This is the article that appeared in the April 2025 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects
the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.
Bill Donohue
Opus Dei is loved by millions of Catholics all over the world for its yeoman efforts in getting Catholics to practice their religion more seriously. Founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest, Josemaria Escrivá, it is a spiritual home to lay Catholics and clerics who are committed to living the faith on a daily basis; most are laypersons. Escrivá was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2002.
Militant secularists, and many so-called progressive Catholics, hate Opus Dei. Why? It symbolizes everything they detest: it is unashamedly Catholic, orthodox, and wildly successful.
The latest effort to trash Opus Dei is a book by Gareth Gore, Opus. Like so many who hate the organization, he is caught up in the mystique of Opus Dei. He can’t understand why men and women are drawn to an entity that is so deeply religious, especially given the decidedly secular bent of western civilization.
To be sure, Opus Dei is one of the most countercultural organizations in the world: it openly rejects the secular playbook promoted by the ruling class. This is not lost on Simon & Schuster.
The publisher flags the book by saying Opus Dei opposes “reproductive freedom” and “LGBTQ+ rights.” Correct. Practicing Catholics defend life from the moment of conception to natural death; they understand marriage to be the exclusive union of a man and a woman; and they know that sex is binary. In other words, Catholic teachings are in harmony with what nature ordains and science decrees. Gore disagrees with nature and science.
Why is it that many authors who abhor Catholicism are so sloppy in their writings? Is it because they know they will get a cheerful reception from their ilk and will therefore not be held accountable for their errors? This was certainly true of my old debating partner, Christopher Hitchens. He was extremely well read and very bright, but he was also a lousy researcher. His misstatements of facts about Mother Teresa were astounding.
Gore is another sloppy writer. Indeed, he is worse than Hitchens. His book is strewn with hyperbole, innuendo and out-and-out falsehoods. Yet he had the audacity to say in an interview that his book is “100 percent correct.” Here are a few examples of his inattention to detail.
“During a trip to Nicaragua, the pope refused to let one cardinal kiss his ring because he had disobeyed a papal order.” But Ernesto Cardenal was not a cardinal—he was a priest. More important, he was Minister of Culture who worked for the communist dictator, Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista thug who has impoverished and enslaved the people of Nicaragua (he is still doing this today). With good reason did Saint John Paul II rebuke him.
Gore says that Mother Teresa of Calcutta attended the beatification of Saint Josemaria—she did not. Also, when he died the servants did not have to be awaken in the middle of the night to make preparations—he died in the middle of the day.
The well respected Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C. has not been staffed by an Opus Dei priest for the past forty years; that didn’t happen until 1992. Gore also says that there are “hundreds of similar centers around the world.” In fact, there are only two.
Gore can’t get over how financially successful Opus Dei is. So what? Does anyone complain about Harvard’s outsized endowment? It has well over $50 billion. To show how truly sloppy he is—his editors are just as remiss—he writes that “millions of dollars were spent on a huge school-building program across Spain.” Yet his footnote refers exclusively to summer camps!
It is to be expected that Gore would not pass up the chance to trot out a case of the sexual abuse of minors. But when he cites the case of a married layman who was guilty of molestation, accusing Opus Dei of never reporting it, he is showcasing his sophomoric research. The abuse occurred in the man’s home and Opus Dei never knew about it.
An Opus Dei member, Bob Best, is said to have given Escrivá a gift, which the founder then “handed it to some Spanish bankers, who used it to sign a check to pay for a new Opus Dei project.” Wrong. The gift was given to Opus Dei members, not “bankers.” This is incontestable—there is a tape of the exchange. Also, Best did not join Opus Dei when he was in high school; he joined when he was at Villanova. Another error: Gore tries to link the Culture of Life Foundation to Opus Dei, but there is no institutional connection.
Just as easy to disprove is the canard about Opus Dei “recruiting” members, instructing them to keep their vocation secret, not even telling their families. Gore says this is part of the founders “instructions” given to Opus Dei members. Wrong again. There is no mention of this in the “instructions.”
Some years ago it was rumored that FBI director Louis Freeh was an Opus Dei member. This has been definitively proven to be false, yet Gore continues to say it was “widely rumored.” His ignorance is stunning.
Malice, not ignorance, is at work when Gore portrays the late Cardinal George Pell as a pedophile. As anyone who knows anything about this issue, the fabricated charges against Pell were thrown out of court. Indeed, he was unanimously acquitted. I have personally written a great deal about this subject, and I find mindboggling that Gore’s editors would allow him to promote this invidious falsehood.
