciliar church and it is for that reason they are to be avoided. I will let others argue their culpabity for the modernist takeover of conciliar church.
Again, good Monday morning, johnjobilbee,
For the purpose of your eternal salvation, johnjobilbee, and by extension that of every miserable human creature with myself as the first, it matters perfectly as infinitely NOT “what you believe”. All that matters is that “what anyone believes” is fully as actually in accord with what Holy Mother Church teaches infallibly. “Infallible” means “infallible”, as WITHOUT error, period and end. You don’t get to decide that the infallible Universal Magisterium can hold error, because our Blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, commanded that the Universal Magisterium CANNOT hold error, as to err one iota, is to fall to the gates of hell, period and end. Further, neither you nor any other perfectly miserable human creature gets to decide, that because there is error in what is PURPORTED to be the Universal Magisterium, that we can now “pick and choose” what is error and what is truth. That is a diabolical minefield taking souls to an eternity in hell. That is a metaphysical absurdity that causes the very cosmos to shudder, as it suggests that each of us holds a charism of infallibility. That diabolically disoriented ideological position of “Recognize and Resist” in and of itself, demonstrates from an ipso facto recognition, that any miserable human creature who holds that same position, also holds the “operation of error”, of which Saint Paul inerrantly writes, and which is the cause of the Great Apostasy in our very midst. I pray this helps. In caritas.
Mr. sweepoutthefilth
Archbishop Finn
Thank you for your reply.
You are quite wrong. Again you, like, Ms. Engel, fall for Marxist, anti-Opus Dei propaganda.
Finn was persecuted by an openly militant anti-Christian DA who, in turn, was aided by the Marxist National Catholic Reporter whichias located in Finn’s Diocese.
Finn was not convicted of failing to report a predatory priest, a priest who served under the previous Ordinary but of allegedly delaying the report – a whole 3-weeks.
In fact Finn’s Chancellor reported the alleged predator to the PD in a timely manner who told said chancellor that the allege crime was not an offense.
The authorities soon reversed themselves when they realized that they could get rid of Finn, again urged on by the Marxist NCR.
You and Ms Engel are a great aid to international communism.
Gossip is a sin.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. Tom A:
Thank you for your reply.
I have no idea what you mean by “conciliar church”. You are getting into matters way beyond my knowledge – limited as it is. Again, I am motivated like the leper in the parable by a sense of gratitude towards these priests, on of whom (now deceased) i regarded as a living Saint.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr C, ……and Sodomy is one of the sins that cries out to Heaven for vengeance. Pedophile sodomite rape is even more abhorent . This is what motivates Mrs Engel’s well documented ,”gossip”, as you refer to it. It is also a well known tool of the Marxists ,you seem to endlessly refer to. It is they sir, who ,according to the testimony of Bella Dodd, who by 1939 planted over one thousand CPUSA homosexuals into our seminaries. Bishop Sheen who oversaw her conversion would not allow her to make the names public, according Dr Alice von Hildebrand , in order to avoid scandal.
Perhaps sir, if the late Bishop Sheen and his confreres actually did something to remove these maggots ,the Catholic Church would not be swimming in the cesspool of filth we are in today ?
By your rational Our Lady of Good Success ,Revelation , LaSalette and Fatima
just engaged in gossip.
Few men of the cloth who have heard Her warnings have done nothing to change the fate of countless children and their families. Exceptions include the priests who blow the whistle on other priests who groom and sexually abuse children. Poor Fr Gallagher in Pal Bch Cty ,was accused of “gossip” by his Bishop for reporting a pederast priest in his rectory , along with Fr Haley of VA and countless others including two priest friends I personally knew. All were punished for engaging in “gossip” despite the fact that the evidence proved them to be correct, they were never publicly apologized to or thanked by their Bishops.
May God Bless and Enlighten your thinking as you post to others what is and is not Sinful.
Bishop Finn, like so many others, have protected the pederast sodomites within their own ranks by not reporting them to the lawful authorities.
As far as OD priests, well sir , in the grand scheme of the organization there are barely 2000 of them throughout the world because Escriva did not see his movement as financially successful through the priesthood and stated so,
As far as legal action against Opus Dei members , Supernumeraries are not so much of a concern ( if you ignore OD communist spy Hanssen as a prime example of politics mixing into OD ) as are the plight of numeraries and numerary assistants and the youth they recruit ,which prompted Bishop Hume to issue guidelines to them .
Opus Dei Hanssen was the worst Communist spy in US history . Might I remind you he confessed to an Opus Dei priest ? Did he advise him to save the lives of the Americans he ratted out who were murdered in soviet Russia? No, according to his testimony ,he just told him to donate some of his most recent payoffs from the communists to a charity.
Mr Comerford , As far as your accusation aiding international communism, YOU might want to reflect on the fact that Dodd testified she answered to four or five Communist Party Cardinals IN THE VATICAN in 1939. The think about who was most recently elected to the Papacy !
I was sent a copy of Dodd’s testimony by Dr von Hildebrand around the same time Toby Westerman received his own copy. Mine had a post it note attached that explained ONLY homosexual Part members would take the assignment.
“In an exclusive interview with INA Today, Catholic philosopher Dr. Alice von Hildebrand confirmed that Dodd had made the remarks, and provided the affidavit from Paul and Johnine Leininger, who witnessed Dodd making the public statements.”
This could very well explain why the Prelates took the position to NOT report
pedophiles among their ranks , could it not?
“When contacted by INA Today, Mrs. Johnine Leininger stated that there were others who could also verify that Dodd made the statements regarding infiltration into Catholic seminaries. ”
http://www.inatoday.com/20030728.htm
Again I remind you the Communist Party bosses Dodd said she answered to were four or five Communist Cardinals ALREADY in the Vatican in 1939 !!! Also, several Popes prior to Pope John Paul 2 refused Escriva’s requests for his Movement.
The hour is late, Mrs Engel is NOT a “gossip” she documents her research extremely well.
Pope John Paul 2 worked with Opus Dei and the CIA to fund Walesa and his Solidarity Movement. You might REFLECT as to why, since Walesa himself was a communist agent.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/18/467209160/polish-institute-files-show-lech-walesa-worked-with-communist-era-secret-police
Mr Comerford , As far as your accusation aiding international communism, YOU might want to reflect on the fact that Dodd testified she answered to four or five Communist Party Cardinals IN THE VATICAN in 1939. Then think about who was most recently elected to the Papacy !
