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Headline news from Sky News - Witness the event
The MI5 security service has for the first time put information about terror threats on the internet.
Information on the site had previously been confined mainly to government departments and is mainly aimed at business.
It details information on how to prevent against Islamic and Northern Ireland-based terrorism.
MI5 Director General Eliza Manningham-Buller said: "Our aim is to help inform decisions people may need to take about security measures.
"The descriptions of the threats should give people a better feel for the range and nature of security issues we all face and help to place our security advice in context."
The advice featured general guidelines on reducing exposure to security threats and information about how to tackle specific risks, such as bombs and hackers.
In its section on suicide bombs, the MI5 website points out that "any bomber, whether driving a lorry or wearing an exploding body belt, needs physical access in order to achieve their end".
It goes on: "The principle behind protective measures should therefore be denial of access to anyone, or to any thing, that has not been thoroughly searched."
April 30, 2004 at 07:05 PM in MI5 | Permalink | TrackBack (195) | Top of page | Blog Home
By Robert Thomson
Europe should not doubt American resolve in Iraq, a reassuring Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, tells the Editor of The Times
IF COLIN POWELL is looking for a new job, and the rumours abound, he should consider the merits of going into private practice as a crisis consultant.
The soothing voice, the benevolent smile, and the gentle gesticulation somehow combine to make a bitter dispute seem an insignificant tiff, while the most unseemly power grab is merely consensus misunderstood.
Colin’s Clinic could be open to the world’s political psychotics, depressed dictators and stressed-out extremists, who would be given a gentle talking to and prescribed a course of the political equivalent of Prozac. The US Secretary of State already does the foreign policy equivalent of outreach work, hugging wayward allies and attempting to reassure much of the Middle East with his inflexion-perfect pronunciations of Arab names.
The pronunciation of his own name is a separate, more vexed issue. He recalls a “great debate” in the pages of The Times over whether he knew how to say “Colin” correctly: “A great fight broke out in London about this ignorant American who didn’t know how to pronounce his name: he kept calling himself Coh-lin when his name was Colin. There is an Irish variant Coh-lin.”
It is clear that the presumption that most Americans are ignorant grates on General Powell. He was in Berlin to attend a conference on anti-Semitism, but any visit to Europe becomes an opportunity for him to deal with what he obviously regards as a myriad of myths and misunderstandings about US intentions. And yesterday he was particularly keen to put in a good word for a beleaguered Tony Blair.
“I think Prime Minister Blair has shown enormous courage and he has demonstrated an enormous commitment to doing the right thing in Iraq,” he said. “He did not shrink from the challenge. He did not weigh the politics of it all and say this would be too hard politically . . . people should not forget what was accomplished. When people start talking about quagmires — one thing that is not a quagmire is Saddam Hussein. He’s gone. Horrible man. Horrible regime.”
Powell obviously believes that many Europeans are prone to misinterpret American actions. He admits that the encirclement of Fallujah has made the city a potential symbol of resistance to the might of the US military, but insists that the tactics will not create a lasting image problem for Washington. “It has that image, but it will go away quickly as soon as it’s resolved and it can’t go on indefinitely,” he said. “If you see what we have done in the last three weeks — we have been moving with caution. Even though on television you see action, you see firefights take place, for the most part, these firefights have been on the edges of the city and the suburbs.”
While US casualties have mounted around Fallujah in recent weeks, Powell is confident that the US public is far more understanding of the costs of war than is generally believed or conceded in Europe. Americans, he implies, are passing the “Dover test”.
“No one likes casualties and no one likes body bags; no one likes to see coffins at Dover (air force base). But I think the American people have demonstrated over the years that they will accept casualties in the service of a proper cause, a noble cause. So far, I think the American people — even though the numbers go up and down — believe in what we are doing. Now, when the scenes are not so good for a few days, then the polls will reflect that.
“I get this question a great deal from European audiences. ‘Well, you know, the Americans — can you really take casualties?’ And I just have to remind you — count the number of casualties we took to free Europe twice over the past century and you’ll see whether Americans can take casualties or whether we are up to it. Visit our cemeteries in Europe — Americans are up to the task.”
There remain questions about the relationship between the troops and the interim authority that will replace the Coalition Provisional Authority currently headed by Paul Bremer. Put bluntly, who will order about whom? “As a practical matter, I am not sure you will see a great deal of difference, except that the multinational force will be working very closely with the sovereign interim government . . . returning sovereignty is going to help because it puts an Iraqi face on the situation and the people can see not Americans and not Brits, but Iraqis increasingly in charge of the country and in charge of their destiny.
“The thugs, they will go after the Iraqi interim government just as they are going after coalition representatives now. An interim government will improve the environment but I regret that it probably isn’t the complete solution.”
In a week in which British diplomats turned undiplomatic, and were motivated, in part, by what they saw as London’s lack of influence on US policymaking, he insists that outside voices are being heard in Washington. Interestingly, he describes Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who gave discreet advice to the 52 diplomatic dissenters and was the Prime Minister’s personal envoy to Baghdad, as “no shrinking violet”. And he speaks to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, “very, very regularly”.
“We co-ordinate closely with our friends and allies . . . I can assure you that Ambassador Greenstock in Baghdad has been no shrinking violet in representing the views of Her Majesty’s Government. We have tried to be open to all ideas that came from Italy and Spain. José María Aznar was no shrinking violet either.”
Ever the fence-mender, Powell, talking to journalists from Europe’s leading newspapers, reaches out to Paris in the hope that the French Government will not block an imminent UN resolution that will be an attempt to bless the changed status of Iraq and raises the possibility of France providing security officers to accompany UN officials.
“I’m not expecting any French troops, but there might be other things that France would be able to do. We will have a need for the protection of UN personnel in the country, in order to have that vital presence that we’ve all talked about and everybody has encouraged. We will need security for the UN electoral officials who will be going through the country to register people and get ready for the elections at the beginning of next year.”
There also remains doubt over the contribution Nato will make, but he clearly wants, at the very least, a formal Nato resolution supporting Iraq’s transition when the member countries gather for a summit in Turkey in June.
“I think there is a potential role for Nato. And no Nato member has said there is not . . . some nations are more anxious and willing than other nations, but so it is in an alliance of now 26 nations. What might that role be? It might be the provision of a headquarters; it might be the provision of additional troops; more Nato nations participating in the provision of troops.
“I think it would be an important signal if Nato were to show that as an alliance and not just as individual members of the alliance, it is involved and committed to the future of a democratic Iraq. How that manifests itself . . . discussions are under way now and perhaps something will be ready at the time of the Istanbul Nato summit.”
Apart from the haggling over Iraq, much of Europe and the US are deeply divided over policy on Israel and Palestine, particularly after the visit of Ariel Sharon to Washington earlier this month. Powell insists that the agreement between the Israeli Prime Minister and President Bush remains part of broader negotiations and that final status talks will be held to resolve remaining territorial disputes.
“For three years I have worked to get the peace process started. First with the Mitchell plan, the Tenet plan, the Zinni plan, and we never could get the Palestinians to focus on the simple problem of terrorism . . . Mr (Yassir) Arafat would never do that. So Mr Sharon finally said a few weeks ago that Mr Arafat is not a partner for peace. ‘We have no partner on the Palestinian side,’ Mr Sharon said, and ‘therefore, I have to do something unilaterally. I can ’t wait forever.’ For all these years people said ‘Get out of the settlements.’ That is what he’s doing.”
Shortly after, Colin’s Clinic was closed for the morning, and he ventures forth, with the zeal of the missionary doctor, into the still-to-be-converted European badlands, laying on his hands whenever he encounters diplomatic dementia.
April 30, 2004 at 12:52 AM in Iraq | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
The New York Times > International > Madrid Suspect Indicted on 9/11 Charges
Filed at 1:27 p.m. ET
MADRID, Spain (AP) -- A Moroccan sought in connection with last month's Madrid train bombings was indicted Wednesday on charges of helping plan the Sept. 11 attacks.
Amer Azizi helped organize a meeting in northeast Spain in July 2001 that key plotters in the U.S. attacks, including suspect suicide pilot Mohamed Atta, used to finalize details, Judge Baltasar Garzon said.
Azizi was initially included in an indictment Garzon handed down in September against Osama bin Laden and 34 other terror suspects. Azizi was charged then with belonging to a terrorist organization.
