part0012

n the main sacristy of Villa Tevere is an old oil painting by Del Arco, a fourth- or fifth-rate Spanish painter who was a contemporary of Velazquez. It shows Christ after his scourging, almost naked, collapsed, and bent double. Monsignor Escrivá used to call it “the hunchbacked Christ.” Passing it once he stopped to remark, “Years ago, this painting seemed exaggerated to me—to see our Lord so bent over with suffering he looked like a hunchback. But now it doesn’t, because when I’m tired, I also feel that my body is bent over, and I find it hard to stand straight. I’ve often seen myself like this by the end of the day—bent double, hunchbacked, tired, exhausted. It consoles me to see Jesus Christ—he who is all beauty, strength, and wisdom—broken, crushed, at the limit of his endurance.” 1

Often those living in Villa Tevere watched Monsignor Escrivá go upstairs very, very slowly, unaware that he could be seen. He would go up one step, then pause. Then another step. It was as if he had not the strength to support his body.

Often too, toward nightfall, he would come to the laundry room at Villa Sacchetti where Julia, Dora, Rosalia, and Concha were working. He would sit on a small, low sewing chair and whisper in all confidence, “I’ve come today so you can tell me things…. Today the Father is absolutely ‘whacked.’”

This same man early in the morning looked radiant, dynamic, smiling, and vigorous as he walked briskly along a corridor. He did not wear a watch because his day was a continuous going from one thing straight to the next, without a minute in between.

He displayed an amazing capacity for work, at a pace difficult to keep up with. Asking someone to do a job he would say, “Do it whenever you can.” Within an hour he would dial the two digits of the relevant office and inquire, “My daughter, is it ready?” or “My son, have you finished what I asked you for?”

Every day was too short for him. When he came to examine his conscience in the evening, he used to feel squeezed dry like a lemon, bent double. He would say to our Lord, “I haven’t had time to think about myself today.”

There was the task of governing the Work, which was growing day by day, plus the slow, delicate negotiations with the Vatican, and the exhaustive studies and canonical procedures. There were the journeys abroad: rapid, intensive trips to establish Opus Dei in other countries. There was the unremitting construction work, because before one building was finished another had been started; plus the always unpredictable and precarious question of how to pay for them. Then there were the many and varied visits he received daily, in which he combined speed, affection, and his deliberate desire “to speak only of God”; and the guests for lunch, nearly always prelates— bishops, cardinals, or council fathers—to whom he explained with untiring patience, over and over again, what Opus Dei was and what it was not; or else discussed with them the thorny question of the needs of the Church.

There was his preaching, plus the constant work of writing spiritual texts, which he produced faster than the printing department could cope with. Then there were the informal gatherings, a constant in his oral teaching, which he used to form the people of the Work, and their friends and relations, in the spirit of Christianity, plus his personalized attention to each spiritual son and daughter who needed it, whether nearby or far away. There was his life of piety, prayer, union with God; in Monsignor Escrivá this had become, from his earliest youth, a way of living with harmonious rhythm of established daily practices. There was family life, including appointments, chance meetings, and moments spent together, all at the appropriate times.

In addition, there was the burden of concern Monsignor Escrivá felt for all the many people who had turned their backs on God; for a whole civilization becoming de-Christianized whose very foundations were crumbling. He suffered for the Church, which was going through a sort of long tunnel of difficulties. During the last ten years of his life he offered up absolutely everything—even breathing or smiling, his most trivial gesture or his most laborious task—so that “the time of trial should end soon” for the Church. Finally, there was a continuous volley of insinuations, calumnies, and complex inaccuracies from all sides. When they were personal they did not cause him to lose any sleep, but when they were aimed at the Work, he found them heartbreaking.

There was also the fact that Monsignor Escrivá was ill, although to outsiders he looked hale and hearty.

“I once went blind when I had diabetes,” he said years later. “No one knew except Don Alvaro. My body was covered with skin eruptions, and sometimes I had no choice but to take a little sugar, because I felt a compelling need.” 2 Ordinarily he felt tired, so thirsty that his tongue was cracked like a piece of old leather, and he was subject to splitting headaches. But only Don Alvaro and two other sons in the Work, José Luis Pastor and Miguel Angel Madurga, doctors who cared for him, knew anything about it. He was never heard to complain. When cured of his diabetes, he said in surprise, on discovering an almost unknown well-being, “I’d got used to it … but now I feel as if I’ve come out of jail!” 3

And, to the physical pain and mental and spiritual sufferings he already had, he added a generous amount of voluntary mortifications: small ones like not leaning back in an armchair, not crossing his legs, not looking wherever he felt like looking, not drinking water when he was thirsty, going without salt, sugar, wine, or sweets, and much bigger ones like using cilices, sleeping on the floor, beating himself with a scourge or leather whip, “to tame the savage,” as he put it.

One morning Monsignor Escrivá met José Luis Pastor in a corridor in Villa Vecchia. He took him affectionately by the arm and asked him, “Son, will you join me in saying a Memorare to the Madonna?”

“Of course, Father!” replied José Luis. Then, speaking as a doctor, he asked, “How did you sleep last night, Father? Were you able to rest?”

Monsignor Escrivá did not answer as a patient. “Look, because I love you all so very much, I always have one or other of you to think about. I love you with the heart of a father, a mother—and a grandmother! Sometimes I get all confused inside between what a father ought to demand, what a mother has to understand and what a grandmother can indulge. And occasionally I miss little things: the odd letter, some detail of affection from my children.”

