Religion: Building God's Global Castle

Opus Dei is a highly controversial movement in Catholicism

Clad in simple white albs, 77 candidates for the priesthood prostrated themselves before the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica last week as the Supreme Pontiff invoked the blessings of the saints in heaven. Then, while the group knelt in four neat rows, Pope John Paul, followed by Monsignor Alvaro del Portillo, laid hands on the candidates' heads to convey to them the powers of priesthood.

Though the Pope ordains hundreds of priests each year, last week's ceremony was a rite of special significance: 30 of the new priests will serve exclusively within the movement called Opus Dei. This is the third spring in a row that Pope John Paul has so honored the organization, a zealously orthodox network of 74,000 lay Catholics and 1,200 priests spread across 40 nations. Since its founding in 1928, Opus Dei (Latin for Work of God) has become one of the most influential, controversial and mysterious movements in Roman Catholicism.

John Paul's presence at Opus ordinations is only one of many signs of his approval. The Pope's first formal audience in 1984 was with Del Portillo, 70, the prelate of Opus. John Paul's first pastoral visit this year was to an Opus center in Rome. Each Easter evening since his election, the Pope has relaxed by having Opus students drop by to sing songs and read their poems. He has encouraged Opus members to such special tasks as maintaining discreet contact with Catholics in Communist lands and opening a new evangelistic center in Protestant Sweden.

Opus, in turn, offers the church a corps of well-educated, disciplined, profoundly committed Catholics who, as laity in ordinary jobs, can penetrate society in ways that priests cannot. In the Opus concept, each lay Catholic is to sanctify the secular world and his own career and, as

Prelate Del Portillo states it, "seek and find God in the occurrences of daily life." This, he says, turns work from a money-making process into "a task which satisfies the legitimate aspirations of the human heart." A 1979 Opus memo reported that members around the world work, among other things, at 487 universities and schools, 694 newspapers or periodicals, 52 TV or radio stations, 38 publicity agencies and twelve film companies.

The visible works are impressive.

There is a five-story brick-and-stone headquarters building in Rome, which also houses members studying theology. In addition, there is a global network of administrative centers. Members operate the University of Navarre, one of Spain's finest schools, where Opus disciples from many nations study business, engineering and communications. There are also universities in Peru and Colombia and high schools around the world. Houses near 300 university campuses are prime locations for recruiting and preparing new members. Opus also sponsors 200 social-services agencies. The movement has grown slowly in the U.S., where there are only 3,000 adherents, but in nations such as Chile, Kenya and the Philippines it is expanding vigorously.

Although the stress it places upon full lay vocations within the church anticipated progressive thinking at the Second Vatican Council, Opus Dei nevertheless seems distressingly retrograde to its critics.