I was sent a copy of Dodd’s testimony by Dr von Hildebrand around the same time Toby Westerman received his own copy. Mine had a post it note attached that explained ONLY homosexual Part members would take the assignment.
“In an exclusive interview with INA Today, Catholic philosopher Dr. Alice von Hildebrand confirmed that Dodd had made the remarks, and provided the affidavit from Paul and Johnine Leininger, who witnessed Dodd making the public statements.”
This could very well explain why the Prelates took the position to NOT report
pedophiles among their ranks , could it not?
“When contacted by INA Today, Mrs. Johnine Leininger stated that there were others who could also verify that Dodd made the statements regarding infiltration into Catholic seminaries. ”
http://www.inatoday.com/20030728.htm
Again I remind you the Communist Party bosses Dodd said she answered to were four or five Communist Cardinals ALREADY in the Vatican in 1939 !!! Also, several Popes prior to Pope John Paul 2 refused Escriva’s requests for his Movement.
The hour is late, Mrs Engel is NOT a “gossip” she documents her research extremely well.
Pope John Paul 2 worked with Opus Dei and the CIA to fund Walesa and his Solidarity Movement. You might REFLECT as to why, since Walesa himself was a communist agent.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/18/467209160/polish-institute-files-show-lech-walesa-worked-with-communist-era-secret-police
A post script to the link on Walesa above. Since the time it was first discovered Walesa worked as a communist agent in 2008, the historians in Poland have become convinced it was fact. now Prosecutors are debating as to whether or not to file charges against him for perjury in denying the allegations.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35602437
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2107907/polish-prosecutors-probe-whether-democracy-icon-lech-walesa-gave
Communist Internationalists spread Marxism throughout the world with the Fake Fall of Communism just as Our Lady warned at Fatima.
All one had to do was look at the CPUSA website supporting Bernie Sanders during our last election and see the organizations funded by Soros today.
Mr. sweepoutthefilth
Archbishop Finn-2
Thank you for your reply.
Name one.
And the Court disagrees with you. The Court found that Finn delayed reporting that a priest, from the previous administration, had allegedly been caught with alleged child porn on his personal computer. However said computer has disappeared and only one person who saw the alleged child porn and he was not available for disposition. Funny that.
You like Ms. Engel are merely reporting gossip.
Lenin called folks who swallowed Marxist propoganda “useful idiots”.
Gossip is a sinj.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. sweepoutthefilthout
Thank you for your reply.
And you and Ms. Engel are merely repeating what originated as Communist Propoganda @ 1937.
You like Ms. Engel are merely reporting gossip.
Lenin called folks who swallowed Marxist propaganda “useful idiots”.
Gossip is a sin.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. sweepoutthefilthout:
The judicial system in Poland has remained in Communist hands. The Christian Polish government has started cleaning out Marxists. The EU recently rebuked Poland for throwing Marxists out of the Judicial system.
I will reserve judgement on this matter until anti-Communist officials review this matter.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr C, Walesa’s one time friend, a real Catholic, succeeded him to the Presidency. He died in a plane crash outside of Moscow with his entire Cabinet. Before he died he publicly stated he had wondered why Walesa assigned all the communists from the previous communist controlled government into the same positions in his newly formed democratic one. He also stated Walesa is and was a communist informant.
In turn ,Walesa told the media,”Someone needs to shut him up.”
The President of Poland’s family believes Moscow took Walesa up on his cue and that was in all the Polish media, as was Walesa’s praise of Barak Obama .
France lost it’s Monarchial system while the Kings “reserved their judgement” on what Our Lord instructed St Margaret Mary woo years prior.
Reserve your judgement Mr C, while you attack the messengers , Rome burns and communism spreads it errors all over the world.
BTW….Mrs Engel and Fr Paul Marx were the first real Pro Life voices out there, while Bishop James T McHugh ( the Vatican’s worst choice)
made deals with his friend Mary Calderone of Siecus and the March of Dimes for aborted fetal tissue. Have you reserved your judgement on abortion too sir?
You remind me way too much of Bill Donahue of the Catholic League.
Mr. sweepoutthefilthout:
Thank you for your reply.
You are rambling. Jumping from one lurid topic to another. Engaging in speculation. Spreading gossip. Very much, IMO, like Ms. Engel. But unlike Ms. Engel you are just another anonymous party on the internet. Who, in their right mind, is going to be influenced to convert to Christ by an anonymous, internet crank?
What party searching for Christ is going to be moved to join the one, true, catholic and apostolic faith by either your own or Ms. Engel’s ramblings? Indeed from what I have seen of Ms. Engel’s via Mr. Google she appears to have spent her life publicly attacking Roman Catholics.
I return to my original topic. Opus Dei produces priests who are masculine, virtuous, intelligent and educated. And this in an age where all too many Catholic priests and Bishops appear to be effeminate, lacking in virtue and poorly educated in the faith.
About seven of these priests, over roughly the past 50-years, have done good, indeed great, things for my family. And like the leper in the parable I return to say thank you in gratitude.
What good does endless gossiping do?
Kindly reflect.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Yes Richard, they produce men with all those qualities, but they produce men who think the Novus Ordo and V2 are Catholic. Of course you will find all the criticism the readers have made about OD discomforting because you too have received the operation of error so often spoken here and by St Paul. You admitted in a previous post that you did not know of the “conciliar” church. I suggest you research that topic for a few months. I make no defense here of the author and do not have any opinion on OD. I only state that they are part of the conciliar church and to be avoided if you claim the Catholic faith as professed prior to the modernist revolution. OD is very much a part of that revolution and as such it along with the entire conciliar structure stands condemned by Pope St Pius X and the True Catholic Magestrium.
Dear Professor Q
Thanks for the tip and link and your comments are as revealings as they are apt
What n earth are you doing Mt. Comerford – posting your SSN?
Jones was right in what he wrote about Fellay and the long-winded response merely befogged the war of words.
Here is the money quote from Fellay – who, BTW, is a vagus Bishop, the kind denounced at Trent.
So when we [the SSPX] deal with having relation with them, we don’t want to have any kind of relation with the cancer. Of course, if you have relation with cancer, you may receive the cancer.
This is just the warm smell of freshly baked Donatism – a schism that refuses communion with we wicked and disease filled catholics.
Well, at least he didn’t claim we had catechetical cooties…..
