I find this comical...
Dear stevusmagnus,
You have received an infraction at Catholic Answers Forums.
Reason: Uncharitable Post(s)
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You are deliberately maligning the good name of a canonically established institute making all kinds of accusations. This is a violation of charity and justice. Everyone and every institute has the right to its good name, especially when their way of life and their work are approved by the Church.
I am deleting your post and you may NEVER post on this subject again, since it is obvious that you cannot do so without doing harm. If you truly believe any of this to be true, please write to the Sacred Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life or the Sacred Congregation for the Faith and file a formal complaint.
Thank you
Moderator
"Deliberate maligning" & "violation of charity and justice"??
Judge for yourself...
"Opus Dei's work, in the end, is futile because they refuse to see the problems in the NO Mass and the "New Theology". They embrace both wholeheartedly out of fierce "obedience" yet they couple it with very strict mortifications and Traditional acts of piety. Their priest wear cassocks etc. In the end they are a living contradiction. The Traditional piety attracts conservative Novus Ordinarians, but the theology and Mass keeps them from being truly fed.
Then add the very odd notion of having a lifelong "vocation" to be a layman, giving all of your salary to OD and living in a house with others who do the same. I must admit the financial plan of OD was genius, whether is was diabolical or not is another question. They are always loaded with $ this way, plus they always have a large stable of professional celibate men who they can tap to get ordained when they need priests. It is a perfect situation for them.
Then their cooperators, who can be anyone, even non-Christian, can attend OD functions as long as they donate $.
They have many enterprises out there that are discreetly named. But it seems that they are more motivated in recruiting for Opus Dei than recruiting people to the faith. They seem to be about self-perpetuation. I've read their schools look to groom youngsters to become celibate lay numeraries. $$$
Of course they preach work, work, work. The more their numeraries work, the more $ they get. "Sanctify your work" is not an Opus Dei idea, though they will claim it. But I'm skeptical as to their intentions with this. They are all about work, their centers are very posh, I have read they tell their married members to treat OD like another child as far as expenses go.
Their priests are orthodox when it comes to morality. In theology they are by the book VCII. And they say the N.O. Mass "reverently". They seem to basically be selling faithful Catholics who are fed up with their lib parishes a conservative "product". They then subvert vocations to the religious life by selling the idea you can have a "vocation" (you are holy and special and part of an "order") yet you can keep your job and still be secular. The best of both worlds!
The whole thing seems like a big pyramid scheme to me. Their writings only seem to be helpful to some degree when speaking on general virtues and morality. When it comes to theology and the crisis in the Church their writings are completely uninspiring. Their theology is straight out of VCII (with a conservative spin) and their solution to the crisis is to sanctify ourselves and do more penance. They only see the crisis as a general crisis of Faith in society. They see absolutely no connection between the crisis and the Mass and the Council. They can't even if they wanted to. Because if they did, they would lose their legal status and thus lose their very large recruiting pool.
My experience has been their members are hopelessly naive when it comes to any problems or negativity. They preach "holy cheerfulness" which often means an almost forced optimism that admits of absolutely no criticism or negativity about the Church. Everything is perpetually hunky dory and if it is not it is because they aren't doing enough penance.
It is a great contrast to Traditional groups who are a lot more straightforward and "get it" having sacrificed a lot monetarily and otherwise to follow the Truth where it lead them and not cash in on the crisis by manufacturing a conservative NO product within the VCII structure to lure in the disillusioned"