SELECTING A NEW POPE

By Larry B. Stam­mer and Tracy Wilkinson

ROME — When Pope John Paul II arrived at Opus Dei head­quar­ters one March day 11 years ago, even mem­bers of the ultra­con­ser­v­a­tive lay reli­gious move­ment long accus­tomed to Vat­i­can favor saw the visit as a sin­gu­lar moment in the group’s ascen­dancy within the Roman Catholic Church.

The pope had come to pay his respects to Bishop Alvaro del Por­tillo, the prelate of Opus Dei, who had died that day.

“He came over to pray before the body of Don Alvaro, which is a very unusual thing, to have a pope come over to your house to pray,” said Father John Wauck, a pro­fes­sor at the Pon­tif­i­cal Uni­ver­sity of the Holy Cross, an Opus Dei insti­tu­tion in Rome.

Now with its papal bene­fac­tor gone, Opus Dei’s influ­ence under the next pope — and its role in choos­ing the new pon­tiff — have become hot top­ics in a city awash in spec­u­la­tion as the world’s car­di­nals meet behind the closed doors of the Sis­tine Chapel to elect John Paul’s successor.

Opus Dei, or “Work of God,” was founded in Spain in 1928. It is based on the idea that Catholics, male and female, can live a sanc­ti­fied life with­out being priests or nuns. Many of its 85,000 world­wide mem­bers work in legal, med­ical, finan­cial and media pro­fes­sions and pro­fess unques­tion­ing fidelity to the church’s teach­ings and loy­alty to the pope. But crit­ics have called the group elit­ist, and it was depicted as a vil­lain­ous secret soci­ety in Dan Brown’s best­selling novel, “The Da Vinci Code.”

Offi­cially, Opus Dei has stressed that it is above the fray. Its prelate, Bishop Javier Echevar­ria, has called for prayer, not pol­i­tick­ing. He has also pledged the group’s loy­alty to whomever the car­di­nals elect.

“We already love with our whole soul the suc­ces­sor of John Paul II, who­ever he may be,” Echevar­ria wrote to the organization’s mem­bers. “Let us renew our desire to serve the pope, for it was only to serve the church that God wanted Opus Dei.”

Oth­ers note that for the first time, two of the 115 vot­ing car­di­nals — Julian Her­ranz of Spain and Juan Luis Cipri­ani Thorne of Peru — are mem­bers of Opus Dei, giv­ing the group the abil­ity to work inside the conclave.

“They have a chance to lobby the other car­di­nals from an inside posi­tion,” said an offi­cial with a lay orga­ni­za­tion that has close ties to the Vat­i­can. “Opus Dei has inter­na­tional con­nec­tions, they know many car­di­nals, are appre­ci­ated by some. They are enti­tled to talk to car­di­nals, to invite them to din­ner, all with authority.”

Sev­eral Euro­pean car­di­nals are sym­pa­thetic to Opus Dei, among them Car­di­nal Camillo Ruini, the Ital­ian prelate who runs the Dio­cese of Rome on behalf of the pope, and a con­tender to suc­ceed John Paul. Ruini last year opened pro­ceed­ings to declare Opus Dei’s Del Por­tillo a saint.

But recently, sev­eral Ital­ian news­pa­pers breath­lessly reported that the two Opus Dei car­di­nals were throw­ing their sup­port behind the can­di­dacy of Car­di­nal Joseph Ratzinger, a German-born tra­di­tion­al­ist who has served as chief enforcer of church doc­trine for two decades.

Opus Dei flour­ished dur­ing John Paul’s pon­tif­i­cate. In 1982, he took the unprece­dented step of mak­ing Opus Dei a per­sonal prela­ture of the church, answer­able not to local bish­ops in the dio­ce­ses where it oper­ated, but to the pope alone.

In another sign of the group’s influ­ence, the pope placed Opus Dei’s founder, the Span­ish priest Jose­maria Escriva de Bal­a­guer, on the fast track to saint­hood in 1992, leapfrog­ging over Pope John XXIII. In 2002, Escriva was can­on­ized before a crowd of 300,000 in St. Peter’s Square, becom­ing St. Jose­maria a mere 27 years after he died.