The new indictment charges Azizi with actually helping plan the Sept. 11 attacks. Garzon accused Azizi of multiple counts of murder -- ``as many deaths and injuries as were committed'' on Sept. 11.
The indictment was based on information provided by authorities in Britain, Turkey and the United States, Garzon said.
Azizi provided lodging for people who attended the July 2001 meeting in the Tarragona region of Spain and acted as a courier, passing on messages between plotters, Garzon said in the indictment.
The judge described Azizi as the right-hand man of Imad Yarkas, jailed in November 2001 on charges of leading a Spain-based al-Qaida cell that allegedly provided financing and logistics for planners of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Azizi fled Spain in November 2001, shortly after a wave of arrests that netted Yarkas and more than a dozen other al-Qaida suspects.
The Interior Ministry released a photo of Azizi this month, calling him a suspect in the March 11 train bombings in Madrid, in which 191 people died and more than 2,000 were injured.
Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen, remains the only person charged in the United States as a conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks. Moussaoui, who is awaiting trial in Virginia, has admitted belonging to al-Qaida but denied he was part of the terror plot.
Earlier this month, the only Sept. 11 suspect ever convicted walked out of a German jail less than 2 1/2 years into his 15-year sentence after judges ruled the evidence was too weak to hold him pending a retrial.
Mounir el Motassadeq, a 30-year-old Moroccan, was convicted on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization. But that conviction was overturned last month by a German court.
April 28, 2004 at 04:57 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
Alice Miles
ONCE UPON a time there was a grid. This grid was a most meticulous thing. The grid ran the Government. The grid was the Government; a day-by-day plan of announcements, interviews, visits, “message” — the heart, brain and soul of a new Labour day. In an Orwellian way, if something wasn’t on the grid, it wasn’t happening. It didn’t exist. It was a non-event. The only minister able to buck the grid, to operate outside it, was Gordon Brown.
O grid, hast though forsaken TB? There was little evidence of any planning in the shambolic way in which the referendum U-turn was announced by No 10 last week. I use the term “announced” vaguely. Pro-European ministers such as Charles Clarke and Patricia Hewitt, who were not opposed to a referendum per se, are right to be infuriated by the way a potential advantage morphed into a disaster.
There was no plot by Cabinet ministers to bounce Mr Blair into the U-turn (although Mr Brown is not thought to have entirely clean hands). Nor was it some form of Murdoch press conspiracy, as has been widely alleged. Nobody with authority tipped off — or at least nobody meant to tip off — either The Sun or The Times with a ready-made scoop; the stories in both papers were the result of winks, judgment and ferreting.
Far from being the victim of a Cabinet plot, Mr Blair was the victim of bad management. Organisational chaos, in a project as managerial as new Labour, has the potential to be catastrophic. Cabinet plots the Prime Minister can handle; his own Chancellor has spent much of his premiership plotting against him, for goodness sake. The problems have been controlled through precise, some would say excessive, management.
Now that management seems to have collapsed. No matter how the referendum story was drifting out, it was clear as soon as it appeared on the front page of The Times that this was a question Mr Blair was going to be forced to answer. The succession of non-committal interviews, half denials, half admissions and finally the forced statement to Parliament which followed were a disaster. Mr Blair’s advisers in No 10 are distraught at the damage done to his credibility. A reverse which could have been portrayed (with some difficulty, granted) as a principled decision instead looked like a muddled, hastily cobbled together half-solution to a short-term strategic problem.
Nor was this the only chaotic announcement in the past week. The decision on ID cards has drifted out in similar disarrangement, with tales of Cabinet ministers at odds with one another; confused briefings as to the purpose of ID cards (to fight terror, or to fight benefit fraud); mixed messages about whether a system would be compulsory, etc.
It would never have happened had Alastair Campbell still been running the show. Say what you like about him, he kept an iron grip on the management of No 10. He would have seen the danger from the news stories on the referendum and would have forced Mr Blair to sit down, to take a decision (which it is not clear that the Prime Minister ever did; events simply forced him to confirm it), and to work out a strategy for how to release the news, quickly. But with Mr Campbell absent, and the departure by now of pretty much all the close circle that propelled him into power, the management of Mr Blair has collapsed.
Mr Campbell, who is still in regular contact with the Prime Minister, knew nothing of the decision. Peter Mandelson, unofficially back in No 10, knew nothing of it. The director of communications David Hill and the political secretary Pat McFadden appear to have known little more than that a change of mind was in the offing. There was no polling, no focus groups, no strategy in place. When I asked one of Mr Blair’s core team yesterday when he first knew of the U-turn he replied with impressive curvature: “It depends what you mean by ‘when’.” The sole person who appears to have been in the loop was Sally Morgan, the closest thing the Prime Minister has to a righthand man now, and she is being blamed for the mess.
So what, you think. Who are all these people and who cares? Good questions. To listen to some of Mr Blair’s advisers (and their media conduits), you would think that the Blair project was tottering to its grave. The Prime Minister’s shield has been dismantled, true. He has no one of the stature of Mr Campbell to protect him.
I am not sure that this isn’t a good thing. The over-management of No 10 — the playing safe, the focus groups, the government by numbers — stifled any creativity, risk or innovation. That Cabinet ministers are taking decisions, however haphazardly, rather than a neat cabal of advisers in No 10, can only be to the good. The message that will have filtered through to the world beyond Westminster from the events of the past week are that the Government is to hold a referendum on the EU constitution, and that it will introduce ID cards, both popular decisions. Policy makers in No 10 complain that Cabinet tensions keep blocking brave ideas. Yet here are two bold moves which are Cabinet inspired and implemented. They didn’t need to come from some whacky student of social demographics in the No 10 “blue skies” unit.
The grid is still there, I’m told. It has developed. It is now “an enhanced set-up”. It has been “streamlined”. There are “more people” involved. So who is in charge of it. I asked. A pause. “There are different people in charge of different things.” The messages are muddled. The lines have been bent. The grid has been griddled. Good.
April 28, 2004 at 09:58 AM in UK | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home
Andrew Roberts
TONY BLAIR should be delighted that no fewer than 52 former diplomats have written to him to say that his Middle Eastern policy is “doomed to failure”. Whenever a collective view has developed in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office it has been only a matter of time — and usually not long, either — before it has been proved spectacularly wrong.
In the superb new biography of Lord Palmerston by James Chambers, it is clear that the majority of Britain’s mid-19th-century ambassadors heartily disapproved of his policy of extending liberal constitutions to anywhere that could sustain them; how those long-dead diplomats would have agreed with their successors’ haughty statement that the creation of an Iraqi democracy today is “naive”.
Similarly, Lord Salisbury saw the Foreign Office as the enemy for its continual pressure to end Britain’s “splendid isolation”. He disliked the process by which diplomats sometimes went native, telling Queen Victoria: “An occasional change of post increases the usefulness of a diplomatist. If he remains too long at one post he falls under special personal influences, or gets mixed up in local quarrels.” Going native is notoriously true of the FCO’s Arabist ambassadors, many of whom signed yesterday’s letter.
Yet before the letter is taken to be indicative of general FCO feeling, we ought to check the small print. There are no former ambassadors to Washington among the signatories, no permanent under-secretaries, only two ambassadors to a great power and an awful lot of third-rankers. We have been treated to the views of our former ambassadors to very minor countries indeed, such as Switzerland, Chad, Cameroon, Colombia and Chile. Oh, and a former Governor of the Falkland Islands. Two of the countries — Luxembourg and the Vatican — are so small they could comfortably be carpeted over in Axminster by the Treasury without anyone noticing the cost. Even if we accept that these scores of CMGs and KCMGs somehow do represent mainstream FCO opinion, what of it? Zara Steiner’s work shows how few of its supposedly first-class brains foresaw the cataclysm of 1914; the appeasement policy of the Thirties was directed from an FCO that agreed with Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax; its top echelons were keen on “dual-flag solutions” at the time of the Falklands.
Finally, and tellingly, the FCO has been the primary British engine for pushing Britain closer and closer towards a European superstate. The best collective noun for any group of British diplomats — let alone 52 of them — is “a cringe”.
Many in the Foreign Office, with their happy memories of reading The Seven Pillars of Wisdom at Oxbridge, cannot come to terms with the very existence of the State of Israel. The reference in their letter to “one-sided and illegal” actions which “cost yet more blood”, for example, is not to Palestinian suicide-bombers but to the policies of President Bush and Ariel Sharon.
