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Friedlander, Noam "What is Opus Dei?" 2005, Conspiracy Books / Collins and Brown, London. Pbk. 256pp. Bibliography, Index. ISBN 1-843-40288-2, £8.99.

So what is Opus Dei? Well apart from an anagram of Oedipus, it is a Roman Catholic organisation, which has grown from humble beginnings in Spain in the 1920's and 30's, lead by José Maria Escriva, to being a power within the church that some say rivals the Jesuits in its influence. Its primary aim has been to be an evangelising force within the Catholic Church that was aimed as much at the lay membership as the priesthood. It has spread itself widely, if somewhat thinly across the globe and now has, amongst other buildings, a multi-million dollar headquarters in New York.

The organisation is mired in controversy, which in part due the secrecy with which it conducts its operations, although Opus Dei are at pains to reassure people that they are not some sort of conspiratorial outfit or cult, and it is true that people can and do leave without too many problems unlike more dubious cults and movements. However, many former members do make allegations of cult-like behaviour, including restrictions on what members can read, what to watch on television, who they can mix with and there are even claims that personal correspondence is monitored. Most of these allegations are however hotly disputed by O.D themselves, and it would, for example, be extremely difficult to enforce any of these restrictions on ordinary members of Opus Dei.

The organisation started to grow in a Spain riven by internal warfare, one where a bloody conflict was fought between the forces of the Republic (not to mention a widespread proletarian social revolution) and the reactionary forces which brought together the hierarchy of the Church, royalists, military reactionaries and their fascist allies. Within that struggle Opus Dei were firmly committed to the forces of reaction. However one should note that Opus Dei was still in its infancy at this time and in no position to have any influence on political matters. They were just grateful that Franco and his fascist allies had crushed the "red terror" so they could go about their business of building up their organisation.

And so well did this work go that by the 1950's, with schools and other educational establishments under their control and a growing band of priests, they started to get members into the political establishment, with Opus Dei people becoming ministers in Franco's cabinets. Again the organisation is at pains to point out that such members were free to do as they pleased, but it comes as no surprise if you find that O.D. members are rarely seen in left-leaning governments, as it is ideologically committed to capitalism and against any form of socialism (not to mention the forces of secularism which might interfere with their influence in educational circles.) This pattern does not just apply to Spain but everywhere that O.D. operates.

Their system of secrecy reminds one of the ways that the CIA operates, inasmuch as the organisation routinely denies that people are members, unless it can be proved otherwise. When coupled with their doctrine of "individual freedom", this means that when O.D. members are caught in the middle of financial scandals as they have on several occasions, O.D. washes its hands, saying that whatever these people had done was nothing to do with O.D., merely them using their "freedom".

This plausible deniability and use of "limited hangouts" coupled with the impossibility of finding out what is happening inside the upper reaches of the organisation means that conspiracy theorists have free reign to make up all manner of stories which are based on inference. However O.D. simply rebuts them by pointing out the lack of positive evidence. Indeed this problem pervades the whole book. Friedlander discusses various scandals that people have tried to associate with Opus Dei, including the Vatican - Nazi ratlines to south America, the Banco Ambrosiano / Robert Calvi case, the Swiss Guard murders and even murders of recent Popes. As there is no definite proof of O.D. involvement and the organisation itself denies any involvement the author simply returns his verdict of "nothing to see here - move along" and so he does. (N.B. he may well be right do so in some cases, we, the readers, have no way of knowing.)

Much of the rest of the book reads like an extended apologia or publicity puff for Opus Dei, with plenty of data on all the schools and colleges and universities they have set up, not to mention business schools, and how well they alumni of such institutions have done in business and government and the media. Which, of course, makes one wonder, if Opus Dei is a purely religious institution with no dogmatic political or economic policy, how come they institutionalise sexism (even their buildings have separate entrances for men and women), how come they are so resolutely opposed to left-wing policies - even opposing trends such as "liberation theology" within the Catholic Church itself? Why simply do they put so much effort into educating those they see as the next generation of the ruling class (and converting existing members) if not for the political leverage that gives them in promoting their particular reactionary policies?

On a conspiracy level, the book has a quite useful at pulling apart Dan Brown's vision of Opus Dei in his da Vinci Code book. This isn't a particularly hard task as many authors have already taken apart that book and Friedlander adds nothing new to what they have said. Although there is confirmation that members do sometimes indulge in some of the unusual self-flagellation practices that Brown mentions. As an aside one is pleased to see that the main scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in recent years - the widespread sexual abuse of young people - doesn't seem to have been associated with Opus Dei. Yet. One wonders how long that will last, especially when they have programs such as "Alfa Klupi" in Estonia which had "40 active members (of O.D.) working with almost 100 boys, between the ages of 10 and 16, who take part in regular and special activities". According to O.D. "pluralism is a special characteristic of this initiative aimed at the formation of young boys". (Whatever that means.)

The book has certain problems, which will make it difficult for some to read, not the least the constant repetition of Franco-ist propaganda regarding the Spanish Civil War and it contains the following statement regarding the war in the former Yugoslavia, on p.201 "Naturally, the Vatican feared Serbia - as a predominantly Muslim nation, its threat was far greater than "Christian" Croatia." Now the author is here, inter alia, discussing a theory put forward by Robert Hutchison in his book "Their Kingdom Come" which I haven't read, but either Hutchison is responsible for the howler and Friedlander hasn't spotted it or the error is Friedlander's alone. Either way the editorial team should not have let such an obvious error slip through.

Overall I found this an unrewarding book to read. Part of this is because of the nature of Opus Dei itself. As mentioned above, they operate with a sufficient degree of secrecy that it is difficult for outsiders to find out exactly what they are up to. This, in turn, makes the organisation open to all manner of conspiracy theories which rely on inference rather than hard facts and, in turn, this lack of hard evidence, coupled with its insistence that even if people are members they operate according to their free will, allows Opus Dei to claim to be innocent of any charges people might want to put against it. As befits a text about a religious organisation there is a fair amount of material, which will probably be meaningless to those of us who do not subscribe to that religion, and much reads more as an Opus Dei press release, telling of their good works.

As this is the only book I've read about Opus Dei, I can't compare it with any of the others. And as someone who has never been a member of it, I can't tell you if the characterisation of Opus Dei is accurate or not. So if you're looking for information about Opus Dei, especially if you're interested in the conspiracy angles, then I'd recommend you have a look a couple of other non-fiction works on the topic together with this one, to get a broader picture, plus have a look at the websites of people such as ODAN - the Opus Dei Awareness Network.

A mediocre text, one can only hope that better titles appear in due course.

5/10

Richard Alexander