Some of my friends are members of the Opus Dei, or rather, attend Opus Dei retreats and have as a confessor a priest who is a member of Opus Dei. And they obey him blindly without questioning anything.

These folks are not concerned with what the Pope is doing. They just pray for him, try to pray unceasingly, and above all follow the teaching of St. Matthew, "Judge Not."

Matthew 6:34 - 7:1-5 (Douay-Rheims) states:

Be not therefore solicitous for to morrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.

JUDGE not, that you may not be judged,

For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again.

But why lookest thou on the mote that is in the eye of thy brother, but observest not the beam that is in thine eye?

Or how sayest thou to thy brother: Let me cast the mote out of thy eye; and behold a beam is in thy own eye?

Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Does St. Matthew tell us to check our reasoning out the door when we are baptized?
This does not seem to be the case.

Remember our Church history: Did not St. Nicholas of Myra slap Arius across the face when Arias proclaimed that there was a time when Jesus Christ was not God?

Our Ecuмenical Councils were held to judge and condemn folks like Arius.

So what does "Judge Not" really mean?

I have to go back in memory to a religion class in the early 1960's.
"Judge Not" means unjust and unfounded judgments without the
facts. This is the most common sin. People hear something through
gossip and hearsay and repeat it. The person or persons that it aimed
at suffers the destruction of his name and his reputation. It is best
not to pass on anything heard from a gossiping person. Also, it would
be advisable not to repeat anything from a hearsay source.
We have to be constantly be on guard what is said today about our
religion. There is obvious heresy and error everywhere.  This has
to be condemned.
In the time of Arias in the 5th Century, there was no internet, many
people could not read and write. However, they knew their faith
better than the faithful today. A heretical Priest would be called
down on his pulpit and the town square teaching heresies.
Majority of Bishops whom were educated went along the heresies
of Arias. The church survived by the faithful whom many could
not read and write calling these heretics down.
I would not have anything to do with the Opus Dei.

I have no books to sell.

Thanks

Some of my friends are members of the Opus Dei, or rather, attend Opus Dei retreats and have as a confessor a priest who is a member of Opus Dei. And they obey him blindly without questioning anything.

Opus Dei is all about obedience.

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Quote from: Maria Regina

Some of my friends are members of the Opus Dei, or rather, attend Opus Dei retreats and have as a confessor a priest who is a member of Opus Dei. And they obey him blindly without questioning anything.

Opus Dei is all about obedience.

But obedience to the organization, as Nadir said:

I'm sure there are interesting people in all sorts of places, including cults like Opus Dei. .....you could find this website helpful.  http://www.odan.org/what_is_opus_dei.htm

One of the biggest tip-offs to its cultishness is the founder himself, who pretended, not unlike the current person claiming the Seat of Peter, to have invented or discovered some "new" aspect of Catholicism.

Obedience (or the lack of it) dates to The Garden of Eden.  Escriva so did not invent it, despite a highly cultish clip of him I saw years ago on EWTN, smiling in his smarmy way, telling a simple woman who was (also) repeating the obvious about sanctifying her work, that she was some kind of saint and had received special, even unique, illumination for recognizing the obvious.

Then we saw him on camera encouraging others in the room in their adulation of him.  Very transparent and a raw celebration of the Capital Sin of Pride.

I can't imagine why the Church would ever endorse, let alone promote, let alone canonize, such a transparent fame-seeker, but as maybe more than one person has said here, it was a symptom of already ill dynamics within the core of the Church will allowed this and which continues to be blinded by all kinds of un-new "movements" which mimic the syncretism and falsities of the modern secular age.

The organization should be put on the Index.

You can read a lot about a whole number of controversies about Escriva himself on wiki.  Here's only one of many examples:

According to María del Carmen Tapia, who worked with Escrivá in Rome, the founder of Opus Dei had "no respect" for Popes John XXIII or Paul VI and believed that his own organization of Opus Dei was "above the Church in holiness."[48] According to Moncada, Escrivá's years in Rome were dedicated in large part to his campaign to make Opus Dei independent from the authority of the diocesan bishops and the Vatican curia, something which was finally achieved, after Escrivá's death, with the establishment in 1982, under Pope John Paul II, of Opus Dei as a personal prelature, subject only to its own prelate and to the Pope.

This is what is known as a "charismatic," and not in any positive or supposedly infused-with-the-Holy-Ghost way.

Some years ago (about 1995), I attended one Opus Dei meeting, out of curiosity.  I found out all I needed to know in one day.  No, thank you.

There were several very odd things I saw, with the members present all behaving as though everything was normal, so in this way I knew that these oddities are par for the course.  One was rather prominent:  while gathered in a chapel, the group heard a sermon by a priest, and at the end there was a prayer.  

Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás (born José María Mariano Escriba Albás), d. 1975, was known as "our Father," being considered as a sort of possession by the Opus Dei organization.  In this context, at the start of this prayer after the sermon, the group spontaneously said in a loud voice the first two words thereof:  

"OUR FATHER, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..." etc.  I noticed several of the more prominent members, sitting up in front, turning their heads and grinning knowingly at each other while they said "Our Father..."

Another very curious phenomenon is how the whole group (about 30 men) behaved in regards to a new prospective member (me!):  While the group socialized for a period of about 20 minutes with donuts and coffee, I was approached in turn by 3 different men who introduced themselves, each with a particular purpose in mind.  The principal point was they were hoping to obtain my BUSINESS CARD, which would be the means by which they would identify my line of work.  This obtaining of my business card was a very SERIOUS affair.  They tried to make it seem like a game or something fun.  Even so, I did not give them my business card.  They seemed rather put off by this failed agenda.  

Later, I read up on stories that ex-Opus Dei members had to say about how it's run.  Their goal is to get each member to the point of donating 10% of their business income, off the top, to Opus Dei by way of a formal agreement, a process which begins with each member giving them their business card!  When I read that, I was pleased with myself for having been so prudent as to not hand one over to them even though they were so fixated on making that happen.

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Neil said:

The principal point was they were hoping to obtain my BUSINESS CARD, which would be the means by which they would identify my line of work.

Yes, Opus Dei is an apostolate to the rich and educated. They are specially marked out. Though of course all are welcome because they also need servants.

Jovita said:

I do know an Opus Dei member, must be a small world. Strange.

I am pretty sure with your history in the Catholic Church you know more than one. Remember that Opus Dei is a secret organisation, and many people do not publish their membership. (Think of Masons...). Even their institutions and establishments do not have Catholic names but are disguised with obscure-to-the-rest-of-us titles. Run your eye down this list and see if Opus Dei identifies as Catholic. http://www.odan.org/foundations.htm

Who cares if ODAN is not updated. What it has published is useful information. Truth doesn't need to be updated.

We are supposed to be Catholic in all we do everyday without being a member of Opus Dei.