He paused, then went on. “I have prayed about all this. And I have seen that parents are for their children, and not children for their parents. This is what I tell other people so often, and I have to apply it to myself first and foremost. If, like the prophet Ezekiel, I were to ask our Lord to change my heart, I wouldn’t ask him to change my heart of stone into one of flesh. Maybe the opposite: that instead of this heart of flesh he would grant me one of stone. And then, my son, then I would sleep like a log every night!” 4

Looked at from every angle, Monsignor Escrivá’s life was sealed with the sign of the cross. He understood that it had to be like that on February 14, 1943 in a house in Jorge Manrique Street, Madrid. He was celebrating Mass in the oratory his daughters had there, when he saw with utter clarity the badge or seal of the Work—“seal, because the Work has no coat of arms,” as he said later. 5 It was “the cross in the very center of the world.” 6 As he saw it, the cross was always a sign of contradiction, scandal to some, madness to others; a paradox in a world that had come to identify good with pleasure and evil with pain.

One day in 1963, in Rome, Monsignor Escrivá called two of the directors of the general council, Juan Cox and Fernando Valenciano. Don Alvaro del Portillo was also there. Monsignor Escrivá, with obvious delight, showed them “what they’ve just sent from Spain:” the diary. He opened at the page for February 14, 1943. The seal of the Work was there, drawn in his own hand. His heart missed a beat. He had before him the witness to something he had never considered an idea of his own, but a drawing dictated to him. 7

The Cross marked his life. He took as his daily motto, “Nulla dies sine cruce : no day without the cross.” A touchstone whose truth had been proved by experience. But he brightened it up by adding two words in front: in laetitia , in joy, which denoted a disposition, a grace, for his way of living. His personal aspiration was thus “In joy, no day without the cross.” If ever a day passed without some note of adversity, Monsignor Escrivá would go to the tabernacle and ask, “What’s up between us, Lord? Don’t you love me anymore?” Not that he liked pain. But he was convinced that the cross was the royal seal of the works of God. “To me, a day without the cross is like a day without God,” he used to say; 8 he did not want there to be a single day without it as a stamp of authenticity.

Monsignor Escrivá often used to say, “Teresa of Avila could be won over with a sardine; I can be won over with a sardine bone.” A simple donkey, which a son of his had made out of silver paper, was a present prized so highly that he felt it deserved to be put on display in a showcase—which he did.

When the attacks on the Work increased, his cheerfulness was even more noticeable. It was real joy. In case any of his children should feel discouraged, he said to his spiritual daughters, “What if they knock our heads off? Why then, we’ll carry them in our hands. We’ve been carrying them on our shoulders for long enough. And what does it matter in the end? Nothing at all!” 9

Monsignor Escrivá only spoke about himself in order to pass on to his children new discoveries in his interior life which could help them in their own relationship with God. He was not keen on psychological introspection. Begoña Alvarez, surprised to hear Monsignor Escrivá talking on a personal level, took particular note of a comment he made one day with reference to a difficulty that had cropped up: “Not through my own merit but through a light from God, I have had and still have the psychology of never feeling alone. Never. Neither from a human nor from a supernatural point of view. I’ve never felt that I was alone! And this has helped me to keep silent on many occasions. I’ve preferred to be silent, for the sake of other people. That is one of the reasons why I’ve been cheerful all the time, despite having suffered so much. Always cheerful! Although it may seem to be a paradox. I can tell you that I’ve only had reasons for being very happy. They’ve never made me feel misfortunate, still less a victim!” 10 He was well aware—having learned it from the crucifix—who the only Victim was.

He was ruled by God’s point of view, which dominated his outlook completely and gave him an indestructible sense of security. One day Itziar and Tere Zumalde told him about the difficulties they had encountered in the places where they were working—one in Abruzzi, Italy, the other in Santiago, Chile. In the light of his own experience, he advised them to disregard the difficulties.

“I’m going to tell you something. In the early years of the foundation of the Work, when lots of people thought I was crazy, I didn’t go and get a doctor to give me a certificate saying I was sane. No, I kept on doing what God wanted of me, ignoring the gossip, not caring a whit what they thought of me. Some people said I was a heretic. But when I was being slandered like that, I didn’t set out to get theologians—and I did have some among my friends—to certify that what I was teaching was not heretical. I continued working for God, in the absolute assurance that what I was doing was the Work which God had asked me to do. My daughters, you have to act according to God’s viewpoint, and then you’ll see the results!” 11

He was also aware of the substance of the worst slanders. They started in Spain. They were led by certain heads of lay, confessional movements, “official Catholics”; by certain religious who were very active and influential just before and after the Civil War; and by groups and individual members of the Falange and the National Movement, Franco’s political party and the only one he permitted to exist. They were the ones who started things, and then spread the disease among other good but misguided people. In Barcelona, reviving the old practices of the Inquisition, they even held a public “auto-de-fé ,” with all the ceremony of liturgical anathemas and a fire, condemning and then burning copies of The Way .

From the time when Opus Dei opened its first student center in Luchana Street in Madrid, the people of the Work always put a wooden cross on the wall in their centers, without a figure of Christ—a plain, unvarnished black cross. Point 178 of The Way referred to this: “Whenever you see a poor wooden Cross, alone, uncared-for, of no value … and without its Crucified, don’t forget that that Cross is your Cross: the Cross of each day, the hidden Cross, without splendor or consolation … the Cross which is waiting for the Crucified it lacks: and that Crucified must be you.”