In 1948, the Foreign Office, with the same “long experience of the Middle East” that the co-signatories boasted of, advised the Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin that the Israelis would lose the war of independence and be defeated by the (largely British-trained) Arabs. They estimated that the Arab-Israeli conflict “would be of relatively short duration and would eventually be checked somehow by the UN”. Bevin put the timing at a fortnight, but then, as the High Commissioner in Palestine said, Bevin was “completely surrounded by Arabists”. It is that group whose hands have finally, after half a century, been wrested from Middle East policy. The letter — signed by the former ambassadors to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Bahrain and the UAE — is merely a howl of rage at their present exclusion.
Some of my most depressing moments as a historian have been spent reading FCO minutes. The phrases are nicely turned, the writing is grammatically faultless, the historical allusions learned. Nonetheless, the FCO’s Central Department was irritated in May 1944 that “unnecessary publicity” was being given to Jewish suffering, and stated: “The Allies resent the suggestion that Jews in particular have been more heroic or long- suffering than the other nations of occupied countries.”
We shouldn’t have listened to them then, and, after 60 years of the same kind of stuff, we certainly shouldn’t listen to them now.
The author’s latest book is What Might Have Been
April 28, 2004 at 09:57 AM in UK | Permalink | TrackBack (36) | Top of page | Blog Home
Scotsman.com News - UK - Blair brushes off diplomats' warning
ALISON HARDIE POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
TONY Blair yesterday dismissed a warning from more than 50 retired British diplomats about his enthusiasm for tying government foreign policy to that of the United States.
The Prime Minister brushed off the strongly-worded caution, saying it represented only the views of "private citizens" who were not grasping the full complexity of the situation in Iraq and between Israel and Palestine.
In an open letter to Mr Blair this week, the former diplomats, all of whom had worked at the highest levels of the Foreign Office, said he should work to influence the "doomed" US policy on the Middle East and Iraq or stop backing it.
Mr Blair yesterday also played down the prospect of committing further British troops to Iraq in the wake of the withdrawal of the Spanish fighting forces.
He said that Britain already had "sufficient" forces in the country, although Downing Street later confused the issue when it said consultations on troop levels were continuing with other coalition countries.
Mr Blair emerged yesterday to defend his foreign policy decisions after a meeting with Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, at Downing Street.
While he acknowledged the "frustration" expressed by the former diplomats over the Middle East, he said the coalition had to ensure Iraq did not fall into the hands of "fanatics and terrorists" - language dismissed as "neither convincing nor helpful" in the open letter sent on Monday.
Mr Blair went on: "Whether people were against the conflict or in favour, what is obvious now is that there is only one side to be on and that is the side of the Iraqi people in their journey towards democracy."
The retired envoys said that if Britain was unable to exert "real influence" with the US administration, it should abandon its support policies which were "doomed to failure".
The Prime Minister is expected to reply to the diplomats’ letter more fully "in due course".
Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, said the letter had to be taken seriously : "It raises very serious questions that deserve serious answers from the government," he said.
And Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, told Radio 4’s Today programme that the letter came from experts in their field.
"The Prime Minister would be well advised to read carefully what they have said and respond in a grown-up fashion," he added.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, hit back for the government yesterday and warned against attempts to drive a wedge between London and Washington.
He said: "It is very important for us to try to work with the United States and not to have a polarisation that would weaken our influence and weaken the influence of Europe."
And Mike O’Brien, a Foreign Office minister, said that the diplomats’ criticism of the government’s Middle East policy was based on a "false premise".
The envoys were stung into action after Mr Blair welcomed US backing for the plans of the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to withdraw from Gaza while leaving Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank.
They complained that the Israeli plan was "one-sided and illegal" and would lead to further bloodshed in the region.
However, Mr O’Brien said both Mr Blair and George Bush, the US president, had made clear Mr Sharon’s proposals could not prejudge the shape of a final, accepted Middle East peace settlement.
"I was a little bit frustrated by it myself, in the sense that they seem to be advocating a policy and that we should follow it on the Middle East," he said. "But we are following it, then they criticise us for doing it. So I am not entirely sure where they are coming from."
Mr Straw said it had always been understood that there would have to be some compromise on the settlements.
"Those final negotiations may or may not involve the retention of some settlements but that is a matter for agreement between the parties," he said.
April 28, 2004 at 04:46 AM in UK | Permalink | TrackBack (16) | Top of page | Blog Home
About This Series (washingtonpost.com)
Thursday, April 22, 2004; Page A19
This series of articles was adapted from "Plan of Attack" by Bob Woodward. Information in the book comes from more than 75 key people directly involved in the events, including President Bush, war cabinet members, the White House staff and officials serving at various levels of the State and Defense departments and the Central Intelligence Agency. These interviews were conducted on background, meaning the information could be used but the sources would not be identified. Bush was interviewed on the record for more than 31/2 hours over two days, Dec. 10 and 11, 2003. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was interviewed for more than three hours in the fall of 2003. Many of the direct quotations of dialogue, dates, times and other details of this history come from documents, including personal notes, calendars, chronologies, official and unofficial records, phone transcripts and memos. Where thoughts, judgments or feelings are attributed to participants, they were obtained from the person directly, a colleague with firsthand knowledge or the written record.
Sunday
Deciding on War
Soon after New Year's in 2003, President Bush made up his mind to attack Iraq. One by one, he told key members of his Cabinet -- and one prominent foreign ambassador.
Monday
Making the Case
In telling Bush that military action was the only feasible way of removing Saddam Hussein and then that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, the CIA contributed to the gathering momentum for war.
Tuesday
Cabinet Divided
Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell were longtime colleagues, but on Iraq they were bitterly divided. When it came time, however, Powell did as the president urged and put on his war uniform.
WEDNESday
The Special Relationship
For President Bush, the political future of his closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was a powerful consideration.
TOday
Countdown to War
The frenzied day when President Bush launched an attack on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
April 28, 2004 at 04:26 AM in Iraq | Permalink | TrackBack (1) | Top of page | Blog Home
By ERIC SCHMITT
ASHINGTON, April 27 — The siege in Falluja is a case study in mistaken assumptions, dashed hopes, rivalry between the Army and the Marine Corps, and a tragedy that became a trigger, Pentagon officials, senior officers and independent military analysts said Tuesday.
The chain of decisions leading to the standoff that has made the city of nearly 300,000 people in the Sunni heartland a symbol of the insurgency also illustrates conflicting military strategies and shifting political aims. The fate of Falluja has become a possible harbinger for all of Iraq.
Some critics say the immediate showdown is a result of the Marines' overreaction to the killing and mutilation of four American private security contractors on March 31. "They've gone to the sledgehammer approach," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Even before the contractors' deaths, however, the marines ran into sporadic but stiff resistance last month as they took over responsibility for the area from departing Army soldiers. Marine commanders defended their response, which was to throw a cordon of troops, tanks and artillery around the city, try to avoid civilian casualties and prepare for an urban battle to root out some 2,000 insurgents.
In recent days, commanders have said they are taking great pains to avoid an all-out attack. "Every attempt will be made to solve the problem peacefully before resorting to a military offensive against terrorists inside the city," Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, the top Marine general in Iraq, said in an e-mail message.
Dealing with Falluja has gone from strictly a military matter for commanders in Iraq to a broader political debate involving President Bush and his top national security aides in Washington, who have voiced concerns that images of fierce fighting in Falluja will stir uprisings throughout Iraq and outrage throughout the Arab world.
Some Marine commanders grumble that the stop-and-start negotiations are giving insurgents more time to restock and refortify their defenses, putting marines' lives at risk and postponing what they say is an inevitable American attack.
The decision to delay any immediate offensive into Falluja is still very tenuous, Pentagon officials said Tuesday. Military commanders are unwilling to accept the status quo, while intelligence suggests that backing off would encourage a new generation of opposition, and postpone big problems until closer to the transfer to Iraqi sovereignty on June 30. There is little sign that resistance is weakening.
If there is any glimmer of hope for a negotiated settlement, American and Iraqi civilian authorities are eager to grasp it. But the idea of sending joint American-Iraqi patrols deep into the city has been put off several times, since American commanders said Tuesday that the Iraqi forces who were being asked to take part were not yet capable of doing so without putting themselves and the marines at risk.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that "if at some point the military decides that the string has run out, then they will tell us that and take appropriate action."
"Now, does that mean that something can't be worked out?" he continued. "No, I wouldn't say that, or else we wouldn't be where we are."
