Overview

This is the history of a secretive international Roman Catholic organization, Opus Dei. It considers the charge that Opus Dei is an ""ecclesiastical Mafia"" - a cult that promotes bizarre ascetic practices and enslaves its members by mind-control techniques.

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9780195082517

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Reviews

Joan Estruch goes a long way toward explaining the notoriety that has plagued Opus Dei since its inception...His methodology and his tone are balanced and evenhanded....the narrative fascinates....Estruch charts the history of Opus Deis in extraordinary detail.--Michael Sean Winters, The New Republic This significant book tells a story that is fascinating in itself. Beyond that, it places the story in the context of the modernization of Spain and it contains highly intriguing insights into the unintended consequences of religious movements.--Peter L. Berger, Director, Institute for the Study of Economic Culture, Boston University This timely book should be essential reading not only for watchers of the Catholic Church but also for sociologists of religion. It carefully dissects a 'total institution' within catholicism and it clearly explains why Opus Dei has become such a controversial feature of the Church's struggle to come to terms with tradition and modernity....A model investigation of an omnipresent Catholic movement.--Jim Beckford, Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick

Joan Estruch goes a long way toward explaining the notoriety that has plagued Opus Dei since its inception...His methodology and his tone are balanced and evenhanded....the narrative fascinates....Estruch charts the history of Opus Deis in extraordinary detail. --Michael Sean Winters, The New Republic<br> This significant book tells a story that is fascinating in itself. Beyond that, it places the story in the context of the modernization of Spain and it contains highly intriguing insights into the unintended consequences of religious movements. --Peter L. Berger, Director, Institute for the Study of Economic Culture, Boston University<br> This timely book should be essential reading not only for watchers of the Catholic Church but also for sociologists of religion. It carefully dissects a 'total institution' within catholicism and it clearly explains why Opus Dei has become such a controversial feature of the Church's struggle to come to terms with tradition and modernity....A model investigation of an omnipresent Catholic movement. --Jim Beckford, Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick<br>

Joan Estruch goes a long way toward explaining the notoriety that has plagued Opus Dei since its inception...His methodology and his tone are balanced and evenhanded....the narrative fascinates....Estruch charts the history of Opus Deis in extraordinary detail. --Michael Sean Winters, The New Republic This significant book tells a story that is fascinating in itself. Beyond that, it places the story in the context of the modernization of Spain and it contains highly intriguing insights into the unintended consequences of religious movements. --Peter L. Berger, Director, Institute for the Study of Economic Culture, Boston University This timely book should be essential reading not only for watchers of the Catholic Church but also for sociologists of religion. It carefully dissects a 'total institution' within catholicism and it clearly explains why Opus Dei has become such a controversial feature of the Church's struggle to come to terms with tradition and modernity....A model investigation of an omnipresent Catholic movement. --Jim Beckford, Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick

A dry study of the origins and evolution of a fiercely controversial organization in the Roman Catholic Church. Opus Del (work of God), officially founded in Madrid in 1928 by Monsignor Escriva de Balaguer, is a unique body of priests and laypeople (more than 75,000 worldwide) who see work as the means to holiness, both because it is a sharing in God's creative action in the world and because it is a concrete way of making Christ present in society. For Opus Dei members, asceticism involves striving to be highly successful as professionals, something that has not often been characteristic of Catholic lay spirituality, and this has brought many charges of elitism and power-seeking, not least from other Catholics. Because of its policy of discretion and the discipline imposed on its members, Opus Dei has been accused of beig a secret society within the Church, even a holy Mafia. Pope John Paul II recently declared Escriva (who died in 1975) blessed, and he acceded to the founder's desire that the organization be given a large measure of autonomy as a personal prelature. Estruch (Sociology/Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) takes readers through a labyrinth of documents, chiefly from the official literature of Opus Dei. He shows that the complex character of Escriva and the organization was very much a product - though a most unusual one - of Franco's Spain, and that Opus Dei has, in fact, adjusted its thinking more than many members like to admit in order to keep pace with changes in both Spain and the Catholic Church. In a final section, the author draws on Max Weber's thought to make a stimulating comparison between Opus Dei's sanctification of work and the worldly asceticism of Puritanism. Confined to documentation and constantly referring to methodology, this study makes for heavy reading. Meticulous, but perhaps excessively unsensational. (Kirkus Reviews)

Joan Estruch goes a long way toward explaining the notoriety that has plagued Opus Dei since its inception...His methodology and his tone are balanced and evenhanded....the narrative fascinates....Estruch charts the history of Opus Deis in extraordinary detail. --Michael Sean Winters, The New Republic This significant book tells a story that is fascinating in itself. Beyond that, it places the story in the context of the modernization of Spain and it contains highly intriguing insights into the unintended consequences of religious movements. --Peter L. Berger, Director, Institute for the Study of Economic Culture, Boston University This timely book should be essential reading not only for watchers of the Catholic Church but also for sociologists of religion. It carefully dissects a 'total institution' within catholicism and it clearly explains why Opus Dei has become such a controversial feature of the Church's struggle to come to terms with tradition and modernity....A model investigation of an omnipresent Catholic movement. --Jim Beckford, Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick

Author Information

About the Author: Joan Estruch is Professor of Sociology at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Director of the Research Center in Sociology of Religion

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