This foreshadowed the idea he would preach in 1974 in his catechetical gatherings in Central and South America: “For some, there are too many crosses … whereas for me, I need more Christs!” 12

Soon after the end of the Spanish Civil War, a center for university students was set up in Balmes Street in Barcelona. The people of the Work put up a wooden cross, a very big one. Some unscrupulous people spread the rumor that “blood rites” and “human sacrifices” were carried out there. They believed, or wanted to make others believe, that the cross was an instrument of torture. The rumor was noised about on an alarming scale, especially among the families of some young men of Opus Dei, Rafael and Jaime Termes and Rafael Escola. When Rafael Termes, the director of the center, told Father Escrivá of these rumors, he was also able to give him the good news that his sons were facing up to this difficulty “very peacefully and without offending against charity toward anything or anybody.” 13 Father Escrivá immediately suggested the cross should be replaced by another one, “so small that not even a newborn baby could fit on it, so that they will realize what lies they are telling. Then they won’t be able to say that we are crucifying ourselves, because we simply wouldn’t fit on it!” 14

Father Escrivá was particularly pleased after his first audience with Pius XII in 1946 to find that in the brief Cum Societatis , the Pope granted the privilege of a partial indulgence to anyone who kissed or said an aspiration before the wooden cross in Opus Dei’s oratories. 15

It was also in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War that certain people tried to interpret liturgical and Eucharistic motifs decorating a frieze as “cabalistic signs” for Masonic rites. This frieze was in the oratory of the residence hall in Jenner Street, Madrid. It bore the following texts: Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor (“the love of Christ has joined us together in one”), taken from the well-known Eucharistic hymn Ubi Caritas traditional in the church since ancient times, and the phrase Erant autem perseverantes in doctrina Apostolorum, in communicatione fractionis panis, et orationibus (“And they were persevering in the doctrine of the Apostles, and in the communication of the breaking of bread, and in prayers”) from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:42). Ears of wheat, the vine, the light of Christ, the dove of peace—symbols common in Church usage—separated one text from another. These were the “dangerous cabalistic signs” and “cryptic hieroglyphs.”

The Abbot-Coadjutor of Montserrat (an important center of religious influence in Catalonia), Dom Aurelio M. Escarré, wrote to the bishop of Madrid requesting reliable information about Opus Dei. The reply was a detailed, authoritative, and conclusive letter from Bishop Eijo y Garay, which settled the gossip for a while and relieved the worries felt by families of people of the Work.

This may be a good place to examine the process of creating a defamatory lie. A slanderous rumor nearly always starts from something real, in itself innocent, but deliberately misrepresented—the wooden cross, the point in The Way , the words and symbols on the frieze, and so on. It is then easy to create a scandalous story, a suspicious theory, a culpable conjecture. Monsignor Escrivá was subjected to each of these modes of attack.

One method is simply to take a text out of context. That was the case with the liturgical symbols. It was also the case with misrepresentations from highlighting point 28 of The Way , “marriage is for the rank and file, not for the officers of Christ’s army,” while ignoring other points (e.g., point 26, “Matrimony is a holy Sacrament….” and point 27, “Do you laugh when I tell you that you have a vocation to marriage? Well, you have just that: a vocation”).

Or again, people accused Monsignor Escrivá of telling his children, boastfully and arrogantly, “You will have to render an account to God for having known me, because there have been and will be plenty of Popes, cardinals, and bishops, but there is only one founder of Opus Dei.” These people distorted his phrase and took it out of its context. Monsignor Escrivá was calling his children’s attention to their historic responsibility as “co-founders,” and their present and future obligation to transmit the spirit of Opus Dei wholly and without alteration as they had received it from its source. He was very conscious of the unique importance of a foundational charism, something unrepeatable, nontransferable, and inalienable. Nevertheless, he was reluctant to be treated as “the founder.” He argued that he was “a founder without a foundation,” saying, “I didn’t want to found anything. I’ve never been anything but a nuisance.” He even said, “The only good founder I know comes bottled,” referring to a brandy called El Fundador .

In a meditation he gave on September 11, 1960, he said: “My children, I have to make you consider something that when I was young, I did not dare either to think or to express; but now I feel I ought to tell you. In my lifetime, I have known several Popes, lots of cardinals, and a host of bishops. On the other hand, there is only one founder of Opus Dei, even though it’s a poor sinner like me—I am quite convinced that our Lord chose the worst thing he could find, so that it could be seen more clearly that the Work is his doing alone. But God will ask you to render an account for having been close to me, because he has entrusted me with the spirit of Opus Dei, and I have passed it on to you. He will ask you to give an account for having known that poor priest who was with you, and who loved you so very much—even more than your own mothers did! I will pass away, and the people who come to the Work later on will look on you with envy, as if you were relics: not because of me, because I am, I insist, a poor man, a sinner who loves Jesus Christ madly; but for having learned the spirit of the Work from the lips of its founder.” 16

There is no need to look far in the things he said or wrote to find references to the fact that he was made of clay, “common clay that is easily broken”; or to his being poor metal, or “a clumsy, deaf instrument.” But he always distinguished between the man and the mission, between his own weak nature and the divine greatness of his message. So, in 1973, he said, “I’ve never deceived you. I’m not gold and I’ve never said I was. I’m not silver, and I’ve never said I was. I’m not copper and I’ve never said I was. Maybe cracked copper with rivets. But what I say to you … is pure gold!” 17

Another method of falsifying truth is by using half-truths. In this way gossipers talk about “capturing young people,” alleging that the apostolate by people of Opus Dei among the young takes advantage of boys’ and girls’ immaturity and inexperience, proposing to them an ideal of self-giving to God when they are too young to make free decisions. Such people either do not know or else conceal the fact that even if a boy or girl wishes to join the Work at the age of fourteen or fifteen, and even if they are already practicing the habits and customs of the Work, they cannot legally join until they are eighteen. At eighteen people have sufficient discernment to vote, choose a career, buy and sell, go to war, marry, get divorced, be elected deputy, councillor, senator, lord mayor, even become sovereign. Moreover, the contract made by someone who joins Opus Dei can be freely canceled.