The standoff in Falluja has been building for more than a year. American units have come and gone so often in this hotbed of Sunni resistance that they have had little time to understand their surroundings. Falluja was initially occupied last year by the 82nd Airborne Division, which was soon replaced by the Third Armored Cavalry, which in turn was replaced by a brigade of the Army's Third Infantry Division. Last summer, the Third Infantry handed the town back to the Third Armored Cavalry, which was soon replaced by the 82nd Airborne Division. Last month, the marines replaced the 82nd Airborne.
By December, Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., the division's commander, spoke of being on a "glide path" to victory over the insurgents, at least in Al Anbar Province, in western Iraq. By February, the 82nd Airborne had largely pulled back from patrolling Falluja, putting more responsibility in the hands of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the Iraqi police. But in early April, those Iraqi forces largely folded under fire.
Although reluctant to criticize the Army publicly, the marines replacing the 82nd Airborne said the Army's practice of staying out of town allowed the security situation in Falluja to fester. For weeks, General Conway and other Marine commanders had boasted they would shift tactics to work more closely with local people, to gain their trust, and, in the process, glean intelligence about insurgents' locations. This strategy drew on the Marine Corps' "Small Wars" manual, which derives from their 20th-century interventions in Central America.
Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, the First Marine Division commander, reminded his forces in a message as they arrived last month that he had added the warning, "Do no harm," to the unit's motto of "No better friend, no worse enemy." Before showing their "velvet glove" approach, however, the Marines also wanted insurgents to feel their mailed fist. "We will move precisely against the enemy elements and crush them without harming the innocent," General Mattis said in his message.
Almost immediately after taking over from the Army, marines came under fire. A convoy was ambushed. Patrols pushing into town for the first time in weeks were met with mortar and rocket fire, and had to pull back. Then the four contractors from Blackwater U.S.A. were killed.
"Certainly the reason we went into Falluja included the killing of the four contractors, but Falluja was not a garden paradise before then," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief spokesman for the American military command, said Tuesday. "Falluja has been a problem, a significant problem for the coalition and for Iraqi security forces for many, many months."
In the Pentagon's view, Falluja was boiling. There had been 27 attacks on occupation forces, Iraqi security sites or American administration targets in the three weeks before the Blackwater killings. Because of that, planning was already under way to go in and clean out insurgents in Falluja.
The planning was accelerated after the Blackwater attack because those killings were viewed by the Pentagon and local commanders as premeditated, and the population cheered — indicating the dangerous political effect of allowing a Falluja-based insurgency to remain.
Some Army officers said marines had stirred up a hornet's nest without responding swiftly and forcefully enough. "The threat in the Al Anbar Province was flat out afraid of the 82nd paratroopers," said one Army officer who served near Falluja.
But Maj. Kevin Collins, a Marine operations officer in Falluja, put the Marines' attitude this way, "If you chose to pick a fight, we'll finish it."
Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington for this article, John F. Burns from Baghdad and John Kifner from Falluja.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
April 28, 2004 at 03:57 AM in Iraq | Permalink | TrackBack (60) | Top of page | Blog Home
The New York Times > New York Region > New York's Gospel of Policing by Data Spreads Across U.S.
By SHAILA K. DEWAN
n the mid-1990's, a new management program called Compstat shook up the New York Police Department. Detectives stopped working 9-to-5 and started working at the hours when most crimes occur. Crime statistics, once compiled every few months, were updated and mapped weekly. Commanders who displayed a feeble grasp of their precincts' problems were summarily replaced. Crime rates raced downward, outpacing a national decline.
Since then, the gospel of New York-style policing — specialized units, statistics-driven deployment, and a startling degree of hands-on leadership — has been spreading throughout the country. So have the people who personify those tactics, a diaspora of zealous former New York Police Department officers who have gone on to lead other departments.
Some of the dozen or more in this wave of New York exports are well known, like John F. Timoney in Miami and William J. Bratton in Los Angeles. But further from the public eye, New Yorkers have been remolding departments one by one, from crime-plagued midsize cities like Baltimore down to Newton, Mass., a bedroom community near Boston whose police force numbers about one-half of 1 percent of New York's 37,000 officers. "It's culture shock," said Capt. Jeff Fluck, who has been an officer for 27 years in Raleigh, N.C., where a former New York deputy chief, Jane Perlov, now runs the Police Department. Captain Fluck's job has changed from one that could be left at the office to one in which the phone rings day and night. "It is a paradigm shift like I've never experienced before," he said, adding that the change was long overdue. "It's the difference between responsibility and ownership."
The culture shock goes both ways — the New York chiefs have marveled at commanders who did not commit homicide stats to memory and departments that needed to be persuaded that the police could anticipate and prevent crime. "Basically, they put out fires and kept the lid on things while they were here, and then they went home," Chief Perlov said.
And Compstat has been forced to evolve to fit departments with different traditions and cities with different problems. "Miami's a big city, and L.A.'s a big city," said Jose Cordero, a former inspector in New York who is now the chief in Newton, which has ranked, based on F.B.I. statistics, among the nation's safest cities. "The question that begs to be answered is, can the strategies be applied throughout the country, irrespective of size, economic and demographic conditions?"
He added, "It is controversial, only because people associate N.Y.P.D. management strategies with violence and drugs, and people said, `We don't have any of that.' "
Others have gone to places that share many of New York's challenges. "What I saw here, it reminded me so much of how New York was in the 80's, when crack really started to hit the streets," said Chief Anthony J. Romano, a former New Yorker who went to Baltimore on the coattails of Kevin Clark, who rose to the position of deputy chief in New York before leaving to become commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department last year. Baltimore ranks in crime statistics as one of the nation's most dangerous cities.
Recruiting New Yorkers to lead other departments is nothing new. But over the past decade, as the city has become known as a leader in crime prevention, cities have been reaching deep into New York's ranks, trying to lure not only the department's leaders, many of whom have run precinct staffs larger than most police departments, but its particular brand of success.
Raymond W. Kelly, the New York commissioner, said he was not worried about a brain drain. "I think we're generating a steady stream of young, smart energetic commanders," he said.
But he cautioned that New York's success could not be replicated without money, a concern voiced by officers in other cities with New York chiefs, who said they were worried about increased workload and stress. New York, Commissioner Kelly said, had more than four officers for every 1,000 citizens, while most cities have about two.
Not everyone needs such resources. With little violent crime to deal with, Chief Cordero has focused on traffic accidents and car break-ins. But he and the other new chiefs have also started undercover narcotics squads, domestic violence units, internal affairs bureaus and, in one case, a dive team. They startle their detectives by appearing in person at crime scenes. They butt heads with labor unions. And they all swear by Compstat, with its legendary inquisition-style meetings.
Compstat began in New York in 1994, under Commissioner Bratton, and the department has credited it as a major factor in the city's precipitous drop in crime. The system maps crime according to precise location and time, providing daily statistics that allow for strategic planning. At the meetings commanders are grilled by their bosses, in front of their peers, about crime trends in their precincts and what is being done about them. Behind the officers, computer maps are projected on screens, blemished with crime locations.
Even without the New York Police Department's ambassadors, Compstat's principles have been rapidly adopted across the country. "Right now, there are so many variations on a theme," said John Firman, the director of research at the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "It's not the New York model anymore. It may be the New Orleans model that went to Baton Rouge."
But the New Yorkers jealously guard Compstat's purity. "They design Compstat meetings and it's nothing more than a staff meeting," Chief Cordero said dismissively. "The accountability isn't there."
But what New York calls accountability, the rest of America may be inclined to call public humiliation. "It's not like it's supposed to be demeaning," said Daniel Fickus, president of the police union in Baltimore, who said the meetings seemed to stifle new ideas. "It's not like you're in school."
Several chiefs said they had toned down the confrontational aspect, shifting the emphasis to sharing information. Peter J. Abbott, chief of police in Sarasota, Fla., who formerly ran a precinct in Queens, calls his version a "kinder, gentler Compstat." Chief Daniel J. Oates, now in Ann Arbor, Mich., calls his "Compstat Ultralite."
Even so, Chief Oates has clashed with the unions over work rules and reassignments. "My impression is, in New York, when he gave an order, people jumped," said Detective William Stanford, head of the police union in Ann Arbor. "Whereas in Michigan, when he gives an order, it's like, `Is that in our contract?' "
Detective Stanford said that although officers poked fun at Chief Oates's manic management style — "He'd show up at crime scenes, homicides, wherever there was anything going on." — it was a welcome change. "The last few chiefs that we had hibernated in their office," he said.
