Jesuits—have anything to do with them?”
“Individuals—my friends, a mentor or two—yes. The hierarchy, no. I’ve put all that behind me.”
“But you’re still interested in the affairs of the Church. Like this José Maria Escrivá.”
“ Fixated , I think, would be the better word.” Parmalee’s eye strayed toward the fire. “I’m interested in how faith plays out in the institution of the Church. The form it takes, how and why it becomes warped, and”—he sighed—“the grotesqueries that result.”
“Like Opus Dei?”
“Particularly Opus Dei, which is the most pernicious and retrograde institution that has yet been created within the modern Church.”
“Founded by José Maria Escrivá,” McGarr prompted. “Who was?”
“A poor Spanish priest, born around the turn of the last century. He had a vision of how Church doctrine had misinterpreted a key passage in the book of Genesis. Or so they claim.”
“They?”
“Opus Dei, the order that was created by him. They claim God spoke directly to Escrivá about the passage and other matters.”
“Which key passage?”
“The fifteenth verse of the second chapter. It says,
‘And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.’ After meditating on the text when he was only twenty-six years old, Escrivá decided that Aquinas’s interpretation seven centuries earlier had been wrong.”
McGarr canted his head, wishing to hear more.
“In the thirteenth century, Aquinas had formed Church doctrine in regard to the passage. He held that work—physical labor and toil of every sort—had become a part of man’s life only after Adam and Eve’s fall from grace and banishment from the Garden. Therefore, work, like death, was part of the price man had to pay for having sinned and been cast out of Eden.
“That interpretation was the official Church interpretation of Genesis from the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century right up to 1879, when Leo the Thirteenth restated Aquinas’s position.
“Escrivá, on the other hand, reexamined the passage and held that work had been an essential activity in the Garden before man’s fall from grace. Therefore, workwas part of God’s plan for man, work was a necessary part of the human condition, and—essentially—man could not be complete as God originally intended him without work’s being an integral part of his life.
“Taking the interpretation a step further, Escrivá reasoned that one way a person could honor and worship God was to work as well as he or she was able, not merely as a cleric but in all the occupations, whatever a person’s abilities, be it street sweeper or brain surgeon. Hence, the name—Opus Dei, ‘God’s Work.’”
McGarr noted how animated Parmalee had become; two bright patches had appeared on his cheeks.
“Unlike Aquinas’s medieval take on Genesis, which contended that work was punishment, Escrivá’s interpretation was perfectly attuned to modern industrial and commercial society. Not everybody—in fact, few—can become a priest or a nun, given the present strictures of holy vows. With families, bills, debts, and so forth, most people must work and work hard.
“But didn’t the Bible say that work had been an integral part of the state of grace that obtained in the Garden before man’s fall? Escrivá reasoned. Therefore, humankind could honor and worship God through their labor by working as diligently as possible, preferably within the context of a new holy order that welcomed and respected lay vocations. Opus Dei members do not need to become priests or nuns. In fact, at present only two percent are.”
“Out of how many?”
“Worldwide? Around eighty thousand.”
McGarr’s head went back; it was a large number.One of his brothers was a Jesuit, and he knew that order totaled only thirty thousand or so.
“Since the mid-seventies, at least, Opus Dei has controlled the Vatican bank and the
“Individuals—my friends, a mentor or two—yes. The hierarchy, no. I’ve put all that behind me.”
“But you’re still interested in the affairs of the Church. Like this José Maria Escrivá.”
“ Fixated , I think, would be the better word.” Parmalee’s eye strayed toward the fire. “I’m interested in how faith plays out in the institution of the Church. The form it takes, how and why it becomes warped, and”—he sighed—“the grotesqueries that result.”
“Like Opus Dei?”
“Particularly Opus Dei, which is the most pernicious and retrograde institution that has yet been created within the modern Church.”
“Founded by José Maria Escrivá,” McGarr prompted. “Who was?”
“A poor Spanish priest, born around the turn of the last century. He had a vision of how Church doctrine had misinterpreted a key passage in the book of Genesis. Or so they claim.”
“They?”
“Opus Dei, the order that was created by him. They claim God spoke directly to Escrivá about the passage and other matters.”
“Which key passage?”
“The fifteenth verse of the second chapter. It says,
‘And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.’ After meditating on the text when he was only twenty-six years old, Escrivá decided that Aquinas’s interpretation seven centuries earlier had been wrong.”
McGarr canted his head, wishing to hear more.
“In the thirteenth century, Aquinas had formed Church doctrine in regard to the passage. He held that work—physical labor and toil of every sort—had become a part of man’s life only after Adam and Eve’s fall from grace and banishment from the Garden. Therefore, work, like death, was part of the price man had to pay for having sinned and been cast out of Eden.
“That interpretation was the official Church interpretation of Genesis from the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century right up to 1879, when Leo the Thirteenth restated Aquinas’s position.
“Escrivá, on the other hand, reexamined the passage and held that work had been an essential activity in the Garden before man’s fall from grace. Therefore, workwas part of God’s plan for man, work was a necessary part of the human condition, and—essentially—man could not be complete as God originally intended him without work’s being an integral part of his life.
“Taking the interpretation a step further, Escrivá reasoned that one way a person could honor and worship God was to work as well as he or she was able, not merely as a cleric but in all the occupations, whatever a person’s abilities, be it street sweeper or brain surgeon. Hence, the name—Opus Dei, ‘God’s Work.’”
McGarr noted how animated Parmalee had become; two bright patches had appeared on his cheeks.
“Unlike Aquinas’s medieval take on Genesis, which contended that work was punishment, Escrivá’s interpretation was perfectly attuned to modern industrial and commercial society. Not everybody—in fact, few—can become a priest or a nun, given the present strictures of holy vows. With families, bills, debts, and so forth, most people must work and work hard.
“But didn’t the Bible say that work had been an integral part of the state of grace that obtained in the Garden before man’s fall? Escrivá reasoned. Therefore, humankind could honor and worship God through their labor by working as diligently as possible, preferably within the context of a new holy order that welcomed and respected lay vocations. Opus Dei members do not need to become priests or nuns. In fact, at present only two percent are.”
“Out of how many?”
“Worldwide? Around eighty thousand.”
McGarr’s head went back; it was a large number.One of his brothers was a Jesuit, and he knew that order totaled only thirty thousand or so.
“Since the mid-seventies, at least, Opus Dei has controlled the Vatican bank and the
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