Another tool used by fabricators is the distorted fact. It has been said and written that there are “concealed microphones” in Villa Tevere. Those who say it know it is not true. There are loudspeakers, not microphones, which are not concealed but clearly visible, installed, not in small rooms or offices but in big sitting rooms, the laundry, and one or two oratories. They can be seen by anybody. Their purpose was to enable Monsignor Escrivá to lead a get-together or give a meditation with big groups of his sons or daughters in the Work. They were used two or three times on family occasions or celebrations to send Christmas wishes, to ask what presents they had had for Christmas, or to have them hear some songs.

The interpretation of the journey Monsignor Escrivá made to Greece with Don Alvaro del Portillo and Father Javier Echevarria in 1966 was a sensational example of misrepresentation. The purpose of the trip—like so many others he made to countries of Central Europe—was to explore firsthand the possibilities of setting up the Work there. Monsignor Escrivá traveled with the knowledge and express consent of the Holy See. He consulted the Vatican several times, through Monsignor Dell’Acqua, Deputy Secretary of State. It was no secret journey, and he sent several postcards from Athens and Corinth that have all been kept.

Before he left, people in the Roman Curia told him starting Opus Dei in Greece would not be easy as “there is a very close link between the Orthodox Church and the government of the country, so much so that the life of Greeks who are not members of the Orthodox Church, at least nominally, is very hard.”

Many years later, Father Javier Echevarria retained a very vivid impression of the coldness, even hostility, they encountered. “From the time of our arrival at the port of Piraeus,” he said, “we noticed an atmosphere of distrust; you could say a physical rejection of the Catholic Church. The fact that we were wearing clerical clothes led the Customs officers to hold us up for over an hour and a half, making a detailed examination of our visas and passports and subjecting us to a completely unnecessary third-degree interrogation…. We realized we were going to be in an atmosphere suspicious of Catholicism…. When we got to Athens, the Father decided to go to the cathedral to do the afternoon prayer. We spent some time in the cathedral, feeling a certain sense of desolation because it was empty, and not a single person came in to greet our Lord in his church…. We also had a sensation of emptiness along the streets of Athens, Corinth, and Marathon: people looked at priests distrustingly. In some places they drew aside as we passed, making it clear that we were outsiders…. On our return to Rome, the Father relayed to the Holy See his view that it would be better to wait until there were Greek people in Opus Dei. These views were totally shared by the office of the secretary of state.” 18

Monsignor Escrivá brought back two small icons for his daughters and sons in the Work: one of Our Lady and another of St. Paul embracing St. Peter, symbolizing the unity and oneness of the Roman, Catholic, apostolic Church. He also brought back two of better quality that he presented to Pope Paul VI and Monsignor Dell’Acqua.

On returning he told his children he had sensed a certain clericalism, a sort of religious nationalism among the Greek Orthodox, which would make conversions difficult. “The switch by these Christians to obedience to the Roman Pontiff needs to be encouraged among Greeks living abroad.” Because of this, Monsignor Escrivá returned from Greece convinced that setting up apostolates of Opus Dei in that country would be much slower and more problematic than he had thought. “Religion and the nationalistic conscience are so intertwined that changing from Greek Orthodox to Roman Catholicism is seen almost as a betrayal of their country.” Dr. Marlies Kücking heard him make this sort of comment on his return from his Greek trip. 19

Where does the story that Monsignor Escrivá wanted to “convert” to the Orthodox Church come from? There is only one possible explanation. The trip was made between February 26 and March 14, 1966. Among the twenty-four men of the Work who were to be ordained priests in the summer of that year was one called Jalil Badui, son of a Lebanese couple who had emigrated to Mexico. There were also other professional men in Opus Dei who were Catholics of Arab origin (Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian). At one point, it was thought that because of their race and culture, these people could begin the Work in the Middle East, bearing in mind the only requirement would be the authorization of the Holy See to change from the Latin Rite to the Maronite Rite in the liturgy, and such an authorization would be easy to obtain if the obvious guarantees were given. 20 To confuse a fairly normal procedure like change of rite with a break from Rome has to be the result of crass ignorance or evil intent.

In addition to distortion of a fact, another fraudulent method often used consists in attributing to a real scene some spurious phrase or false episode. The detailed description of a room, a piece of furniture, or even of real people lends credibility to the fictitious event narrated. This procedure has been used a lot against Monsignor Escrivá by people who, having lived in centers of the Work, later left Opus Dei. Thus in the sitting room of Villa Vecchia, for instance, they represent Monsignor Escrivá furiously scolding some young women of Opus Dei for creating a cloud of dust while cleaning. They begin with facts: Some women did a major cleaning job when the work on Villa Vecchia was finished; by not taking the precaution of sprinkling water on the floor before sweeping, they lifted a huge amount of plaster dust; Father Escrivá was passing through and called their attention to this in no uncertain terms.