In Baltimore, Commissioner Clark is fond of checking on problem street corners on his way home from work, sometimes jumping out of his car to interrogate loiterers or to search mailboxes and trash cans for stashed guns. On a recent day in north Baltimore, a young man suspected of dealing drugs claimed that the $500 in his pocket came from working at McDonald's. "Okay then," Commissioner Clark demanded, while two women on a nearby porch looked on in disbelief at the commissioner in full dress uniform. "What are the three steps to making a McDonald's hamburger?" The youth was stumped.
Though born and reared in the rough-and-tumble Bronx, Commissioner Clark said he was shocked to see Baltimore establishments that legally sold both weapons and liquor. "In New York, you would never have that," he said. "In New York, it would be" — and here, he used a municipal euphemism for driving trouble spots out of business — "nuisance abated."
Recruiting from the New York Police Department has not always ended well. Commissioner Clark was preceded in Baltimore by Edward T. Norris, who pleaded guilty in March to spending thousands of dollars in department money on liquor, lavish meals and fancy hotels.
But most New York chiefs, including Mr. Norris before his indictment, can claim good results. In the three years Mr. Norris spent in Baltimore, major crimes dropped 27 percent, and in Commissioner Clark's first year there it dropped another 12 percent, although homicide remains stubbornly high.
In Sarasota, under Chief Abbott, major crimes dropped 7 percent from 2002 to 2003. In Lawrence, where Chief Romero has been since 1999, such crimes has dropped 43 percent. In Raleigh, it has dropped 13 percent under Chief Perlov. Nationally, crime dropped 4.9 percent between 1998 and 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
Some argue that statistics only tell part of the story. In Newton, parents and counselors have complained about police crackdowns on teenagers whose minor offenses previously had been handled without arrests, and about trusted youth officers who had been reassigned.
Jay Babcock, president of the Newton Police Association, said officers have been asked to stop anyone they see on the street late at night, causing a minor controversy when officers questioned a teenager sitting on his porch. "He's using methods that work in the big city," Officer Babcock said. "In a small city — I'm not a professor here — but I don't think it's about statistical information."
Chief Cordero said his methods had nothing to do with size. "It's common-sense police management."
The former New Yorkers are true believers, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that they have suffered through the ordeal of accountability themselves. Very few rose high enough in the New York ranks that they no longer had to answer questions with maps projected behind them. Commissioner Clark, a deputy chief in the Narcotics Bureau before he retired to go to Baltimore, was one.
"It was the best job in the worlkd," he said without irony. "I was finally freed of Compstat."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
April 28, 2004 at 03:54 AM in US | Permalink | TrackBack (26) | Top of page | Blog Home
By Patience Wheatcroft
WHICH of these two scenarios would you favour: more powers to the EU and protectionism or a lessening of the EU’s powers, free trade and educational reform?
When a question is phrased in those terms, the astonishing thing is not that a majority of business opinion opted for the latter but that any voted for the former. An astonishing 15 per cent of CBI members apparently felt that protectionism was preferable to free trade as did 11 per cent of business generally.
These people have either signed up to the European ideal irrespective of any reality or they have so little faith in their business abilities that they think they cannot compete in an international marketplace.
Surveys that ask such loaded questions do risk being ridiculed. Nevertheless, many of the questions that ICM asked in the first major poll for two years of business opinion on the European Union were straightforward and so are the results they elicited: business has gone distinctly cool on Europe.
Overwhelmingly, the survey found that British business wanted less Europe rather than more. In particular, it wanted less regulation. This is the constant refrain of companies large and small but there is a growing awareness that, while our own Government does its bit, it is Europe that provides much of the impetus with the raw material that the British Government then gold-plates.
Those business voices that used to be loudly raised in favour of closer ties with Europe and a move towards the single currency have been largely silent for some time now. They have not been raised in the furore over whether Britain should sign up to the European constitution. That may have been interpreted as apathy, or a need to get on with running their businesses during tough times. What this new survey shows though is that many of those who were previously euro-enthusiasts have now decided that they see more disadvantages than advantages to be had from plunging more heavily into a community whose problems are becoming ever-more apparent.
In the survey of 1,000 chief executives, a huge majority to have power over trade, employment and civil rights brought back to the British Parliament. Asked if this move would reduce their enthusiasm for investing in Britain, only 3 per cent said they would be less likely.
On the issue of the euro, three quarters of respondents voted that “stable interest rates” were more important than “a fixed exchange rate between the pound and the euro”. Even among supporters of the single currency, 56 per cent were of this view. As business has watched the travails of the EU countries, it has become aware of the problems with a one-size-fits-all interest rate. As the EU states treat the Stability Pact as a joke, the EU itself has begun to look increasingly laughable.
Now, with the accession states about to join, the uncertainties over the future of the European economy are multiplied. By comparison, Britain looks relatively stable. There are undoubted advantages to be had from belonging to a single market, the concept to which we originally signed up. But the single market remains an ambition that has not been realised. The French still manage to engineer situations that see their national champions emerge triumphant: just look at the merger of Sanofi and Aventis and the way that Swiss Novartis was kept at bay.
This survey only confirms what had gradually been seeping into common currency: the single currency is not going to be welcome in Britain.
Not just a matter of convenience
TO THE 1,919 corner shop owners who constitute the shareholders in Londis, the prospect of a cheque for Ł31,266 could appear very tempting. The directors of the company recommend acceptance of Musgrave’s Ł60 million bid for the business. But since these are the same directors who not long ago were recommending a Ł40 million bid from Musgrave, half of which would have gone straight to the pockets of four senior executives, their judgment may not hold too much sway with the shopkeepers.
No doubt KPMG, brought in as adviser to Londis, has weighed up the three firm offers for the business very carefully but shareholders will still have to be persuaded why this bid which, apparently, was not the highest, was nevertheless deemed the most attractive. Valuations at Londis seem to have a certain fluidity. The quartet of executive would-be multi-millionaires were persuaded that their rights, which would have been worth Ł30 million under the current offer, could be bought out for just Ł2 million. That is just the sort of discount that would have shoppers queueing up to buy at Londis.
It may be that the company’s finances have much improved since December, when Ł40 million was judged acceptable, but shareholders will want to take a careful look at the offer documents before deciding what is a fair price. And they will not be the only ones poring over the figures. The data room at Londis was not thrown open to all comers but only those prepared to agree to keep away from direct contact with the group’s shopkeepers. On that basis, the Big Food Group decided that it would stay on the sidelines and heckle.
Since Londis needs 75 per cent of shareholders to approve the deal for it to go through, the heckling might be sufficient to prevent Musgrave winning the day. But will BFG then put in its own bid, as it insists it would like to do, or will it simply try to persuade Londis retailers to change their allegiance and become BFG customers?
Since Ł31,266 is not enough to fund retirement, the issue for the shopkeepers is not just the cash prize but the trading terms that they are being offered for the future. They increasingly have to compete against the supermarket giants that are muscling in on their convenience store territory so they need to be able to offer wide ranges and keen prices. They may not buy the Musgrave offer as their best future.
US navel-gazing with confidence
WASHINGTON’S message to the world at the weekend meeting of the Group of Seven was that the US recovery was solid and could be relied on. The world, excluding the eurozone, was also on the way back to good times and people should stop navel-gazing and get on with it.
Even at home, however, doubters remain. That may be inevitable in a presidential election year. Until recently there seemed some justification. Output was recovering strongly on the back of ultra-low interest rates and huge uncompensated tax cuts, which stimulated consumer spending and housebuilding.
The fear was that the balloon would deflate as soon as this gas was turned off. Few jobs were being created, few businesses were investing in expansion while there was still plenty of spare capacity to fill and consumer confidence became fragile as people in jobs earning good money came to fear that they would lose those jobs.
Aping Bill Clinton 12 years ago, Democrats seemed on safe ground, centring their attack on today’s President Bush and “the economy, stupid”. Much was made of the jobs issue, tempting John Kerry to join a dangerous protectionist bandwagon.
In the past couple of months, however, most of the questions about the US recovery have suddenly been answered. Investment is recovering and at last jobs are coming through in serious numbers. Yesterday the US Conference Board surprised the markets with a sharp jump, from 88.5 to 92.9, in its April consumer confidence index. This should not really have been a big surprise because confidence was being held back almost entirely by fear of unemployment. Once that fear is allayed, consumers are ready to keep spending. That can only add relish to first- quarter output figures, due tomorrow.
