Decoding Opus Dei

It's partly a spiritual rationale--the avoidance of self-aggrandisement. That is, one should be humble. I think part of it, too, is that, historically, because a lot of people didn't like Opus Dei, there was just a sense that it would be better not to be too upfront because you're just inviting hostility. A lot of that has given way. Their offices, their headquarters are a matter of public record--the information office puts out information about budgets and membership and all that kind of stuff. So I wouldn't say it was secretive.

A lot of media attention was paid last year when Ruth Kelly--who has connections with Opus Dei--was appointed as Britain's new secretary of state for education. Why was she reluctant to reveal her association with the group?

Opus Dei takes the position that for supernumeraries [married members of the organization,] it's up to them whether or not they want to disclose their membership. In the case of public figures like Ruth Kelly, what this creates is a situation when journalists go to Ruth Kelly and ask, "Are you or aren't you in Opus Dei?" [and] she says, "I don't want to answer." So they go to Opus Dei, and Opus Dei have this position which says, "We're not going to 'out' our members," and so they're reduced to saying things like, "Well she's in touch with us." Again, if you follow the chain of reasoning, from their point of view you can understand why they end up saying things like that. But to the outside world that just looks like dissembling, it looks like a cover-up.

This also applies to property, doesn't it? Why are their schools, universities, for instance, not easily identifiable to the outside world?

Their logic for that is, again, secularity. They don't want to be a religious community, and they don't want to run specifically religious enterprises--they want to run secular enterprises that have a Christian spirit. Therefore they don't want to be distinct from the rest of the world. That's one reason they don't wear habits.

Ruth Kelly's appointment heightened some people's concerns that Opus Dei is has a political agenda. How true is it that the organization is very political?