In light of the charge made against me by Mr. Comerford that I have “spent my life attacking Roman Catholics …” and to give sweepoutthefilth a well-earned respite, I’m posting a short biography which in addition to answering the mud-slinging charges made against me, will give the readers a chance to know my background as an AKA contributor. My thanks also to the many AKA readers who have signed up to receive my monthly OD Watch monthly e-mails which begin in November 2017. God bless, Randy Engel
Biography:
Of Italian and Portuguese descent, Randy Engel is a native New Yorker and one of the nation’s top investigative reporters. She began her journalistic career shortly after her graduation from the University of New York at Cortland in 1961. A specialist in Vietnamese history and folklore, in 1963, she became the editor of The Vietnam Journal, the official publication of the Vietnam Refugee and Information Services, a national relief program in South Vietnam for war refugees and orphans based in Dayton, Ohio. She recorded for the Voice of America and Radio Saigon. In 1970, she received the Distinguished Service Medal for “exceptional and meritorious service to South Vietnam.”
In addition to her writings and relief work on behalf of the VRIS, in the mid-1960s, Randy Engel developed an intense interest in pro-life issues including population control, abortion and eugenics, putting her on the ground floor of the emerging Pro-Life Movement. In 1972, she founded the U.S. Coalition for Life in Pittsburgh, PA., an international pro-life research and investigative agency, and began editing the USCL’s official publication, the Pro-Life Reporter. Her four-year study on the eugenic policies and programs of the March of Dimes titled “Who Will Defend Michael?” quickly put the USCL on the map as the finest pro-life research agency in the U.S.
Her investigative findings documenting the rise of the federal government’s anti-life programs at home and abroad served as the basis for her testimony before Congressional hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Randy Engel’s groundbreaking investigative findings related to US/AID abortion and sterilization programs in Latin and South America, Asia and Africa were instrumental in bringing about major pro-life changes in the Agency for International Development’s foreign assistance programs.
Many of her original research publications for the USCL including “A March of Dimes Primer – the A-Z of Eugenic Abortion,” and “The Pathfinder Fund – A Study of US/AID Anti-Life Funding” remain pro-life classics and continue to enjoy wide circulation.
In 1978, Randy Engel co-founded with Dr. Jerome Lejeune of the University of Paris the International Foundation for Genetic Research, popularly known as The Michael Fund. As the Executive Director of the IFGR for more than 40 years, she raised funds for truly therapeutic Down Syndrome research and spoke out in defense of the right-to-life of all handicapped pre-born children.
In 1995, the veteran pro-life researcher exposed the long-standing eugenic abortion record of Dr. Henry Foster, President Bill Clinton’s nominee for U.S. Surgeon General, resulting in the Senate’s failure to approve the nomination.
Sex Education – The Final Plague, Randy Engel’s first full-length book on the sexual conditioning of Catholic school children was published by Human Life International (Baltimore, MD) in 1989 and later by Tan Publishers (Rockville, IL). Her second book, The McHugh Chronicles – Who Betrayed the Pro-Life Movement? was published in 1997, while she continued to gather researching material and conduct interviews for The Rite of Sodomy.
Over the last fifty years, Randy Engel’s articles, have appeared in numerous Catholic publications including Liguorian Magazine, Our Sunday Visitor, The Wanderer, Catholic Family News and the Homiletic and Pastoral Review. She has received numerous awards for excellence in investigative journalism including the prestigious Linacre Quarterly Award for Distinguished Writing by the Catholic Medical Association.
Meticulous documentation and references and easy readability are the hallmarks of Randy Engel’s investigative writings, and The Rite of Sodomy – Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church is no exception to the rule. The 1,318-page five volume set contains over 3000 endnotes, a bibliography of over 350 books, is fully indexed and reads like a top-flight mystery thriller – except that it is not fiction – it is true.
Speaking of mysteries, Randy Engel’s latest book is Marrano, a murder thriller which takes place in the Vatican and in the Bronx, New York.
A traditional Roman Catholic, Randy Engel continues to write on the subjects she knows best including Opus Dei, vital organ transplantation, and clerical sex abuse of minors and vulnerable adults. She is currently working on two new books on Paul VI’s ill-fated Birth Control Commission and A Catholic Guide to Population Control.
Dear Randy,
Thank you for providing this information even though it was not necessary for most of us who visit this site.
May God continue to bless all you do.
Thank you, Louie, for including Randy as a Guest Contributor.
Mr. Tom A:
Thank you for your reply.
You are getting into matters that are beyond me. But Christ did not divide His Church into groups. And the Roman Catholic Church is not the Church of Later Day Saints; but of present day sinners.
There is always a crisis.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Ms. Engel:
An that is the problem.
You misquoted me in part. “spent my life attacking Roman Catholics …”
I actually wrote in part: “she appears to have spent her life publicly attacking Roman Catholics.”
Any gumshoe, never mind a lawyer, would not deliberately misuse quotations marks. The misuse of quotation marks is a sign of an amateur, an incompetent or a deceiver.
And Mr. Google has one link after another of you publicly attacking Roman Catholics.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
In caritas, your arguing sematics and splitting hairs. The bottom line is that he contradicts himself in the par.7 you posted when in the first sentence he states there is no salvation outside of the Church, even condemns it as a grave error, than, in the very next sentence and words, its quite comical actually even it wasn’t so serious, he himself commits the grave error that he just condemned by stating “There are, of course, THOSE” THOSE meaning THOSE who are outside of the Catholic Church CAN gain eternal salvation. So regardless of which sentimentalist way, i.i. or not, bottom line you still are claiming one can gain salvation outside of the Church which is a clear and obvious contradiction of “eens.” How does that not break the so-called “principle of noncontradiction” you always talk about, something can’t BE and NOT BE at the same time, so you didn’t and actually can’t prove he didn’t contradict himself no matter how long your response because you can’t do the impossible. God Bless. And again I’ll say it was never taught before 1854 in the Church by anyone that outside of the Church one can gain salvation, , in fact, which the whole point is the exact opposite was always taught.
It also seems In Caritas and Tom A both play the old switcharooni trick : If it’s a Pope they like and helps support sedevacatism they can say well, the Pope can’t teach error (PPIX) so he couldn’t be teaching error but with VII popes they say opposite or they’re teaching error so they can’t be the Pope.