Dubya is shooting Democrat foxes at a rapid rate. Don’t be surprised if adventures in Iraq suddenly move to the top of Mr Kerry’s agenda and the Bush camp focuses on the economy. That will be good news for a world that relies on free trade.
AMVESCAP’S unintentional openness with its numbers cost it millions. The company insisted it should not be construed as a profit forecast. But the forward projection of detailed numbers looked rather like one, no matter that it had only been intended for internal consumption. Ironically, the slip-up came on the day the DTI deliberately released a survey showing that 94 per cent of large companies had an IT security incident in the last year. How many more had an embarrassing, and expensive, IT accident?
April 28, 2004 at 03:15 AM in UK | Permalink | TrackBack (3) | Top of page | Blog Home
FT.com / Comment & analysis / Editorial comment
Published: April 28 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: April 28 2004 5:00
In possibly the most stinging rebuke ever to a British government by its foreign policy establishment, 52 former ambassadors and international officials have written to Tony Blair telling him he is damaging UK (and western) interests by backing George W. Bush's misguided policies in the Middle East. It would be comforting to imagine that their comments will be heeded.
The signatories to the letter include many distinguished and experienced public servants. They extend beyond the "usual suspects" of well-known Arabists, and there is every indication that many more serving and retired diplomats, as well as army officers, harbour the same misgivings.
In any case, the notion that so-called Arabists - expert in the language, culture and politics of Arab countries - should be excluded from policy because of their alleged predilection to "go native" should be discredited by the way the Pentagon, which shut out anyone with actual knowledge of Iraq, has serially bungled the occupation.
The organisers of this most undiplomatic démarche are, moreover, Atlanticists. Yet, in essence, what they are telling Mr Blair is: if you really have influence with the Bush administration, now is the time to use it. If that proves "unacceptable or unwelcome" in Washington, they write, "there is no case for supporting policies which are doomed to failure".
The diplomats were shocked into action not just by gathering signs of implosion in Iraq but by US backing for the decision of Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister, to keep most Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank - and Mr Blair's endorsement of this "one-sided and illegal" new policy. Downing Street insists it has not abandoned the principle of a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine and the internationally underwritten "roadmap" to it. But Mr Sharon's strategy tramples on several United Nations Security Council resolutions, and Washington and London's support for it has inflamed Arab opinion to the point where it sees Palestine and Iraq as two fronts in a war of resistance against the west - the optimal outcome for the fanatics who follow Osama bin Laden.
In Iraq itself, the letter says, the indiscriminate use of force and heavy weapons "have built up rather than isolated the opposition", while there "was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement". The critique is trenchant and almost wholly accurate.
Detractors say the diplomats propose no alternative. But the problem is that the mishandling of Iraq (and Israel-Palestine) has gradually closed off any plausible path forward. What this letter warns is that this is an accelerating downward spiral with no brake - and that Britain's duty as an ally is to use such influence as it has in Washington as "a matter of the highest urgency". Though the letter does not say it, it is hard to see how that meagre influence would not augment, were London to co-ordinate its position more closely with its European partners.
April 28, 2004 at 02:27 AM in UK | Permalink | TrackBack (21) | Top of page | Blog Home
This page contains information The Rick A. Ross Institute has
gathered about Opus Dei.
Visit the Opus Dei Official Web site
(Link takes you outside the Rick A. Ross Institute web site)
April 28, 2004 at 02:21 AM in Holy Grail | Permalink | TrackBack (271) | Top of page | Blog Home
BBC News | EUROPE | What is Opus Dei?
By the BBC's Jan Repa
One of the figures amongst Pope John Paul II's latest list of candidates approved for canonisation is the Spanish founder of the controversial Catholic movement known as Opus Dei, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer.
Opus Dei - which means God's Work in Latin - was established in 1928 and has around 80,000 members in Europe, North and South America and elsewhere.
Members are enjoined to promote the evangelising mission of the Catholic Church through their professional work. Membership is by invitation only.
Critics describe it as a sort of Catholic freemasonry - accusing it of being secretive and manipulative.
Father Escriva de Balaguer preferred the word discreet.
It is a strong advocate of traditional Catholic values, including opposition to abortion and artificial contraception.
It also lays particular stress on the unique character and status of Roman Catholicism - as compared with other churches and faiths.
Its relationship with the present Pope is a matter of some speculation.
'Fundamentalist power'
The Vatican's press spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, is a member.
On the other hand, one of the Pope's favourite theologians, Hans Urs von Balthasar, once described Opus Dei as a "concentration of fundamentalist power in the Church".
Controversy also surrounds Opus Dei's founder, Father Escriva de Balaguer. Biographers have alleged various character flaws - including deviousness and social snobbery.
Personal failings have never been a bar to Christian sainthood. More problematical were his connections with the Franco dictatorship.
Like most Spanish churchmen, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer sided with the Nationalist uprising against the Spanish Republic in the 1930s. Thousands of priests were murdered by Republican militias and Escriva de Balaguer himself had to flee for his life.
He has also been quoted as saying that Hitler would save Christianity from Communism.
But Opus Dei's relationship with Franco was always ambiguous.
Although a number of the regime's senior officials were members, a faction of Opus Dei was also instrumental in engineering a break with Francoism and helping to prepare the ground for Spain's post-Franco democracy.
April 28, 2004 at 02:18 AM in Holy Grail | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home
Trust the Truth - Matt's Opus Dei FAQ
I've come across a lot of posts on the internet regarding Opus Dei. Many of them reflect a good understanding of the organization and its mission. Others less so. It's my intention to offer a clear explanation of Opus Dei and to clarify many misconceptions that exist about its nature, structure, mission and methods. I don't agree with everything in the Work, but I don't intend to engage in debate on these matters. I'll simply offer explanations to the best of my ability.
This FAQ contains both fact and opinion. Where I believe the facts don't give the whole story I've tried to include a context in which to interpret them. You may or may not agree with my interpretation. That's where the opinion part comes in. You'll find that not all my opinions are in favor of Opus Dei.
I've also written two articles on the lay vocation. These articles are: On a Mission from God: Discovering Our Vocation and An Action Plan for the Laity. The articles discuss how EVERYONE is called to a life of holiness, and how the laity can pursue holiness in the middle of their everyday activities.
I'm willing to answer any sincere question you have. To ask a question, just email me and I'll respond as soon as I can. If I think your question would be of general interest I'll post my answer on this page.
DISCLAIMERS (The legal mumbo jumbo.)
I'm speaking for myself in this FAQ. I don't represent Opus Dei in any official capacity. I have not sought, nor have I received, any official endorsement, approval, sanction, encouragement, support or authorization from Opus Dei. I simply want to provide accurate and useful information to those who want to know more about about the organization.
This is a work in progress. You can contribute by asking me a question via email me and I'll respond as soon as I can.
CLAIMERS
All opinions and any errors or omissions are solely my responsibility.
All material on this page is Copyright 2002-2003 Matthew G. Collins. All rights reserved worldwide.
You are free to quote from this page under the following conditions:
You give proper attribution;
You do not modify my statements in any way;
You present them in the proper context;
You do not attempt in any way to change their evident meaning; and
You must not, under any circumstance, represent this FAQ or any part of this FAQ as:
i. the "official" position or work of Opus Dei; or
ii. having been produced with the official approval of Opus Dei; or
iii. otherwise having received any official endorsement, approval, sanction, encouragement, support or authorization from Opus Dei.
This FAQ was originally published on my blog, Trust the Truth, on October 18, 2002. I wrote and published it without the knowlege, much less the approval or involvement, of anyone in Opus Dei. Since that time, it has been read by thousands of people from all over the world, including members of Opus Dei whose job it is to provide accurate information about Opus Dei in the media. I have not received any significant objections to what I have written. Rather, both those who are friendly toward Opus Dei and those who are opposed have written to express their thanks for presenting a balanced portrait of the organization. I have tried to respond to the constructive comments I've received by noting the different perspectives they represent throughout the FAQ.
I continue to update the FAQ as people ask questions and make suggestions, and I have maintained complete editorial control over it.
Questions
So here we go, in no particular order...