Up to here everything is true. But the truth is falsified by omitting what exactly Monsignor Escrivá pointed out: that the cleaners had dirtied a large, intricate chandelier, already hung, that would now need special cleaning. What was more, the dust was sticking to the vaulted ceiling, which had been painted and was still wet. But Father Escrivá, right there and then, became their guide to the building, explaining the meaning of the eight scenes represented in the medallions of the ceiling: some depicting the story of Joseph, and others, scenes from the Book of Tobias. He joked with them about the fish carried by young Tobias, whom he referred to as “Tobias Junior.” That same night there appeared some glasses and a bottle of malmsey, a wine made from sweet, fragrant grapes, with a note in Father Escrivá’s handwriting: “For my daughters, who have swallowed so much dust.” 21

Everyone who knew Monsignor Escrivá agreed that he had a strong character, a lively temper, and dynamic fortitude when correcting people. But without exception they also agree in underlining his cordiality, approachability, friendliness, and the tender affection that never left anyone feeling hurt, slighted, or simply upset after a reprimand. His normal way of settling such episodes was to send his daughters a packet of sweets or give his sons a kiss on both cheeks.

Julia Bustillo was a housekeeper, one of the oldest in the Work. Someone asked her, “Julia, tell us about some of the mistakes you made, when the Father told you off.” Julia replied, “The Father didn’t ‘tell us off.’ The Father corrected us, and showed us how to do things well. And he did it with a lot of patience, because at first we didn’t get a single thing right!”

One afternoon Monsignor Escrivá invited two or three of his sons to go for a walk in Rome with him and finish by “having something in a trattoria.” As they set off, Monsignor Escrivá inquired, “Do you know why we are going?”

Turning to one of them with a gesture very much his own—it consisted of sticking his tongue out a tiny bit through closed lips, as if biting it—he said mischievously, “Because I told you off this morning.” 22 So much for Monsignor Escrivá’s “scoldings.”

Another method of spreading calumny is to add a few words that were never said to some which were real. For instance, Monsignor Escrivá had given strict instructions, written and oral, to avoid even the semblance of social contact between men and women in centers of the Work. To ensure that priests—the only men of Opus Dei who go to the women’s centers, to carry out their ministry—never stayed longer than absolutely necessary, he said on several occasions, positing two equally undesirable alternatives, “I would prefer a daughter of mine to die without the last rites than for my sons, the priests, to stay in a women’s center unnecessarily.” 23

This sentence has been revised as “I would prefer a daughter of mine to die without confession, than for her to confess to a Jesuit.” The manipulation and false addition are obvious—but only if you have the original text.

Another deceitful method is to take a part for the whole. People conclude that if a banker is in Opus Dei, Opus Dei “owns banks;” or because four or five people of the Work once held high posts under a particular political regime, they project this onto tens of thousands of other people living in eighty different countries and affirm that Opus Dei “is a political force.”

When it is pointed out that in Spain under Franco people of the Work were both in the government and in the opposition, some holding public office and others in exile, they answer: “Ah, this shows the fine Machiavellian spirit of the Opus; it is a strategic ambivalence which enables them to have a foot in both camps.”

A clever reply for a television debate. But it would not stand up to analysis in Germany, where there are people of the Work who vote and/or work for the Liberal, Christian Democrat, Social Democrat, or Green parties; or in the United States, where there are people of the Work among the Republicans and Democrats; or in Mexico where some people of the Work are lifelong supporters of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, and others are lifelong supporters of the opposing party. This is completely beyond the scope of old clichés always trying to explain history by conspiracy theories, hidden alliances between the cross and the sword, the altar and the throne, the Vatican and the White House.

Another tool in the lie-makers’ kit consists of saying one thing, then the opposite—“white” today and “black” tomorrow. Some people spent years calling Monsignor Escrivá a heretic, an innovator, and an ultra-progressive, for preaching that the laity were called to be saints without needing to leave the world. After a while, without any change in Monsignor Escrivá’s message, those same people accused him of being traditionalist, reactionary, and ultra-conservative.

There were also those who, seeing the discreet way people of the Work acted, said “You can’t hear them, you don’t notice them: therefore they must be a secret society.” These same people, when they later saw the presence of the apostolates of Opus Dei, did not hesitate to assert, “They are Pope Wojtyla’s new crusaders, advancing, invading, and destroying!”

Gossipers who recently accused Monsignor Escrivá of sympathy towards the Nazis and of anti-Semitism forget that years ago they or their fellow-travelers called him a Jewish Mason and accused Opus Dei of being “the Jewish branch” of a Masonic lodge.

While on this point, it may be asked what Monsignor Escrivá actually thought of Hitler and Nazism. Francesco Angelicchio, one of the first Italians to join Opus Dei, wrote, “I always heard him express very clear, severe condemnation of totalitarian, tyrannical regimes which killed freedom, no matter what color they were.” 24

Mario Lantini said, “Per lui non era concepibile il partito único…. Era quindi contra ogni totalitarismo, razzismo, nazionalismo, ecc . For him a single-party system was inconceivable…. He was completely against all totalitarianism, racism, Nazism, etc.” 25

Pedro Casciaro said, “With regard to Fascism and Nazism there were no cases of confrontation, as Opus Dei began its stable activity in Italy and Germany when those regimes were no longer in power. On one occasion I heard him [Monsignor Escrivá] speak admiringly of Cardinal Faulhaber, who during the Nazi period had had the courage to publish some Advent lectures given in Munich cathedral.” 26 (The lectures warned against the dangers of the Nazi system and showed its anti-Christian roots.)