Dearest johnjobilbee,
You are warned. Your very eternal salvation, as mine and every other miserable human creature’s, depends upon our submission into the infallible teaching of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, as defined and taught by the true Vicar of Christ in union with his Bishops, deFide, period and end. To reject this places you outside the Church in schism, where there is no salvation, deFide. Our Blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, commanded in Luke 22: 31,32 that Peter cannot ever lose the Faith, which means he cannot ever err, that is never commit heresy, in matters deFide, period and end. To suggest otherwise is a direct contradiction of the Word of God Himself. I pray you receive the Truth, as He is the Son of God, made Man. In caritas.
In Caritas, remember it’s faith and REASON, so why I’m Catholic to begin with is because it all made sense so to not question something when it doesn’t make sense doesn’t make sense and as far as I’m concerned will make one a bad Catholic. I want to find answers and right now not easy but we already know this time would come because it was prophesized in Bible. You may be one in danger for not accepting the Church’s appointment of Popes based on your own individual authority which I never heard of anyone doing before in all history of Church.
St Thomas used the term in his Summa and even Origen discussed the concept in the 3rd Century. Neither of them were ever condemned for it and Pius IX simply defined the term as is his right at Supreme Pontiff. We are bound to believe it and accept it as truth. If you beleive that Paul VI was a true Pope then you are bound to believe all the V2 ambiguities and accept subjectivism. To refuse submission to the Holy Father is schism. There simply is no switcheroo. II does not contradict EENS because both are declarations on the subjective. The Good Thief was never a member of any Catholic parish yet we are assured that he enjoys the beatific vision. It was his internal assent to Christ prior to death that placed him in a state of grace prior to Church. Those in a state of grace at the moment of death are able to attain salvation. What you are really arguing about is whether a soul can attain a state of grace without the visible sacraments of the Church. Christ, being High Priest surely can administer His Sacraments to Whom He pleases. If one adopts a Feeneyite outlook, one would deny the salvation of the Holy Innocents, the Good Thief, the Prophets, and even St Joseph.
Mr. Tom A, really my point isn’t even really about i.i. , even though only 2 drs. of church and no popes, as far as I know, have even used the words so that would hardly qualify as something the Church has always taught, but it’s really about PPIX declaring in 1854 that there WAS salvation outside of the Church even though in sentence directly preceding it he said it was a grave error and against Catholic teaching. But imo he just happened to use i.i. as the excuse for it. Whatever, you haven’t and probably wont change my mind and vice versa. God Bless
I’d say I agree with about 99% of your comments but obviously not 100%.
Mr C, There are Roman Catholics and there are Roamen Katholics.
The latter does not seem to know what his or her role as a Faithful Catholic seems to be.
St Vincent Lerins provides excellent guidelines.
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/05/the-commonitory-of-st-vincent-of-lerins/
I see no difference between the ex opus dei members publicizing their experience and mrs Engel sounding the alarm than I do of the ex Legion and Regnum Christi doing the same.
Praise God for the latter because without them the cancer of abuses of Maciel’ s followers would never have changed. In fact ,it would eventually infested the entire institution. as it is, continuing scandals
are occurring all over the world simply because it was not disbanded.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-10-07/rector-of-legion-run-seminary-leaving-after-fathering-2-kids
Priests have lost the Faith and children have been sorely scandalized.
i see Mrs Engel as a Faithful Catholic just as i view the ex Legion adherents who continue to sound an alarm for those who are vulnerable and those sitting in high places blinded by the money these groups bring into the Vatican.
Catholicism is based on Scripture and Tradition ( Theology 101) not on fortune.
Very FEW priests globally belong to OD.
Thousands of cooperators , numerary associates ( slave workers) and Numerary professionals who turn over their paycheck to the business and are neither a Religious or married, not to mention Super Numerarys , especially politicians , who sign on for the purpose of influence, power and career contacts with the same motivations as Freemasons.
Santorem, Gingrich and Ryan come to mind.
A sad innovation for the Catholic Church in order to provide a foundation for endless financial and political influence the world on the flagellated backs of the laity.
Mr C………..hardly a difference as the purpose of your statement is the same.
“Seems” and “does” are no more than an exercise in legal semantics as are words like “alleges” and “appears” , the effect is no different.
Your purpose is to discredit a great Catholic and author in favor of a group founded by a man whose path to sainthood was marred by Vatican shananigins that included doing away with the time honored position of the Devil’s Advocate so that all the evidence in and of Escriva’s life Could Not be presented .
…….Now sir, THAT was NOT CATHOLIC
Mr Comerford ,
“Pray more attack less”?
How about , Pray more and stop lying as you have in your above comment? You sir ,accuse yourself when one looks back on your comments . You just stated above,” I actually wrote in part: “she appears to have spent her life publicly attacking Roman Catholics.”
Multiple times you have accused Mrs Engel in full , not “…in part”, of attacking Roman Catholics.
YOU ARE A Liar and a TROLL Mr Cunmerford .
From Your various posts….
“Mr. my2cents:
Does Opus Dei hide the identities of its leadership? Does it hide the locations of its schools, centers and institutions? Does it hide its money from the IRS? Does it hide the number of its priests? Does it hide the number of its members?
And why do you hide behind a false name?
And where does Ms. Engel get her funding to publicly attack on a full time basis Roman Catholics?
Kindly reflect.”
and in another comment you write,
“And Mr. Google has one link after another of you publicly attacking Roman Catholics.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford”
Mr Comerford ,
Do you troll the Internet looking for the opportunity to discredit Mrs Engel’s authorship? Why?
Is that you are angry she has exposed the truth about someone or some group that makes you feel special to know or be a part of ?
How do you explain your nonsense disparaging comment in the post above, while your other posts negate what you just said exposing you as a liar?
Sweepoutthefilth–I would like to add another comment to your great comments above:
Those who overuse, misuse or abuse the word “kindly” usually are not KIND.
Mr. sweepoutthefilthout:
Thank you for your reply.
You posted in part: “Very FEW priests globally belong to OD”
And Christ started with twelve.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. sweepoutthefilthout:
Thank you for your reply.
Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ are two different organizations.