1. Who are you, what makes you so knowlegeable about Opus Dei, and why should I trust what you say?
2. What is Opus Dei?
3. What's Opus Dei all about?
4. What is "apostolate"?
5. What does membership in Opus Dei entail?
6. I've heard people in Opus Dei refer to "the plan of life." What's that?
7. What's a supernumerary? Is it a really good numerary? And what's a numerary?
8. Why are the men's branch and the women's branch separate?
9. Why does Opus Dei refer to its chapels as "oratories?"
10. Are Opus Dei and "the Work" the same thing?
11. What relationship does a member of Opus Dei have with the parish he or she lives in?
12. I've heard that members of Opus Dei are forbidden to confess to a non-Opus Dei priest. Is that true?
13. What's "fraternal correction?"
14. Why do Opus Dei priests say Mass in Latin in centers of the Work?
15. Isn't Opus Dei only for the "professional elite?"
16. What are the "norms?"
17. I've heard that Opus Dei supported Franco and Hitler. Is that true?
18. What is an "annual course?"
19. Why do Opus Dei members have so many kids?
20. You mean Opus Dei prohibits its members from using birth control?!
21. I heard Opus Dei spent over $1,000,000 getting Escrivá canonized. What's with that?
22. Do members of Opus Dei take vows?
23. What is a "circle"?
24. What is a "cooperator"?
25. Who can attend the apostolic activities offered by Opus Dei?
26. What are some of the apostolic activities offered by Opus Dei?
27. Where can I find all the technical "nits and grits" about Opus Dei?
28. Where can I get a copy of the statutes?
29. What is a "corporate work of apostolate" of Opus Dei?
30. What corporate works of apostolate does Opus Dei run in the United States?
31. Why do Opus Dei spiritual directors read the mail of numeraries?
32. Do members of Opus Dei have to confess their sins publicly?
33. How do you respond to charges that members of the Work make friends only so they can get them to join Opus Dei?
34. What are the cilice and discipline? What are they for? Who uses them?
35. Does Opus Dei keep records of what people discuss in spiritual direction?
36. Is all work "equally sanctifiable?"
37. Why do I need spiritual direction?
38. What distinguishes a supernumerary member of the Work from other lay Catholics who are trying to sanctify their ordinary lives and to bring other souls to Christ?
39. Can a member of a third order join Opus Dei?
40. Why do you call the prelate of Opus Dei "the Father" and St. Josemaría "our Father"?
41. Is Mel Gibson a member of Opus Dei?
42. What is the "Preces"?
43. Why is Opus Dei so secretive?
44. How does one join Opus Dei?
45. Does Opus Dei pressure people to join?
46. What about the children of members? Are they pressured to join?
47. "The Da Vinci Code" says some pretty negative things about Opus Dei. What about that?
48. Do members of the Work have to have books approved by their spiritual director before reading them?
49. What about all the horror stories about life in Opus Dei?
50. What is a supernumerary or associate priest?
Answers
1. Who are you, what makes you so knowlegeable about Opus Dei, and why should I trust what you say?
My name is Matthew Collins. I'm the author of this blog, Trust the Truth. I'm happily married with 3 children, live in Baltimore, MD and work at a hospital in Baltimore as a computer programmer.
I was a supernumerary member of Opus Dei for almost 27 years. I left Opus Dei on my own initiative for personal reasons, but remain friendly toward the organization, and am now a cooperator. I have not had time to update the FAQ to change the language to reflect the fact that I'm no longer a member, but I do not plan to make any changes to the substance of the information contained on this site.
Why should you trust what I say? Well... read this FAQ, and if it seems to you I'm being open and honest, then believe me. If not, then don't.
Besides, I'm staking my reputation on it, and I'm putting everything I say out there for the whole world to see.
I promise to tell the truth about Opus Dei according to my perspective, and to acknowlege other perspectives. I don't apologize for it. I'm not embarassed by it. I'm just telling it like I see it.
One reader noted that because I live in Baltimore, where there is no center of Opus Dei, I may not be aware of some of the more subtle abuses Opus Dei is accused of. He has a valid point. However, I believe that over the 28 years I have known the Work (as Opus Dei is often called) I have received enough formation and been close enough to get a pretty good feel for how things work.
To find out more about me read my resume.
Back to the top...
2. What is Opus Dei?
Opus Dei was founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest, Josemaría Escrivá. Escrivá died on June 26, 1975. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 6, 2002 amid some controversy.
Opus Dei is a personal prelature of the Roman Catholic Church, composed of both laity and priests, whose purpose is to fulfill a specific pastoral mission under the jurisdiction of its own prelate, who may or may not be a bishop. Personal prelatures are sort of like dioceses, but they consist of people rather than territory. Opus Dei may operate in dioceses around the world, but only with the express permission of the diocesan bishop. Opus Dei reports directly to the Vatican Congregation for Bishops.
Personal prelatures are discussed in Canon Law, canons 294-297.
Personal prelatures were foreseen by Vatican II, largely through the efforts of St. Josemaría, who wanted a juridical structure in the Church which he believed suited Opus Dei better than the old structure of a secular institute. Currently Opus Dei is the only personal prelature in the Church. It was given this status by Pope John Paul II in 1983. Hopefully the Holy Spirit will make use of this relatively new and flexible organizational structure in the church and inspire the church to create other personal prelatures to address the various needs of the apostolate.
The specific pastoral mission of Opus Dei is to spread knowledge of the universal call to holiness and to offer its members and others who wish to take part in its activities the assistance they need to become saints in the middle of the world according to Opus Dei's spirit and practice.
One of the specific characteristics of Opus Dei is its emphasis on one's work, whatever it is, as a means of sanctification. We are encouraged to see all the circumstances and events of our lives as opportunities to grow in love for the Lord and to serve the Church.
In Opus Dei we are taught (and teach others) that holiness is not only for priests and nuns. It is the obligation of all Christians to seek holiness. And for lay Christians, we have to seek it right where we are, in the ordinary circumstances of our lives. We don't seek holines despite the activities of our ordinary life as lay people, but precisely through those activities. The "stuff" that goes into being a lay person is the very "stuff" that can make us holy. As part of this path to sanctity, members of Opus Dei follow an intense "plan of life" (see Question 6) which focuses on traditional methods of prayer, such as the Rosary, mental prayer, daily Mass, etc.
Back to the top...
3. What's Opus Dei all about?
In a nutshell, and following up on the ideas in the previous question, Opus Dei is about spreading the universal call to holiness.
One of the basic responsibilities of ALL Christians is to spread the Good News. Opus Dei encourages its members and all Christians to take this responsibility seriously. The work people do in service to the Gospel message is called "apostolate". In Opus Dei, our apostolate is a "directed apostolate." That is to say, it is supervised by the directors of Opus Dei and is discussed with the member as part of his or her spiritual direction. The director may suggest topics to bring up with specific friends, ask us to invite someone to become a cooperator or member, suggest we invite someone on a retreat, etc.
Opus Dei emphasizes that members are ordinary Catholics. In terms of Canon Law (i.e., the law of the Church) this is true. Nevertheless, members of Opus Dei do have a contractual bond with the prelature that other Catholics don't have, which obliges them to perform certain duties and give obedience to the prelature in all that relates to the prelature's aims. See Question 5 for more details.
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4. What is "apostolate"?
Apostolate is simply the activity one carries out in the service of the Gospel. It is being an apostle. While there may be some technical difference I'm not aware of, it is also known as "evangelization," and I use the terms interchangeably. In Opus Dei you are more likely to hear the word "apostolate", but as far as I'm concerned, "evangelization" means the same thing.
One reader wrote with the following observation: "Apostolate includes evangelization, but it also includes many things which would not normally be considered evangelization -- for example, setting up schools, soup kitchens, programs for the homeless, job training, etc. We are apostles (we are sent) into the world to serve the world, partly by evangelization but partly by 'simple' Christian service."
I suppose if there's a difference, that's it. Anyway, it works for me.
Members of Opus Dei are encouraged to carry out our apostolate by continually looking for opportunities to impart the spirit of Opus Dei to our friends, family, and colleagues through conversations, doctrine classes, study clubs, retreats, evenings of recollection, etc.
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5. What does membership in Opus Dei entail?
