=========================
“Like
his predecessor, this Benedict is Opus Dei’s man.”[1]
=========================
“Under
Benedict XVI, Opus Dei will consolidate its hold over the Holy See. As
its power increases not only do the risks of provoking a schism become
more threatening but so does the danger of a confrontation with radical
Islam.
Opus
Dei is anything but marginal. Its members form a transnational elite.
They seek to colonize the summits of power. They work with stealth –
‘holy discretion’ – and practice ‘divine deception.’ They regard
Jerusalem, Rome, and Washington as the focal points of temporal power.
Because of their literal interpretation of the Scriptures, they accept
that a showdown with the forces of evil is inevitable.
The
Book of Revelation affirms that the showdown will come at Armageddon,
and in the end the Church of Christ will triumph. Opus Dei regards this
as an unassailable verity. As post-millennialists, the prelates of
Villa Tevere believe the time is approaching when their Lord and Savior
will return to inaugurate the New Jerusalem.” [2]
=======================
“But
according to Father Vladimir Felzmann, a one-time Opus Dei priest who
became a close aide to the late Cardinal Basil Hume, the Prelature is
the closest the Catholic Church has come to recreating the military
orders of the Middle Ages.” [3]
=======================
“We
do know, however, that he [Escriva] was an admirer of the Knights
Templar. Several of their practices would be incorporated into Opus
Dei’s norms and customs when, later, they came to be set on paper.”[4]
=======================
“After
his [Don Alvaro’s] week-long visit to the Holy Land, on the evening of
21 March 1994 he celebrated Mass for the last time in the Church of the
Cenacle and returned to Rome on the following day. That night he died
of a heart attack. He was eighty. The vicar general, Don Javier
Echevarria, was at his side and took possession of the piece of the
True Cross originally worn by the Founder. Within the next twenty-four
hours, John Paul II visited the prelatic church of Our Lady of Peace
and knelt before the funeral bier of Don Alvaro. This bending of
protocol – a pope only kneels before the earthly remains of a cardinal
– was more than papal esteem for the prelate general of Opus Dei, but a
sign of fidelity to the organization that had done everything in its
power to raise him to Peter’s throne.”
[5]
=========================
Regarding
the 1994 UN Population Conference at Cairo:
“On
population questions, then, the Vatican made common cause with Islamic
extremists [in Iran and Libya]. This opportunist plan – the forming of
an alliance of convenience – Pro-Life insiders affirmed, was the work
of Opus Dei, once again demonstrating that the Prelature was capable of
directing Vatican policy.
The
Cairo strategy was crafted within the Pontifical Council for the
Family, assisted by the Pontifical Academy for Life and the John Paul
II Institute for the Family. All three
were under Opus Dei’s influence. The Council for the Family was headed
by its ally, Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, and among the Council’s
consultors were two members of Opus Dei’s priestly hierarchy and their
close associates, Bishop James Thomas McHugh and Monsignor Carlo
Caffarra.” [6]
=========================
During
the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, “Medjugorje was under the control of
the apparently Opus Dei-assisted and Catholic-led Croatian Army.” [7]
=======================
“A
former high-ranking Opus Dei member in Spain believes that the next
Crusade – the Tenth Crusade – will be a cybernetic one, not fought with
bombs or bullets, or even Middle Eastern oil, but with the latest
computer technology and electronic communications. … This view was to
an extent echoed by John Paul II in early 1991 when, in response to a
suggestion that development was no longer applicable to a country’s
state of industrialization but, today, to the strength of its banking
sector and, tomorrow, its command of advanced communications systems,
he smiled and noted, ‘That is the thesis of Opus Dei.’” [8]
=======================
“Seen
from the inside by a former Holy Cross priest [ Father Felzmann] , Opus
Dei’s prelates are convinced that they are guardians of the divine
truth; they are the ‘inheritors’ of the Knights Templar. …
[
Felzmann said: ]
‘The
Second Psalm was the Templar hymn. … Each celibate member of Opus Dei,
man or woman, must recite the Second Psalm upon rising every Tuesday. …
The Templars and Opus Dei sing the same psalm.’
‘In
Opus Dei you find the same elitism as with the Templars, and this
comes, I suppose, from that warrior mentality, from the idea that there
is an enemy outside, and from a highly focused esprit de
corps. …’
‘Deus le volt! We are God’s chosen. These are not the
words of the founder. They are the words of the current Opus Dei leader
in Rome. I lived with them for four years. They told me with utter
conviction, ‘We have been chosen by God to save the Church.’ Some of
them openly state that in twenty or thirty years Opus Dei will be all
that remains of the Church. The whole Church will become Opus Dei
because ‘We have an orthodox vision that is pure, certain, solid,
assured of everything. The founder was chosen by God to save the
Church. Therefore, God is with us.’”
[9]
=======================
[1] Hutchison, p. xvi.
[2] Hutchison, p. xvii.
[3] Hutchison, p.
xvii-xviii.
[4] Hutchison, p. 33.
[5] Hutchison, p. 393.
[6] Hutchison, pp.
396-397.
[7] Hutchison, p. 413.
[8] Hutchison, pp.
415-416.
[9] Hutchison, pp. 443-444.