The Opus Dei priests have a justified reputation for chastity. The Legion priests, sadly, do not.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Good Wednesday morning Tom A,
Forgive me as I recall our previous discussion in light of your comment here. Your explanation to johnjobilbee is the same reason why “Quo Primum” must be submitted to as an infallible teaching of the Holy Roman Pontiff in union with his Bishops. Recalling also that this work which “Quo Primum” reflects, was done at the behest of the Council of Trent. We don’t get to pick and choose the charism of Ecclesiastical infallibility. Christ commanded Peter’s faith fail not in Luke 22: 31,32, period and end. That means he cannot hold a position contrary to any teaching deFide or divine which the Church holds. We are living the Great Apostasy as I sense you know Tom A. The time when the reception of the, “operation of error”, is by its very nature the actual cause of the Apostasy itself, which we find in our midst, as the Holy Writ commanded would come to pass. Christ our Lord and Savior admonished His disciples for not knowing the signs of the times and thus we are commanded to know them. It remains evident this, “operation of error”, in our very discussions here as right reason is subjugated to the passions as, “my opinion”, of oh’ so many souls. In caritas.
Mr. sweepoutthefilthout:
Thank you for your reply.
You are quite wrong. The misuse of quotation marks is a huge mistake. A mistake a competent investigator simply would not make. It is also a matter of bearing false witness.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. sweepoutthefilthout:
Thank you for your reply.
Again The misuse of quotation marks is a huge mistake. It is almost inconceivable for a party who claims to be a professional investigator. And as mentioned above it is also a matter of bearing false witness.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. sweepoutthefilthout:
Again The misuse of quotation marks is a huge mistake. It is almost inconceivable for a party who claims to be a professional investigator. And as mentioned above it is also a matter of bearing false witness.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
my2cents
The word “kindly” comes, admittedly, from a different time in America. A time when Catholics did not waste their lives in endless public attacks on other Catholics.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Give it up Mr C,
You already shed your mask when you said you have known 7 opus dei priests . In the Prelature the last I looked,, they claim only 1800.
For you to know 7 , it “seems” like you are a member of Opus Dei yourself, but don’t bother denying it because it is well known members are told to use lies as a “Shield” and I do not want to be the cause of anymore of your sins of detraction and motivation to lie in print.
Jesus Christ is the Truth and the Light,
Love Truth, and then pray more and attack less !
May God have mercy on you because you know not what you do.
Wrong sir, the Legion Founder and his priests had a stellar reputation for chastity , something they propagandized even after it was well known what Maciel had been doing. The Legion continued to hold up Maciel as a martyr and a saint in order to counter the reports that poured out from his victims into the public sphere. They forbid their members to read the media reports and testimonials from his children and other victims.
Now you follow the same pattern of attacking the messengers. Thank God we have courageous Roman Catholic intellects like Mrs Engel ,willing to give them a voice.
The Truth wins out in the end.
You claim the some have thrown mud at you but you did not identify what it is that is the mud.
ABS claimed you sinned by rumor-mongering about Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val being a sodomite and there was no response.
ABS claimed you were mistaken that The Cardinal was a supporter of Rampolla when it seems that was not the case;
The choice had been made from a pool of three names. The two rejected candidates were the substitute at the secretariat of state, Giacomo Della Chiesa, the future Benedict XV, and Pietro Gasparri, who was then the secretary for extraordinary ecclesiastical affairs. The preference shown to the youngest and least experienced of the three was interpreted as the first defeat of the Rampolla coalition, and a foreshadowing of what would happen at the conclave.
You claim that Dr Jones misquoted Vagus Bishop Fellay re why he and the sspx refuses communion with the church when that is the clear meaning of what Fellay said;
So when we [the SSPX] deal with having relation with them, we don’t want to have any kind of relation with the cancer. Of course, if you have relation with cancer, you may receive the cancer.
Your response was to call all who oppose your claims mudslingers and you refuse to address specific complaints about your work but, rather, publish your accomplishments.
Odd……
Mr. Amateur Brain Surgeon:
Thank you for your reply.
Why? If they had due, legal cause my young, computer expert, fellow gumshoes I expect could come up with your SSN in about 12-24 hours.
More importantly one cannot witness to Jesus Christ by anonymously lurking in the shadows.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. sweepoutthefilthout:
Thank you for your reply.
As mentioned above (and you forgot the 50-year number. You and Ms. Engle appear to share the same disdain for facts and accuracy) for about a 50-year period I have known about 7-priests in or associated with Opus Dei do good things for my family. Right now I am in contact with three diocesan priests who are also associated with Opus Dei. These masculine and virtuous priests are involved in youth activities. Of the other four one I met at a retreat @ 1970. Two more priests also associated with Opus Dei I met decades ago again in youth activities. And the last one, number seven, says a most beautiful Christmas Mass which I have been privileged to attend for several years.
And your mask now slips. You, like Ms. Engel appear to think the very worse of people. You, the anonymous internet party, further appear obsessed with conspiracy theories.
How many souls will you save for Christ by lurking in the shadows whining about all the bad, bad, bad Roman Catholic men out there?
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Ms. sweepoutthefilthout:
Thank you for your reply.
You posted in part: ” the Legion Founder and his priests had a stellar reputation for chastity”
No. Not true. A group of Mexican former Legionaries for decades, under oath, maintained that the Legion priests had abused them. Heroic guys. And Benedict believed them.
Nothing like that regarding Opus Dei priests. Quite the opposite.
When you turn Randy Engel into your goddess; and also turn conspiracy theory into your religion, you quickly loose perspective.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Wrong! The Vatican knew since the fifties when Jose Barba and his fellow seminarians first blew the whistle to “attack Roman Catholics” , as you like to say. The public did not find out till Gerald Renner wrote a piece in the Hartford Current. It was Mr Renner whose hand Cardinal Ratzinger slapped when he approached him Rome asking if he would act on the matter. The public and the adherents were believed these were all very holy priests and the Founder was a living saint.
No one here has accused OD priests of pederasty. The point has been made that this is a secretive cult that recruits teens ( it is known as whistling) to join opus dei as numeraries or numerary assistants and to keep it from their parents or guardians until they are prepared to leave home and move into an opus dei house.Afterwards they are allowed limited contact and their mail is read.
CULT behavior .
Ms. sweepoutthefilthout:
Thank you for your reply.
Sorry. I and many others were warned of the Legion and made aware of the ex-Legion members from Mexico long before the Hartford Current article.
My Ant joined the convent when she was 15. Rarely seen afterwards.
An old friend joined the USMC when he was 17. Rarely seen afterwards.
I went in at 18. I was a young Army Special Forces soldier. I would disappear for 6-9 months at a time.
