Opus Dei and Politics - General Political Matters

General Political Matters

Researchers, historians and writers on Opus Dei have said that Opus Dei has a novel approach to political matters whereby Christians are free and personally responsible in temporal affairs. They have seen that Opus Dei members follow Escrivá's teachings: "There are no dogmas in temporal matters." "Respect for its members' freedom is an essential condition for Opus Dei's very existence," says Escrivá. "If Opus Dei had been involved in politics, even for an instant," he once wrote, "in that moment of error I would have left Opus Dei." (Le Tourneau 1989, p. 49)

V. Messori says that Escrivá set up inviolable and perpetual rules to establish the essential conditions for Opus Dei's life. Among them is this clause from the Statutes: "Each faithful of the Prelature enjoys the same liberties as other Catholic citizens in what concerns professional activity, social, political doctrines, etc. The authorities of the Prelature, however, must abstain from giving any counsel in matters of this nature. Therefore this full liberty can be diminished only by the norms that apply to all Catholics and are established by the bishop or Bishop's Conference." (88.3)

After investigating into the actual implementation of these rules and spirit, Messori concludes that (1) the members of Opus Dei receive nothing else but spiritual advice, (2) they do not operate as a herd in political affairs, but (3) consider respect for pluralism in matters not concerning the faith one way of obeying a central conviction of the founder. (See Messori 1997, p. 175)

Moreover, aside from those working on the right side of the political spectrum, there are numerous Opus Dei members in many others parts of the world, e.g. Latin America, Europe, Asia, who are involved in left-wing politics and organizations: labor unions, left-of-center political parties, organizations working for the marginalized, poverty alleviation and reduction programs, etc. It is impossible, according to supporters, for all of them to be herded into one political agenda.

Some theologians and observers of religious phenomena also say that the many criticisms against Opus Dei show that it is a sign of contradiction, "a sign that is spoken against."

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

However, supporters of Opus Dei point out that accusations of support to Hitler, Franco or totalitarianism have been often based in scattered information and individual testimonies of former members of the organisation. They also note that the main position of the Socialist and Communist parties in the 1920s and 1930s was against organized religions, especially in mainly Catholic countries such as Spain, where the Church massively took side for Franco during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). These circumstances could make Opus Dei appear, on the one hand, closer to the Right Wing movements of the era; on the other, these could have overemphasized information that do not show an explicit or an implicit support of any of these dictatorships. Thus, some writers state that it is arguable that neither Josémaría Escrivá nor the Opus Dei organisation itself have ever explicitly supported totalitarianism of any kind and some writers state that there is no evidence whatsoever that Opus Dei was involved in any political action whether right-wing, left-wing or centre.