Opus Dei

Opus Dei’s Catholic Information Center (CIC) board members include Pat Cipollone and Former AG William “Bill” Barr

Witherspoon Institute at Princeton: Luis Tellez, “a former national official of Opus Dei, still runs the group’s Princeton programs, and Witherspoon’s donors include two foundations with links to Opus Dei members” The low-profile Witherspoon Institute has strong links to the Madison Program By Deborah Yaff July 16, 2008 “A 2004 conference on marriage produced a 47-page booklet, “Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles,” signed by 70 scholars from a range of fields and institutions…The booklet, published in 2006, was praised in the conservative press, and Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas cited it approvingly during a Senate debate that year on a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage…Indeed, despite its relative youth, the Witherspoon Institute has achieved a level of financial viability that many older nonprofits might envy: Its annual contributions have ranged from $360,000 in 2004 to more than $3 million in 2006. Last summer the institute moved into an elegant three-story building on Stockton Street, bought for $1.5 million and renovated and furnished for an additional $1.3 million. Tellez declines to release Witherspoon’s complete donor list, but in addition to institute trustees, contributors include the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the now-defunct John M. Olin Foundation, known for their support of conservative causes; the John Templeton Foundation, which funds research on religious and scientific topics; and the Lee and Ramona Bass Foundation, whose three-year, $750,000 gift – the Witherspoon Institute’s largest-ever donation – helped pay for the new building.”

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez is Opus Dei What are the real differences between Mahony and Gomez? Get Religion February 20, 2013. Sexual Abuse 

SoCal native Cardinal William Levada, former doctrinal head, dies at 83 . September 26, 2019 “In the 1980s, he worked with then-Cardinal Ratzinger as one of a small group of bishops appointed to write the “Catechism of the Catholic Church.” Cardinal Levada was a key figure in the church’s efforts to eliminate priestly sexual abuse. He headed the Vatican agency that oversaw the handling of priestly sexual abuse cases; in 2002, he was a member of the U.S.-Vatican commission that made final revisions to the sex abuse norms in the United States, which laid out a strict policy on priestly sex abuse and provided for removal from ministry or laicization of priests.

When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, he named then-Archbishop Levada to replace him as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican agency charged with protecting and promoting the church’s teachings on faith and morals. It was the first time a U.S. prelate had headed the congregation, and Cardinal Levada served in that position until 2012.

In an interview with the Irish Catholic in 2013, Cardinal Levada said: “If you are working for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it helps to have a pretty thick skin so that you aren’t overly sensitive if you are criticized.” However, he also said that the congregation should not be above criticism. In a 2006 decision approved by Pope Benedict, Cardinal Levada ruled that 86-year-old Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, should not exercise his priestly ministry publicly…In 2009, Cardinal Levada ordered a doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a Maryland-based umbrella group that claims about 1,500 leaders of U.S. women’s communities as members.Three years later, he appointed then-Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to provide “review, guidance and approval, where necessary, of the work” of the LCWR.”

Opus Dei & Christian Dominion Church and State  Forget about Dan Brown’s fantasy conspiracy cult, this is a story of the real Opus Dei By Ronald Thomas West | January 16, 2015

Opus Dei politico objects to Vatican tone National Catholic Reporter April 25, 2007 by John L. Allen Jr. “The Vatican official in question is Archbishop Angelo Amato, the secretary, or number two official, at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s powerful doctrinal agency. The congregation is led by an American, Cardinal William Levada.

On April 23, Amato gave an address to hospital chaplains in Italy in which he denounced abortion and euthanasia as forms of “terrorism with a human face.” He cited a series of contemporary evils, including abortion clinics, which he called “slaughterhouses of human beings,” euthanasia, and “parliaments of so-called civilized nations where laws contrary to the nature of the human being are being promulgated, such as the approval of marriage between people of the same sex.”

The comments were widely reported, and have triggered criticism in some quarters, even among some Catholics, for seeming intemperate. At a diplomatic reception in Rome Tuesday night where many Vatican officials were present, for example, one European ambassador from a country where same-sex unions have been legalized loudly wondered where Amato got off suggesting that the country isn’t civilized – whatever he thinks of its marriage laws.

The Opus Dei personality is Paola Binetti, an Italian senator who belongs to the ruling center-left coalition under Prime Minister Romano Prodi. (That by itself makes Binetti something of a rare bird, since relatively few Opus Dei politicians belong to left-leaning parties.) Binetti is a numerary of Opus Dei, which means that she’s celibate and lives in an Opus Dei center.”