The point is that any organization with a mission is going to demand time, effort and sacrifice from its members.
You, an annpnymous internet party appear to have made Opus Dei conspiracy theory into your religion with randy engel as your goddess.
Time to turn back to Christ and Catholicism.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
One more thing Mr C,
Re: considering Randy a “goddess.”
FYI , I have known Mrs Engel personally for almost three decades . Along with countless good priests and and thousands of other Faithful Roman Catholics who love the Faith , I know without a doubt that she investigates and documents in fully and honestly every single concern and breach of Faith and Morals that are brought to her attention. In particular, her concerns for the Catholic youth and the future generations of Catholic Faithful are beyond reproach.
Mr Comerford it is you who stoops to calling people names and attacking Catholics.
Your attempt to discredit this woman through innuendo and zero fact is disgusting Is that what opus dei priests have taught you?
Mr C, being that you are an older man, perhaps you did not notice that even the Vatican has acknowledged that today’s youth living in a more complicated world and are experiencing a prolonged adolescence . That is why they have closed Junior Seminaries . The youth that are recruited into opus dei houses as numeraries and numerary assistants are not recruited into a Religious Order. They are recruited as slave wage earners into a communal life to support a business and are cut off from family and friends.
My aunt and dear friend now in her seventies were both nuns. Their mail was not read and they were free to contact their family and arrange to visit at anytime.
The cost for member funerals were covered by the Order.Opus Dei is not an Order of religious persons, it is an anomaly of the post Conciliar Church and harms families as does the Legion when they recruited youth into their boarding schools.
Furthermore , the truth about the Legion of Christ did not appear anywhere in print prior to Renner’s initial investigation ( except in the CDF files) aside from one small post from an article in a CA newspaper recording the deathbed account of one of the former original seminarians of Maciel’s, a Fr Fernandez , who left the Order decades before his death.
Maybe it is time for you to turn back to Jesus Christ and his truth which is Catholicism and as I knew it ,condemns lies.
Good bye, sir
Ms. sweepoutthefilthout:
Thank you for your reply.
My experience with Opus Dei priests or diocesan priest associated with Opus Dei over the past 50-years or so was mostly in youth activities where they encouraged all to strive to be Saints. World wide there is neither a single criminal nor civil action wherein an Opus Dei priest has been named as a defendant either as a sexual predator or as a slaver. Not one in 80-years or so.
Randy Engel is, IMO, a professional gossip. Her targets IMO always appear to be Roman Catholics. Her attacks on Opus Dei are, IMO, based on Marxist propaganda from the Spanish Civil War @ 1937.
I think she has built a cult like following that is essentially anti-Roman Catholic.
Roman Catholics should venerate Our Lady. Not Randy Engel.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Ms. sweepoutthefilthout:
Thank you for your reply.
If you or Ms. Engel accuse Opsu Dei priests of being slavers then you must explain the dearth of criminal, civil and social worker action over the past 80-years or so. There has been exactly one action and it did not name Opus Dei priests as defendants. After what appears to be a 13-year process the Court found the defendants not guilty.
Neither have the Opus Dei priests ever been named as defendants in a civil action wherein they were accused of being sexual predators.
This is a remarkable, remarkable record. Opus Dei must be doing something right.
Yet you and Randy Engel continue in what appears to me to be a cult like attack on Opus Dei.
Time, I think, to find a new hobby.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Congratulations, Mrs. Randy Engel, for another superb and timely exposé of Opus Dei and its tangled web of financial sleight of hand and labyrinthine concealment of where it keeps its monies. As for Mr. Comerford, a few observations:
Whether Mr. Comerford is a troll or a layman, who is intellectually challenged when it comes to the decades-long Conciliar Revolution inside of the Catholic Church, the rest of us may wish to concede to him that in the midst of the Modernist subversion and resulting dearth of spiritual direction he enjoyed the counsel of Opus Dei confessors. For the last 60 years all practicing Catholics have had to do violence to themselves to seek out Catholic priests to receive the Sacraments, especially the Sacrament of Confession.
The large elephant in the room in the exchanges between Mr. Comerford and his interlocutors are not whether he suspects you, Mrs. Randy Engel, of circulating “documented gossip” or repeating 1937 criticisms first mouthed by the Reds in the Spanish Civil War (all of which are canned repartees out of the Opus Dei playbook), but rather his willful or feigned acceptance of the dialectical crises inside of the Catholic Church resulting directly from the openly avowed acceptance by Opus Dei of the Modern World in its anti-Catholic manifestations. According to Mr. Comerford, these crises are always with us.
Mr. Comerford exhibits in his mantra-like repetition of the same tired defenses of Opus Dei a Quietist penchant for self-absorption in his own spiritual life under the cover of the Prelature. This narcissistic focus inside of Opus Dei is such that the members and supporters cannot pray the Our Father and mean the words that they are directing to God the Father. Why is that ??
Specifically, over the last five decades, Catholic laymen have repeatedly invited Opus Dei members and supporters to join with them in opposing the always disordered and perverse introduction of erotic seduction into Catholic and public school classrooms. Pornography in the classroom was just a metastasis of the larger Luciferian agenda to destroy the Family through institutionalization of divorce and remarriage, legalization of the blasphemy of contraception, the propagation of eugenics to demographically cull populations, the constant drumbeat of Feminism as the cutting edge for the Revolution inside of the Catholic Church, the normalization of pornography as culturally acceptable literature within international culture, the promotion of homosexuality among all biological sexes and ages, etc., etc. Invariably, the answer from the Opus Dei crowd has been that Opus Dei does not require its members to witness for Christ in the public order, their only obligation is to cultivate their own spiritual lives inside the clerical umbrella of the Prelature.
The tendency among the scandalized Catholic laity is to cite former Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum as the most embarrassing example of the Opus Dei affiliated Quietists, he was for Planned Parenthood before he was against it; his stumbling and mumbling all over himself in trying to verbalize his position on tax-funded government contraception programs was pathetic. And all of this despite the fact that he and his family belong to an Opus Dei staffed parish in northern Virginia.
Regrettably, the large elephant in the room is that Opus Dei weds the Catholic Faith to the Luciferian inspired Modern World with all of its variants of healthy laicism — so-called by Pope Benedict XVI and now by his successor.