It is so typical of left-wing writers to malign the Catholic Church for reaching out to young people, depicting such efforts as something nefarious. Gore does the same to Opus Dei.
We learn that young people are not attracted to Opus Dei because of what it stands for; they are “recruited” and “captured” by its adult members. Gore must be thinking of the way left-wing college professors manipulate and recruit unsuspecting students, indoctrinating them in the latest Marxist iteration.
It is equally obnoxious for Gore to accuse Opus Dei of “swindling” people. Like every voluntary organization, Opus Dei raises funds to pay for its expenses. When the ACLU raises money, it’s seen as something routine, if not noble. But according to Gore, when Opus Dei raises money, they do so by asking donors to “come up with lists of people who could be swindled.” This is libelous.
Gore makes no bones about his politics. “For all its talk about allegiance to the Vatican, the Church, and the teachings of Jesus Christ,” he writes, “Opus Dei seems unconcerned that many of the conservative forces it now embraces in the United States are openly hostile to the pope—even going so far as to undermine his authority and plot against him.”
Leaving aside the conspiratorial tone—no one is “plotting” against the pope—it is true that many conservatives, including non-Catholics, have been less than enthusiastic about some of the things the pope has said. For example, he is openly hostile to market economies, refuses to condemn Communist China’s crackdown on Catholics, and has portrayed conservative Catholics, especially those attracted to the Latin Mass, as pariahs.
More significant, it is rich to read Catholic bashers complain about conservative critics of the pope. They have been trashing Church teachings on marriage, the family, ordination, celibacy and sexuality for decades, and their treatment of Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II was often brutal, yet today they call for everyone to fall in line—perhaps because they perceive the current moment as more favorable to their views.
Gore mentions The Da Vinci Code many times in his book. In doing so he gives credence to the book as if it were a work of non-fiction. This is nonsense. This matters because he insists that his book is “100 percent correct.” Thus does he give cover to the falsehoods in The Da Vinci Code.
I have written extensively on this issue. The fact is that the book by Dan Brown, and the movie that was based on it by Ron Howard, is a work of fiction.
Brown begins his book with a page titled, “Facts.” Listed as “facts” are three demonstrably false and defamatory statements. Brown’s first “fact” alleges that a secret society, the Priory of Sion, kept alive the story that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. But the fact is this tale was exposed as a hoax that was made up in the 1950s by an anti-Semite Frenchman (who was sent to prison for fraud).
The second “fact” alleges that a “religious sect” called Opus Dei was an evil organization. This tells us everything we need to know about Brown.
The third “fact” is the most malicious: it claims that historical documents show that the divinity of Jesus was forged in fourth century. Pure nonsense.
There are 25 references to the divinity of Christ in the Gospels and more than 40 references in the New Testament. Not only that, the letters of Paul were written in the 40s and 50s—earlier than the Gospels. All of these writings are much closer to the time of Jesus than the so-called Gnostic Gospels, and even those books—which were excluded from the New Testament—regard Jesus to be the Son of God.
It is important to note that even fair-minded liberal reviewers of Gore’s book see right through his agenda. That is why Matt Murray, the executive editor of the Washington Post, took issue with his “rather partisan” approach, saying it sometimes comes across as a “slog.” Indeed, Murray says that “Gore can’t hide his disdain for the founder.” This accounts for his “snarky” style and his “tone of snideness.” Gore’s disdain also extends to questioning “truths,” which is why he puts the word in quotes.
When this review was published, Gore went ballistic, invoking obscenities. Instead of defending his work, he chose to berate Murray for taking “time out of his busy schedule to basically say that my book doesn’t include enough positive stuff about Opus Dei.”
With good reason does Murray say that “some chapters read more like a prosecutor’s brief” than a fair assessment of Opus Dei. This leads him to conclude that the book lacks a “nuanced understanding of the organization.” Gore greets this criticism with indignance, but that doesn’t prove Murray wrong.
It is said that education can conquer ignorance. Not if it is willed. Ideologues are not persuaded by empirical evidence, data, and logic. They are informed by a set of tightly woven ideas that are impervious to reason.
To be fair, there are conspiratorial kooks on the right who claim bogeymen are trying to undermine America. However, they are mostly without effect, owing to their notorious stupidity. But those on the left, especially those who write books which appear to be well sourced, are not so easily identified. That’s why they are a much bigger menace.
Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. once said that anti-Catholicism is the nation’s “last acceptable prejudice.” Gareth Gore’s book is the latest proof that he was right.