José Orlandis recalls that on September 15, 1939, the day after he had asked for admission to the Work, during a spiritual retreat in the Burjasot residence hall in Valencia, “I was alone with the Father in his office and without my asking him anything, he confided to me, ‘This morning I offered Mass for Poland, a Catholic country, which is suffering terribly under the Nazi invasion.’ I could see that this intention—the fate of Poland—was close to his heart and he was very distressed in those days, when Polish resistance was collapsing everywhere in the face of the invaders’ superior strength.” 27

Domingo Diaz-Ambrona has left written evidence of a chance meeting with Monsignor Escrivá on a train between Madrid and Avila in August 1941. “I had just returned from a trip to Germany, where I had sensed that Catholics were afraid to show their religious convictions. This made me suspicious of Nazism; but, like many Spaniards, I couldn’t really see the negative aspects of the Nazi system and the philosophy behind it, because I was blinded by German propaganda, which presented itself as the force which would annihilate Communism. I wanted to know his opinion. I was very surprised by the priest’s uncompromising reply. He had accurate information about the state of the Church and Catholics under Hitler’s regime. Monsignor Escrivá spoke to me in strong terms against this anti-Christian regime, with a forcefulness born of his great love for freedom. In Spain at that time, when the Nazis’ many crimes were not yet known about, it was uncommon to find people who condemned the Nazi system so roundly.” 28

Amadeo de Fuenmayor described Monsignor Escrivá’s attitude— “his condemnation of Nazism was decisive”—and gave a long list of “expressions referring to Hitler and his racist system which we heard him say on many occasions.” The following were some of them:

“I abominate all totalitarian regimes. Nazism is a heresy, as well as being a political aberration. I was delighted when the Church condemned it: all Catholics had been thinking the same thing about it in their hearts. Every kind of racism is contrary to God’s law, the natural law. I know there have been many victims of Nazism, and it hurts me. Even one person made a victim for his faith or race would have been enough to make me condemn the system. I have always thought Hitler was an obsessive, miserable man. A tyrant.” 29

How did Monsignor Escrivá react? From the time he was called mad, unscrupulous, a heretic, or a Mason, to the time people started telephoning Villa Tevere in the small hours and asking whether it was true that Monsignor Escrivá was dead, he practiced, and taught his children in Opus Dei to practice, a reaction he summarized in five steps: “pray, keep silent, understand, forgive … and smile.”

Mercedes Morado and Begoña Alvarez, who were among those who worked with Monsignor Escrivá for years, wrote that his spirit of forgiving and understanding toward those who slandered him grew progressively, to the point where he could say in all simplicity, “I don’t feel any resentment toward them. I pray for them every day, just as hard as I pray for my children. And by praying for them so much, I’ve come to love them with the same heart and the same intensity as I love my children.” 30

He was putting onto paper something of his own personal experience when he wrote, “Think about the good that has been done to you throughout your lifetime by those who have injured or attempted to injure you. Others call such people their enemies…. You are nothing so special that you should have enemies; so call them ‘benefactors.’ Pray to God for them: as a result, you will come to like them.” 31

On another occasion, Encarnita Ortega witnessed how he reacted when told that Father Carrillo de Albornoz had left the Society of Jesus, later apostatizing from the Catholic faith. Monsignor Escrivá was visibly moved and deeply sorry. He buried his head in his hands and fell silent, withdrawing into himself, praying. Salvador Canals reminded him that this same man had once organized a very serious campaign of slander against the Work. Monsignor Escrivá interrupted him bluntly, “But he is a soul, my son, a soul!” 32

While he recommended this disposition of genuine understanding— “we have to understand even those who do not understand us,” he said 33 —he encouraged his children “not to remain silent where defending the Work is concerned, because the Work is God’s, and we have to stand up for it.” One day in Rome in January 1967, while chatting with César Ortiz-Echagüe, who had just come from Madrid, he criticized the lack of political liberty in Spain at the time. He added, “I’ve written a strongly worded letter to Minister Solis. I don’t expect him to reply, but if he does, I have even more things to say to him! And as for you, you cannot permit state newspapers, which are government-controlled and therefore paid for by all of you as citizens, to insult the Work gratuitously.” 34

On the other hand, when the abuse was personal, he did not hesitate to recommend peaceful silence and forgiveness. In 1962, Rafael Calvo Serer went to see him in Rome. He unburdened his heart and told him about the calumnies and persecutions he was being subjected to by petty officials of the Franco regime. Monsignor Escrivá listened and then said, “My son, it is hard, but you have to learn how to forgive.”