Laicism is political naturalism divorced from the historical and Divinely revealed Truth of the Social and Political Reign of Christ the King. Invariably, without exception, this openly avowed laicism promotes Mortal Sin Confessional States, otherwise known collectively as the New World Order. The subversive Troika of Jacques Maritain, Pope Paul VI, and Saul Alinsky espoused the philosophical grounding (among others like the Frankfort School, Gramsci, et alia) upon which Modernists could lend a blind eye to the Rights of God and erect their democratic Towers of Babel supposedly in defense of “the rights of man”. These political experiments that refuse to acknowledge and to avenge the Rights of God are illegitimate since all political authority and power comes from God. These blasphemous political constructs, including world government, are endorsed by Opus Dei — go no further than the Conciliar Document Gaudium et Spes, which Canon Hesse confirms was ghostwritten by Rev. Josemaria Escriva for Pope Paul VI.
Mr. Comerford bases his criticisms of you, Mrs. Randy Engel, on ad hominem allegations that are based on spite and bearing false witness. It behooves Mr. Comerford to get outside the comfort zone of his Opus Dei spiritual direction cocoon and assess the immense loss of souls as the result of the Opus Dei embrace of the Luciferian inspired and guided Modern World. Opus Dei patently is maneuvering to have one of its clerics voted in as the pope at the next papal conclave. May God protect the world from such a calamitous nightmare. May God richly reward your courage, Mrs. Engel.
Superbly stated Mr Valenzuela !
And who directs the Opus Dei Spiritual Director priests?
Lay spiritual directors. Purely secular and in denial of the principles of Catholic subsidiarity.
Opus Dei uses the model of a free masonic business under the guise of religion.
Mr. Douglas Valenzuela
OK. Name over the last 80-years or so any Opus Dei priest who has had a judgement entered against him in either a secular or church court regarding sexual molestation, slavery or bank fraud.
And it appears that you, Randy Engel et al are exhibiting cult like behavior in your obsession with Opus Dei.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
And how do you know that lay spiritual directors allegedly direct Opsu Dei priests?
And how do you know that Opys Dei alleges uses free masonic business under the guise of religion?
Kindly provide links.
Or are these bizarre claims secrets of the anti-Opus Dei cult?
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Consider this reply as an act of charity Mr Comerford .
John Allen …….
“It’s not quite right to call this a “traditional” alternative to a more “liberal” postconciliar Catholicism, since from a historical point of view Opus Dei is not traditional at all. Its vision of laity and priests, women and men, sharing the same vocation and being part of the same body, all free to pursue that vocation within their professional sphere as they see fit, was so innovative that Escrivá was accused of heresy in 1940s Spain. Inside Opus Dei, most priests have lay spiritual directors, which is a break with traditional clerical culture, and the laity of Opus Dei, both men and women, cast votes for their prelate (meaning the cleric in charge), which is as close to the democratic election of a bishop as one comes in today’s Catholic Church. Opus Dei was the first institution in the Catholic Church to request, and to receive in 1950, Vatican permission to enroll non-Catholics and even non-Christians among its “cooperators,” meaning nonmember supporters”
https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/common-misconceptions/opus-dei-introduction.html
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Re: The Cult of Randy Engel
Well that does not sound so very evil. But it does not substantiate your charges of slavery, sexual molestation and bank fraud against the priests of Opus Dei.
Opus Dei even has elections! Very democratic. Indeed it sounds very uncult-like.
Did you folks get to elect Randy Engel as the head of your cult?
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Your replies sir, in contrast to the truth presented to you, reveal exactly where you stand on matters of Faith.
Nowhere in these posts was it ever stated that opus dei priests are being accused of sexual molestation rather, that several Bishops affiliated with he cult movement have sheltered known clerical pederasts.
The closings of all your sarcastic attacks exemplify the hypocrisy of what you have written in the body of your comments.
I pray you will become enlightened through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Re: The Cult of Randy Engel-2
Thank you for your reply.
Sorry. I hold as true all that the Roman Catholic Church teaches regarding faith and morals. I refuse, however, to worship Randy Engel as a cult goddess.
And sorry again but no Court has ever found that an Opus Dei Bishop knowingly sheltered a proven clerical pederast. That claim is cultism.
And sorry yet again. You posted above in part: “and Sodomy is one of the sins that cries out to Heaven for vengeance. Pedophile sodomite rape is even more abhorent . This is what motivates Mrs Engel’s well documented ,”gossip”, as you refer to it.”
You posted this on a thread regarding Opus Dei.
This is the problem for the Randy Engel Cult. If the Opus Dei priests are in fact chaste, virtuous, intelligent and educated then how can Opus Dei itself be as evil as portrayed by Randy Engel and her cult?
Attack less. Pray more.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Mr C, I was referring to your ridiculous comment advising that Mrs Engel commits a sin against the Commandments be reporting the truth about clerical abuse , you went off topic concerning Opus Dei as you do above about those of us who have read her excellent articles and books over the years along with her voluminous references which are easily proven correct.
The Belgian Parliamentary Commission declared Opus Dei to be a cult years ago and nowhere has Mrs Engel been listed as starting a cult .
For your reading enjoyment you may want to read this from the International Cultic Studies Association on Opus Dei.
http://www.icsahome.com/articles/opus-dei-moncada-en5-2
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Re: The Cult of Randy Engel-3
Thank you for your reply.
Please.
The Commission in question, dominated by your friends the Marxists, has titled about 200-religious organizations as cults or sects to include 21 Bible Churches, 4-Roman Catholic groups, several Jewish groups, the Amish and the YWCA. The Belgium government has been at pains to state that it neither approved or disapproved of the titled sects. Typical Randy Engel cult reporting IMO.
Did I actually write that the cult goddess ” commits a sin against the Commandments be reporting the truth about clerical abuse”? I think not. Again typical Randy Engel cult reporting IMO.
You keep trying to link Opus Dei with the Legion. They are different organizations. The Opus Dei priests are chaste. The Legion priests, sadly, do not have the same reputation.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
You sir continue to obfuscate, call names and ignore what does not fit your view of the truth.
You seemed to have miss this link. I assure you they are not “Marxists” as I know one dear priest who was in the Legion for 23 years and refers damaged persons to this group and works with them to counsel former members. Obviously they have heard from Escriva’s cult victims too as has Mrs Engel.
http://www.icsahome.com/articles/opus-dei-moncada-en5-2
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Re: The Cult of Randy Engel-4
Thank you for your reply.
Please.
