Smash hit

There was no sign of whips and cilices when it ran an open evening last Thursday at one of its student residences, Netherhall House in north London. In a book-lined meeting room a video was played. It was intended to demonstrate that life in Opus Dei is not what Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, imagined. Members were shown playing football, going to the fair, giving Power Point presentations.

Jack Valero, Opus Dei’s UK spokesman, took the floor. “We’re not allowed to murder — not even Dan Brown,” he said. “In fact, thanks to Dan Brown, I’m now getting 50 e-mails a month asking about joining.”

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Moritz Gudenus, 20, a student at the London School of Economics, said Opus Dei offered support and structure: “I love having a daily plan for life. I have my prayer, I have my rosary, I have my mass. Life can be difficult today so this constructs my life.”

To Opus Dei’s critics, however, the friendly image is just spin. John Roche, a lecturer at Linacre College, Oxford, left Opus Dei more than 30 years ago. He has accused it of “double-think and internal and external deception”.

Roche is backed by the Opus Dei Awareness Network (Odan), based in America. Dianne DiNicola, its executive director, said: “The biggest problem we have with Opus Dei is that a person is not free to make their own decisions. They live in a controlled environment and all the while Opus Dei hides behind the Catholic church.”

Much of the criticism arises from the character of Opus Dei’s founder, Josemaria Escriva, a Spanish priest. He was both an ardent supporter of the Franco dictatorship and a zealous proselytiser. Opus Dei strongly influenced ultra-conservative politics in Spain. But it is the recruitment code that causes concern now.

An internal newsletter published three years before Escriva’s death in 1975 urged his followers to go out to “the highways and byways and push those whom you find to come and fill my house, force them to come in . . . we must be a little crazy . . . you must kill yourselves for proselytism”.

A network of institutions was set up to attract the young and religious who were then encouraged to join Opus Dei. In Britain it has more than 25 centres and charitable ventures, including a mansion in Sussex. Its assets are worth more than £40m. It even runs a teenage magazine, Tamezin.

References to Opus Dei in its operations are so low-key as to be almost invisible. Tamezin’s magazine website does not even mention religion. Netherhall House calls itself an “intercollegiate hall of residence”. It takes several clicks on its website before these words appear: “Netherhall House is a corporate undertaking of Opus Dei.”

William Stewart, a television producer and presenter, is a patron of the popular Kelston Club for boys in Wandsworth, south London. He was furious to to be told last week that it is operated by Opus Dei. He said he would now resign as a patron. “If I’d known that it was connected with Opus Dei, I’d have steered well clear,” he said.

To be fair, the homepage of its website does mention Opus Dei. Another patron, Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, is happy with the connection to Opus Dei.

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