He was silent for a little and then, as if thinking aloud, he added, “I didn’t need to learn how to forgive, because God has taught me how to love.” 35

He made a clear distinction between personal attacks and attacks on Opus Dei. He said on occasions, “And if they never understand, the day will come when they die—and then all their resistance will be over. God will judge their actions! We should never judge.” 36

In 1972 Monsignor Escrivá was on a grueling apostolic trip around Europe and America. The people living at Villa Tevere started getting strange telephone calls asking if he had died, or inquiring about “his grave state of health.” When he heard about this, his response was simply, “They are the same people who wanted to throw me out of the Work in 1951. If they had succeeded, they would have killed me. Now they still want to kill me off, by spreading rumors of imaginary illnesses. I don’t know what they’re going to gain by that, because when I really do die I hope that with the help of your prayers, the Lord will receive me in his mercy. And from heaven, I’ll be able to help you much more!” 37

As this disturbing tactic of phoning in the early hours of the morning continued, he told his spiritual daughters in La Montagnola about it, in case any calls came during the day and they were to pick up the phone. His comment was brief. “It’s what some people want—and what would suit the devil.” Turning to another subject, he went on working. 38

So as not to give rise to resentment, Monsignor Escrivá always drew a veil of anonymity over the identity of people who attacked Opus Dei. He would talk in general terms about “opposition by good people” and in very specific cases he would simply refer to “the usual people.” He knew who they were. Moreover, he wrote down, and had others write down, all the more significant attacks against Opus Dei and had them printed by the printing press at Villa Tevere, conscious that they were a very important part of the history of the Work. He did this on the strict understanding that the story of these events would not see the light until years after his death, and after the death of the people involved. His judgement of these events appears in point 804 of The Forge : “Opposition from good people? It’s the devil’s doing.”

This opposition from good people became very bitter between 1951 and 1952, just after the Holy See had granted full approval to the Work. It was more than pieces of gossip or calumnies. A full-scale campaign had been set in motion. Its organizers had compiled an inflammatory collection of false dossiers. There were serious accusations, including one alleging promiscuity between the men and women of Opus Dei.

These people knew where to strike a mortal blow at the unity of the Work, which was, and has always been, the great “secret” of Opus Dei’s effectiveness: a juridical, spiritual, and ascetic unity, together with total separation of life, regime, government, and apostolates. It was not enough to amputate a member or cut off a branch: the conclusive way was to decapitate the Work. All the schemes were aimed directly at Monsignor Escrivá and his expulsion from Opus Dei. With him out of the way, the men and women of the Work would scatter. It would be as in the Gospel passage: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered” (Matt 26:31).

Don Alvaro del Portillo, who measured his words carefully, would say years later: “It was a very well-prepared trap, poised like a dagger exactly over the heart. With just a slight application of pressure, the heart would be pierced.” 39

Monsignor Escrivá could guess that something serious was afoot, but he had no idea what it was. For weeks and months he was anxious and restless, full of foreboding. He prayed, without knowing what to pray for. Now and again, well into the summer, he would go down to the garden of Villa Vecchia to take a little exercise, have a breath of fresh air, say the Rosary or chat with one of his sons. He said at the time, “I feel tamquam leo rugiens , like a roaring lion, on watch, on guard. I feel like a blind man who is being attacked but can only flail the air with his stick, because I don’t know what’s happening, but something is going on.” 40

He said the same thing more than once to Don Alvaro, his favorite son, confidante, confessor, “guardian,” and strong rock. “Alvaro, I don’t know what’s going on, but something is happening.”

Don Alvaro was silent. His eyes would fill with tears, but he could not help. Monsignor Escrivá said to himself, “Alvaro knows something. He isn’t telling me what it is because he isn’t allowed to.” Through his work in the Vatican, Don Alvaro may have had knowledge of ill-natured comments; but he was unaware that a strange operation was being planned that would affect the founder. 41

One day in August 1951, not knowing whom else to turn to, he turned to the only source of help available to him. He said to Don Alvaro, “Alvaro, I have always used supernatural means—prayer and mortification. So I am driving to Loreto on the fourteenth. I want to be there on the fifteenth to consecrate the Work to Our Lady. Being the middle of August, it’s very hot; the roads will be terrible. No matter. That way we’ll do some real mortification.” 42

Don Alvaro went with him. Putting up with the terrific heat of mid-summer, they drove to the province of Ancona. There, in the shrine of Loreto, after celebrating Mass, Monsignor Escrivá consecrated Opus Dei to the Most Sweet Heart of Mary. The essence of his prayer was short and to the point: Iter para tutum! “Prepare us a safe path!”

The answer was not long in coming. In September, Juan Udaondo, one of the people in Opus Dei living in Milan, informed Monsignor Escrivá of “something vague but very disquieting” which Cardinal Schuster had just told him. Cardinal Schuster, a Benedictine monk and Archbishop of Milan, a very important person, had told him certain things that were being said about the Work, adding, “I don’t believe them at all myself. I am very happy for Opus Dei to be working in my diocese.” 43

Months later, in January 1952, in conversation with Juan Udaondo and Juan Masia, Cardinal Schuster inquired, “How is your founder?”

They answered simply, “He’s very well!”

The cardinal insisted, “How is he carrying his cross? Doesn’t he have a big problem, a heavy cross?”

“Well, you see, if that is so, he’ll be very happy,” one said, “because he’s always taught us that if we’re very close to the cross, we’re very close to Jesus.”

“No, no!” exclaimed Cardinal Schuster. “Tell him to be careful. Tell him to remember his fellow countryman, St. Joseph of Calasanz, and also St. Alphonsus Liguori. And to get moving!” 44

The two holy founders named had suffered fierce attacks at the hands of men of the Church. One of them, St. Joseph of Calasanz from Aragon, was expelled from the congregation he had founded by its own members. Cruelly wronged and viciously slandered, he had to undergo a lawsuit and a public trial before a tribunal of the Inquisition. St. Alphonsus Liguori, a lawyer from Naples and founder of the Redemptorists, drank the bitter cup of misunderstanding, criticism, and persecution. Udaondo wrote to Monsignor Escrivá at once, telling him of Cardinal Schuster’s warning. He was crying as he wrote. The letter is in the archives of the Work and it can be seen how in one or two paragraphs the ink ran where his tears had fallen.