What are you talking about? The Commission in question was made up of, in the main, of Godless, Christ hating Marxist and Marxist light Belgium politicians. It identified about 189 religious organizations in Belgium, to include the YWCA, that would not bow to the secular agenda. Sadly only 4 of the 189 were Catholic; but one was Opus Dei. Good for Opus Dei. Said Commission, having done its dirty work, then disbanded.
Opus Dei and the Legion of Christ are two different organizations.
Again you show your cult like obsession with Opus Dei. Time for a new hobby.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
You’re all over the Internet droning on with the same old tired defense.
Somehow I do not think you joined the cult at this level.
Fortunately, the numerary assistants , formerly called servants or slaves, are also all over telling their real life stories.
http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.com/2013/05/europe-my-basic-human-rights-were.html
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Re: The Cult of Randy Engel-5
Thank you for your reply.
“all over the Internet”. Wow! Where else have I pontificated on Opus Dei?
And Opus Dei has slaves?
OK. If you really believe that Opus Dei owns slaves then you, the cult goddess randy and the other cultists, acting in your own legal names, publicly state as fact that Opus Dei owns slaves and petition the authorities to free the slaves and prosecute the Opus Dei slave owners.
Do something heroic rather than hiding in the shadows and whining.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Here for one and we both know there are other sites.
https://lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com/2017/01/what-should-we-know-about-opus-dei.html
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Re: The Cult of Randy Engel-6
Thank you for your reply.
No. I do not know. Unlike you and your fellow randy cultists I am not obsessed with Opus Dei.
But if you really believe that Opus Dei owns slaves, (no doubt guarded by Knight Templars) then stop hiding, come out of the shadows and go public and so accuse Opus Dei and petition the authorities to prosecute same.
Otherwise you and your entire randy cult is made up of cowards, obsessives or both.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
I assure you sir, the truth is coming out. Little by little until, like Maciel’s Movement , people will begin to know the truth.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=297373&no=262684&rel_no=1
May the Holy Ghost enlighten you . No one can communicate with you civilly if they counter your personal ideologies.
Therefore ,”attack less” is an oxymoron in your own limited awareness of the realities of the Faith . Very sad.
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Re: The Cult of Randy Engel-6
Thank you for your reply.
Oh, please. The “truth”, as you put it, has been coming out about Opus Dei for almost 90-years now. All of it originating in Marxist propaganda.
Yet no one in the goddess randy cult will come out of the shadows and accuse Opus Dei of various crimes against humanity and demand redress from government.
Which means that you and the other goddess randy cultists are either cowards or connoisseurs of malicious gossip.
Which is it?
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Miss Tissier sued in civil court and opus dei was fined for violating labor laws.
They were ordered to publish the findings in two French newspapers. She worked ten hours a day just like the now married Catholic mother of five complained about on Krietzer’s blog. Yes she got a paycheck but them was ordered to sign a blank check so they, the OD director ,could steal from their accounts with forced donations. After almost two decades of slave wage labor , being drugged with psychotropic medication by an opus dei physician ,Tissier discovered her bank account was emptied of all which she thought she had saved.
your a joke Comerfeld , a sad and deplorable stupid joke.
Mr. sweepoutthefilth:
Re: The Cult of Randy Engel-8
Thank you for your reply.
Sorry the lady’s lawyer, Mr. Bosselut, disagrees with you: “She first filed a lawsuit in 2001 accusing Opus Dei of âmental manipulationâ. Those charged were dismissed. âThis isnât a crusade against Opus Dei â thatâs not whatâs at stake,â Ms Tissierâs lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut said, adding his client just wanted compensation.” See: http://metro.co.uk/2011/09/22/
Neither the French trial court nor the appeals court has entered a judgement against Opus Dei. BTW this case is in its 16th year.
But you and the other followers of the cult goddess randy, unlike Ms. Tissiera, have made this into a crusade against Opus Dei.
And making the same, public, yet anonymous and hysterical, allegations for decades against the any group is a sign of cult like behavior.
If you really believe that Opus Dei owns slaves then you and the other followers of the cult goddess randy should go public and file a police report. Otherwise you will be seen as cowardly fanatics.
Pray more. Attack less.
God bless
Richard W Comerford
Looking at Richard’s replies, you can immediately spot an Opus Dei operative in action. There are four things he does constantly. First is to hedge as much as possible. Choose the criteria in a way that whatever remains after will always support the OD position.
That is, it does not matter if someone was raped or someone was lied to or justice was obstructed. OD is blameless because it is possible to narrow the claim in a way that makes it untrue. Because they do not lie, rape or obstruct in a particular way they weren’t even accused of, you will readily see how innocent they are.
These are the kind of people who could molest someone using an instrument x, then surreptitiously have their priest assist the victim in filing his case, putting much weight on how instrumet y was used in committing the offense. Then their lawyers will state in court that we do not have and never have had any instrument y in our possession, anywhere. Your honor, the claimed victim must be imagining things. Maybe he used his own y to molest himself, who knows?
The second one is to deny everything. The third one is to appeal to a random authority. In every big OD debacle there are multiple priests and investigators and parties involved. Pick one that is favorable to OD and then insist that you completely trust that particular actor above everything else, and to do otherwise would be to attack his person or his office, as in you doubt the honesty of one OD priest or bishop, you doubt every priest and bishop in the whole world.
The fourth one is this alternating between disbelieving all evidence and asking for more evidence. Just throw whatever at me, I will cordially disbelieve it, doubt it and pronounce a verdict on it. They seem to have an incredible desire and an equally incredible inability to understand what your accusations are.
The fifth one is to generally act in extremely bad faith while feigning good faith using all sorts of mannerisms and impressions.
You just can’t get anywhere with these guys. They’re actors who love acting. Or maybe one should simply follow their lead and just dismiss everything they say. After a while this OD obfuscation game becomes easier to spot, and instead of them making sport out of you, you can turn the tables.
There has never been any independent evidence anywhere for or against anything. Why? Because it is possible to cast doubt on practically anything anyone says. The moment something becomes disadvantageous to OD, it is no more independent.
Except when OD takes over something. Then it becomes independent.
If you are against me, you lose your trustworthiness. So you better watch what you say. It appears that the OD response is again a parade of hedging and mind games. Running away with the goalposts. Defining themselves as the winner. Only OD can judge OD. Maybe that is the actual logic they teach their members and collaborators.