The Mail OPUS DEI

Out of fairness to the members of Opus Dei who wear mustaches, beards, side-burns and long hair and who do not necessarily wear coats and ties at meals at Elmbrook, I have to protest your presentation of Opus Dei in the April 13 issue of the CRIMSON. Dan Barney did a conscientious job, but Opus Dei is not a conservative organization. Neither is it a liberal one. Not everything in this world (happily) can be reduced to such convenient labels.

Out of fairness to the many thousands of barbers, plumbers, secretaries, housewives and ordinary workers in all walks of life in Spain (and the world over) who are members of Opus Dei and far outnumber the owners of banks, insurance companies and industrial plants, I should also protest the picture of Opus Dei as a conservative, status-quo oriented organization.

Your article seems to miss the point that Opus Dei's aim is to bring about a peaceful but radical revolution in all parts of society. Opus Dei's message is that there are all kinds of hells and partial hells in this society of ours, as well as all kinds of false peace-whether in Franco's cabinet or Nixon's, in board rooms or factories, in Vietnam or in the homes and families or in Harvard dorms. But they are all hells of man's doing in what is basically God's good world. There are far too many hells to be dealt with, and far too many ways they have to be dealt with, to think of reducing this revolution to convenient labels. It is too radical for that and it has to be waged everywhere, by men who know where hell's roots lie and where the good that has to be inserted ultimately comes from. It may seem too silent a revolution for some; it may seem to start too deep inside men's hearts to be easily detected or to promise much. But this is because it is a spiritual revolution being carried out by men of faith and daring who are convinced that the only successful attack on the ills men suffer must be that radical-or it will be illusory. And the ills must be attacked by the men who suffer them, right where they are, and with every good thing God has given them. It may seem small, but this revolution has already begun. In this light, a few points of clarification:

1) Opus Dei is as universal as the Catholic Church, aiming at a revolution in all parts of society. Small wonder that there should be some members of Opus Dei at the top-who get the press: men are needed everywhere. But it's much more important that there are far more at the bottom and in the middle-and it hardly matters that the establishment press can't see them.

2) It misses the point, therefore, and is indeed false to say that "The organization is powerful in Spain because many of its members hold influential positions in the economy," etc. Power has nothing to do with the revolution Opus Dei is interested in. Just try making a man believe-with a belief that is free and responsible, with a belief that really counts-by using money or industrial power of governmental power.

3) In any case, this is not Opus Dei's revolution. Opus Dei claims no monopoly on spiritual power, which always is based in the free conscience. On the one hand its message is to all men of good will; and on the other, it is based on nothing more than the Church has always taught and offered to put into men's hands-the doctrine and the way of Christ as something living, a doctrine the Church constantly interprets as relevant to the ills of this world. The only thing that Opus Dei insists on is that it be put into the hands of men of this world, willing to live it with whatever human good each can contribute according to his lights and with all the spiritual good he can muster.

4) To convey the idea that Opus Dei is not aware of the social or political dimensions of the Catholic faith, then, is obviously to get the matter backwards. The fact that Opus Dei is made up of laymen in all walks of life dedicated to living the implications of their faith to the fullest says differently. Opus Dei rightly does not dictate how its members should best think or act in such matters, nor does it attempt to organize them. This is for laymen to do, not organizations of the Church. It is the laymen who have to be responsible for secular society, not the Church or its clerics, and therefore they have to be free to act in the way they know best and with their fellow citizens of whatever faith or none. Of course, there are still some clerical-minded people inside and outside the Church who don't understand the laymen's role and think that Opus Dei is or should be controlling laymen and directing them into activities in which they are and should in fact be free.

Unfortunately, even after Vatiean II, there are still some who think there can only be a Christian impact and a Christian witness in society by having a priest or a Church organization leading the pack. But this is a view that downgrades the layman's proper role and falsifies the meaning of his faith. There are still some who think that five centuries of "clericalism of the right" can be undone and atoned for by instituting a new "clericalism of the left."

5) Elmbrook is indeed a center of Opus Dei where some students and professional people live. But it is not a little group of holy boys residing tastefully north of the Common cultivating some nice religious practices. It is a center that serves hundreds of Harvard students as well as professional and working people of the Boston area, challenging them and helping them to find that their faith-and indeed their very lives-just might mean something after all.