Father James Mar­tin, a Jesuit priest and asso­ciate edi­tor of his reli­gious order’s mag­a­zine, Amer­ica, says it is unde­ni­able that Opus Dei has a stake in the elec­tion of the new pope.

“They would not have grown so quickly and have gained the influ­ence they have were it not for John Paul,” he said. “Given that they’re … respon­si­ble only to the pope, that is a sword that cuts both ways. If you have a pope who is favor­able to you, that’s ter­rific. If you have a pope who does not see things the way Opus Dei does, that’s more problematic.”

Opus Dei offi­cials have greeted the spec­u­la­tion about its role in choos­ing a new pope with a mix­ture of polit­i­cal real­ism and amusement.

“Opus Dei has no can­di­date,” Wauck said in an inter­view in the sub­dued light of an ante­room at the group’s head­quar­ters here. He said that he thought the inter­est had been due in no small part to “The Da Vinci Code,” whose depic­tion of Opus Dei is dis­puted by the group as inac­cu­rate and misleading.

In an inter­view before the pope’s death, Her­ranz, one of the Opus Dei car­di­nals, was asked whether an Opus Dei mem­ber could become pope, given its neg­a­tive rep­u­ta­tion in some quar­ters. Her­ranz said the orga­ni­za­tion had been sub­jected to bad pub­lic­ity, but that such attacks are attacks on Chris­tian­ity as a whole, not just Opus Dei.

“Opus Dei has become a vic­tim of Christian-phobia,” Her­ranz said. But in fact, he said, “more peo­ple today love Opus Dei than don’t. And we have a saint now, our founder Escriva, so more peo­ple under­stand the good works and spir­i­tual doc­trine of Opus Dei.”

Crit­ics of the move­ment have said the church’s deci­sion to make Escriva a saint was dis­turb­ing in view of his friend­ship with Spain’s late fas­cist dic­ta­tor, Fran­cisco Franco. Opus Dei spokesman Brian Finnerty said that mem­bers of Opus Dei included both back­ers and oppo­nents of Franco.

Escriva hewed to the the­o­log­i­cally con­ser­v­a­tive stance shared by John Paul II, includ­ing strict adher­ence to the church’s teach­ing on sex­ual and moral issues. He also spoke out against “god­less” communism.

Sev­enty per­cent of Opus Dei mem­bers are mar­ried men and women. Known as super­nu­mer­aries, they com­mit to be guided by spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines such as prayer, recit­ing the rosary, and attend­ing Mass.

Sin­gle mem­bers are known as numer­aries. Most live in gender-segregated Opus Dei res­i­dences. They prac­tice celibacy, but do not take a vow.

Some mem­bers wear a cil­ice, which can range from a belt of prickly cloth to a band with dull spikes, around their thighs as a reminder of Christ’s suf­fer­ings, just as saints and monks often did in the past. They con­tribute all their income to Opus Dei beyond what they need for their imme­di­ate liv­ing expenses.

The group has 1,875 priests, accord­ing to a Vat­i­can report this year. Nine­teen of its priests have been ordained as bishops.

About 3,000 of the group’s 85,000 mem­bers live in the U.S. It has 1,875 priests world­wide, accord­ing to a Vat­i­can report this year. One of its bish­ops, Jose H. Gomez, now heads the Dio­cese of San Anto­nio. Opus Dei has opened a $42-million, 17-story head­quar­ters in Man­hat­tan, and oper­ates stu­dent out­reach cen­ters through­out the coun­try, includ­ing one near UCLA.

In 1998, John Paul granted the title “uni­ver­sity” to Opus Dei’s athenaeum in Rome, mak­ing it the Pon­tif­i­cal Uni­ver­sity of the Holy Cross, one of six such insti­tu­tions in the city.

As for the future, Opus Dei offi­cials said they were not wor­ried. Their sta­tus in the church as a per­sonal prela­ture is cast in canon law. To alter Opus Dei’s sta­tus, a new pope would have to change the canon law, and that is not expected.

“From the pope’s van­tage point, what’s not to like?” Mar­tin, the Jesuit priest, asked. “First, you have all these ded­i­cated lay Catholics. Sec­ondly, you have Opus Dei’s afflu­ent mem­bers donat­ing money to the Vat­i­can. And you have Opus Dei mem­bers adher­ing to the mag­is­terium [offi­cial church teach­ings] as strictly as possible.”