A Vatican intervention in an influential prelature, around which the suspicion of sectarianism revolves, could serve as a pretext for new speculations.
Newsroom (04/08/2022 10:50 PM , Gaudium Press) Pope Francis, ‘missionary of mercy and dialogue’, has undertaken, as we know, a “penitential journey” – as he wished to call it – to Canada to ask forgiveness of the many local indigenous people for alleged abuses on the part of the Church during colonial times.
The Pope has already had occasion to address his requests for forgiveness to several indigenous leaders last Monday, in a meeting accompanied by “purification” rituals, cultural music and even invocations to “Mother Earth”.
In the first public Mass of his “penitential journey”, the Pope warned against the “caricatures of tradition“, which, according to him, do nothing but “preserve the present in the logic of ‘it has always been done this way’“… In fact, on this point the Argentinean Pope shows himself to be quite coherent with his own thinking: if there has been a pontiff who has managed to innovate, it is Francis. On the 28th, once again, he preached peace and harmony: “We need once again to calm the extremes of opposition and heal the wounds of hatred. We do not need to divide the world into friends and enemies.”
Does Francis, with his beneficence, always draw approval?
The Pope’s attitude in his motu proprio “Ad charisma tuendum” of last week, in which he declares the “charismatic, not hierarchical nature” of Opus Dei, is still perplexing and strange. It is simple: the Prelate of the Work will no longer be a bishop, and its statutes will have to be reformed.
Is Opus Dei a Cult?
Besides transferring the Prelature to the custody of the Congregation for the Clergy, the motu proprio “Ad Charisma tuendum” provides that an annual review of the development of the Work’s activities throughout the world should be delivered to the Holy See (art. 2). Moreover, the prelate will no longer be invested with the episcopate (art. 4). Some interpret this as a symptom of the coming Commissariat (where an ecclesiastical official would exercise jurisdiction over the prelate.)
And it would not be surprising if Opus Dei were a Commissariat at the present time: such has been Rome’s attitude towards various organizations of consecrated life in recent years. In practice, moreover, the prelature becomes more like an institute of consecrated life.
A Commissariat could revive, for its part, the reproach of “sect” levelled against Opus Dei, an issue that came to the fore years ago at the launch of Dan Brown’s best-seller “The Da Vinci Code”.
As usual, the ill-informed and sensationalist do not care about the truth as much as they love rumours and gossip. And a Vatican intervention in the only prelature of the Catholic Church, around which the unfounded suspicion of sectarianism revolves, would be a good pretext for mafias to resurface.
A sect is usually defined as “a group of dissenters from a religion or from a principal communion”. Now, how could an institution approved and recognized by the Pope, governed by its own statutes and approved by the Church itself, be considered a sect?
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, is the author of “Reflections on the concept of sect and response to some accusations directed at Catholic groups”. In this work he indicates that: “Recognized ecclesial communities keep in continuous contact with those in charge in the Church. Their statutes and their lifestyle are examined,” and he continued, “It is not right for certain institutions, persons or the media to label communities recognized by the Church as sects, or even to call their lifestyle ‘sectarian practices’.”
Therefore, neither Opus Dei nor any type of religious institution that lives in communion with the Church – which, so to speak, are Church – can be considered a sect. To the contrary, it would be self-destructive…
Forty years later…
In short, with or without a Commissariat, the intervention is done. It remains to be seen whether Francis will continue with a more coercive interference in the life of the Prelature.
In any case, for the members of Opus Dei, this year – which marks the 40th anniversary of that important moment when His Holiness John Paul II established the Personal Prelature with the Apostolic Constitution “Ut sit” – will have a different flavour.
We will see how, from now on, the Work will continue its apostolate and action within the Church, in the hope that the commands dictated by the “central nervous system” – which, after all, is the one that coordinates every organism – will not destroy the cells that make up the various members and tissues with which the Mystical Body of Christ is composed.
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