As well as writing, Udaondo himself traveled from Milan to Rome. On March 12 he was in the oratory of Via Orsini, a center of Opus Dei, when Monsignor Escrivá came in and knelt down beside him. He whispered to him, without taking his eyes off the tabernacle, “My son, how often have you heard me say, quite truthfully, that I would like not to be in the Work, so that I could ask for admission straight away and be the last one of all, and be the first to obey—obey everybody! God our Lord knows I did not want to be the founder of anything. But that was what God wanted. My son, have you seen how they wish to destroy the Work and how they are attacking me? It’s the same story over again, ‘Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ I tell you, here in front of the tabernacle, that if they throw me out of the Work, they’ll kill me!” 45

Monsignor Escrivá’s voice broke. He hid his face in his hands. He was utterly distraught, a man of sorrows.

Since receiving Udaondo’s letter, Monsignor Escrivá had gone to ask for explanations from the highest authorities in the Holy See. He talked with Cardinals Tedeschini, Larraona, Piazza, Tardini, Ferretto, and Baggio. He protested, “If you expel me from Opus Dei, you are criminals. The Work is my life, and if you separate me from it, you’ll kill me. You’ll murder me!”

They replied evasively, “But Monsignor … there is nothing, there is nobody …”

Monsignor Escrivá did something unusual in the court protocol of the Roman Curia of that time. Taking as intermediary Cardinal Tedeschini who on February 24 had been appointed Protector of Opus Dei, 46 he handed him a letter, filial and respectful but crystal clear, in which, rather than defending the rights of the Work or his own rights, he warned of the “grave sin of injustice which is going to be committed” if the plot went ahead. Although the letter was addressed to Cardinal Tedeschini, it was really for the eyes of a higher recipient: the Pope.

Cardinal Tedeschini promised to read the letter to Pius XII personally at the first opportunity. On March 18, 1952, the opportunity presented itself. Pius XII reacted quickly. Despite the fact that things were at an advanced stage of planning and the scheme was just on the point of overthrowing the founder of Opus Dei, it all stopped dead.

Monsignor Escrivá wrote on one of the pages of his pocket diary, “Without wanting to, persecutors sanctify…. But alas for these ‘sanctifiers’!” 47 He was well aware who his adversaries were. He did not name them or point them out. But he could not help thinking of them when twenty years later, in 1972, people in Villa Tevere starting getting those sinister telephone calls. 48

On one of those days of uncertainty and anxiety, when conspirators against the Work and against himself were breathing down his neck, he had come out into one of the little courtyards of Villa Tevere, to meditate alone for a while. Leaning on the railing of the Arco dei Venti, he wrote a brief text that he would later have engraved on a simple marble slab. “While these buildings were being raised for the service of the Church by dint of daily greater self-denial, God our Lord permitted severe, hidden opposition to arise externally, while Opus Dei, consecrated to the Most Sweet Heart of Mary on 15th August 1951 and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on 26th October 1952, strong, compact and sure, was strengthened and expanded. Laus Deo (Praise God).”

The slab was placed in one of the galleries around the Cortile Vecchio, but it was covered with a metal plaque hung on hinges, like a small door. For some years the little bronze door stayed shut. At that time the turbulence of the storm, which had just failed to break, was still in the air, so that some prelates advised Monsignor Escrivá “to keep a low profile,” to “give up all external activity,” and “not even to breathe too deeply.” A high-ranking member of the Curia told him, “On occasion it is expedient to pretend to be dead, so as not to be killed.”

Monsignor Escrivá became a voluntary recluse in Villa Tevere, something which went against the grain for someone of his outgoing, sociable character, and even more given his impatient zeal for souls. These were years of very active enclosure, devoted to forming the people of the Work, writing homilies and doctrinal letters, and vigorously encouraging the apostolate. He was not seen out and about in Rome, but he traveled all over Europe, making tiring journeys by car. He felt the sting of loneliness in Rome. He who had once said to Francesco Angelicchio, “I’m more Roman than you are,” 49 now came to feel like “a foreigner in my Rome.” 50

One day he prayed about Psalm 68: “More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause…. For it is for thy sake that I have borne reproach, that shame has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons.”

He took a pencil and scribbled notes, full of bitter sorrow. He did this, not to unburden himself, but so that some day others could learn what he had learned, without suffering so much. “Plots, wretched misinterpretations cut to the measure of the base hearts that fabricate them, cowardly insinuations…. It is a picture that, sadly, we see over and over again, in different fields. They neither work themselves, nor let others work. Meditate slowly on these verses of the Psalm: ‘My God, I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons. Because zeal for thy house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult thee have fallen upon me.’ And keep on working.” 51

On a cold day in November 1959, during a get-together with students of the Roman College, one, hoping to draw him out on a subject close to his heart, asked him, “Father, tell us what happened in 1951 and 1952 when they wanted to divide the Work into two branches and expel you. Who was behind that persecution?”

Monsignor Escrivá pointed with his chin in the direction of the stone slab. “Look, my son, out there in the Cortile Vecchio there is a tablet you can read, which is quite clear. It is written in plain Spanish. I wrote it myself, sitting on a pile of stones, while all of that part was still being built. My heart was full of sadness—but at the same time I was very happy! Not even then did I lose my joy. Alvaro and I put a stop to it. But you’re saying to me, ‘Father, tell us who was behind it.’ And I have to tell you that you will discover many things in heaven. Not on earth. Better not.” 52