Before being formally admitted to Opus Dei, prospective members are instructed that:
they must commit themselves to strive for personal holiness according to the spirit and practice of Opus Dei;
they will be under the jurisdiction of the directors of the Work and must obey them in all that pertains to the aims of the prelature, its government, spirit, and apostolate;
they should assiduously try to live the plan of life in its fullness, especially daily mental prayer, the Holy Rosary, and the frequent reception of the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion;
the spirit of Opus Dei demands that they lead a life of intense work;
they must fulfill all the obligations that come with the type of membership (i.e., numerary, associate, supernumerary);
they must carry out an active apostolate under the supervision of the directors of Opus Dei which is primarily aimed at spreading the spirit of Opus Dei;
they must provide for their own economic support; and
they must generously contribute financially to the apostolic works of Opus Dei according to their personal circumstances.
In return, members have the right to receive appropriate means of formation and the ministerial care of priests of the Prelature.
The prelature provides its members formation in the spirit of the Work primarily through personal spiritual direction (weekly for numeraries and associates, biweekly for supernumeraries), weekly "circles", evenings of recollection, retreats, classes in Christian doctrine, philosophy, and theology, and the ministry of the priests of the prelature. Members commit themselves to receive this formation in a spirit of docility. Supernumerary members, because they are not as available to the prelature, receive it according to their personal circumstances. Numeraries and associates, who are more available to the Work, receive it in a much more intense way.
All members commit to carry out the apostolates of Opus Dei generously, according to their availability. Thus, it may not be possible for members to be as active in their home parish as other parishoners, although there is no prohibition against such involvement. See What relationship does a member of Opus Dei have with the parish he or she lives in? for more information.
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6. I've heard people in Opus Dei refer to "the plan of life." What's that?
When I first asked Opus Dei to teach me about their way, the numerary who was helping me, apparently thinking I was further along than I was, asked me how the plan of life was going. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I figured it had something to do with my future professional plans. I replied that I was going to get my degree in Speech Pathology and then work on my master's degree. Then I figured I'd get married and have a family. He got a good laugh out of that and then told me what he meant.
The "plan of life" is simply a plan for daily prayer. The specific practices in the plan of life are called "norms." I don't know where the term came from. Members of Opus Dei are committed to live a specific plan of daily prayer established by the founder. The plan consists of:
Morning offering.
We try every morning to get up on time and to offer the day to the Lord. I like to use the prayer of St. Francis.
Daily Mass.
St. Josemaría said the Mass is the "root and center" of our interior life, so we put a serious effort into attending Mass every day.
The Rosary.
This is the one part of our plan of life that St. Josemaría wanted us never to miss. Sometimes it's hard to find the 15-20 minutes necessary, so we can say part of it now and part of it later, if necessary. Driving in the car is a good time if you're not too distracted by traffic.
Mental prayer.
Mental prayer is simply spending time in intimate conversation with the Lord. Sometimes words don't form, and it's simply sitting in His presence, keeping Him company. St. Josemaría wrote in The Way: "You write: 'To pray is to talk with God. But about what?' About what? About Him, about yourself: joys, sorrows, successes and failures, noble ambitions, daily worries, weaknesses! And acts of thanksgiving and petitions: and Love and reparation. In a word: to get to know him and to get to know yourself: 'to get acquainted!'" The plan of life calls for 30 minutes of mental prayer in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening, for a total of 1 hour per day.
The Angelus or Regina Coeli.
In traditional Catholic piety the Angelus is said at noon and at 6:00 PM. It is part of our plan of life to say it as close to noon as we can. During the Easter season (Easter Sunday through Pentecost) we say the Regina Coeli instead.
Particular examination of conscience.
This is where we examine a particular aspect of our spiritual life to see how we're doing today. We typically do this immediately after the Angelus.
Spiritual reading.
We spend about 10-12 minutes per day reading a spiritual book, typically one of the classics of spiritual literature. Naturally we are encouraged to read the writings of our founder, too.
Reading of the New Testament.
We also spend about 3-5 minutes per day reading the New Testament. This allows us to read the entire New Testament over the course of a year.
Visit to the Blessed Sacrament.
We try to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament sometime during the day, even if it's only to pop our head in the door, genuflect, and say a quick informal prayer. In centers of the Work and on retreats the visit is made immediately after supper and consists of 3 Our Fathers, 3 Hail Mary's, 3 Glory Be's and a spiritual communion.
Preces
The Preces is a set of prayers members of Opus Dei say every day. It takes about 5 minutes to say them and they are prayed in Latin. See Question 42 for a fuller explanation.
General examination of conscience.
Before going to bed at night we spend about 3 minutes examining how we've lived our day in confomity with the Gospel message, and make a specific resolution or two for the next day. Many members keep track of how they lived the plan of life so they can discuss it with their spiritual director.
Weekly Confession.
We are supposed to go to confession each week, preferably to a priest of Opus Dei.
Aspirations.
St. Josemaría would encourage us to turn to the Lord many times during the day and say short prayers like "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul" or "Jesus, I love you with all my heart," or anything else that springs from our heart.
Days of Recollection.
Every month we attend a day (or evening) of recollection. They consist of two "meditations" preached by a priest, a short talk by one of the lay members on a virtue or a topic like "the good use of time", benediction, confession, and time for personal prayer.
Retreats.
Every year we go on a retreat. These are silent retreats with a number of preached "meditations," plenty of time for personal reflection and prayer, etc.
As you can see, with the exception of the Preces, there's nothing in our plan of life that is peculiar to Opus Dei. It's all stuff Catholics do all the time, though they may not do all of it every day. It's a lot, and it's usually a real challenge to do it all every day. And perhaps that's why Opus Dei isn't for everyone.
The founder of Opus Dei used to say that the vocation to Opus Dei is the vocation to be a "contemplative in the middle of the world", and as any Catholic can see, many of the practices in the plan of life were taken from the contemplative orders.
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7. What's a supernumerary? Is it a really good numerary? And what's a numerary?
There are three types of members in the men's branch: Numeraries, associates and supernumeraries. The vocation is the same for all 3 types. The distinction is in their availabilty to direct and assist in the apostolic activities of the prelature.
Numeraries are the most available. They live celibacy and give all their free time and money to the Work. As a general rule, they live in centers of the Work. They receive an intense formation in the philosophy and theology of the Church. Most of them hold regular secular jobs, but for some of them their professional work is to direct the apostolic activities of Opus Dei or to hold an internal position in the governance of the prelature. For most of those who hold internal positions, this is a temporary situation. The numeraries are the primary givers of spiritual direction to the rest of the membership. They are at the disposal of the prelature and are ready to move wherever the prelature needs them.
It is generally from the numeraries that the prelate calls men to the priesthood. When a man becomes a numerary, he does so with the willingness to seriously consider the possibility of a vocation to the priesthood if the prelate should ever ask him. However he may decline the invitation. A very important point is that he does not become a numerary with the intention of becoming a priest. Rather, he simply remains open to seriously considering the possibility if the prelate asks him.
When you hear horror stories about life in Opus Dei it is generally in reference to life as a numerary. See Question 49 for a discussion of what I believe is the source of these stories.
Associates are the next type of member, in order of availability. Associates are similar to numeraries, in that they live celibacy, but they typically do not live in centers of the work. Their personal circumstances do not permit them to be as available to Opus Dei as a numerary. Perhaps they have an elderly parent they have to take care of, or they run a family business that would interfere with their ability to move to another city. There are a whole host of reasons they would be less available than a numerary. Associates also are involved in giving spiritual direction to other members of the prelature and to non-members, too. The prelate may also ask associates to become priests. They also remain free to say no.
Supernumeraries are the third type of member. These are the least available to Opus Dei. Supernumeraries may be married or unmarried. They live wherever they want. Most of the members are supernumeraries, and it is they who carry out the real apostolate in Opus Dei. It is in the supernumeraries that "the rubber hits the road," so to speak, because, as St. Josemaría used to say, the real apostolate of Opus Dei isn't the schools, the hospitals, etc. The real apostolate of Opus Dei is the apostolate carried out by its members among their colleagues, their friends, and their families.
Both the women's branch and the men's branch have numeraries, associates and supernumeraries, and they perform the same functions in each branch. While the women numeraries can't be ordained, they receive the same philosophical and theological formation the male numeraries receive.
There is another type of member in the women's branch called "numerary assistant". Numerary assistants attend to the domestic needs of the centers of Opus Dei, both for the men and for the women. They run Opus Dei's conference centers. They do all the cooking and cleaning. They take care of the chapels (actually, they're called oratories, but that's addressed in question 9). St. Josemaría used to call the work they do the "apostolate of apostolates" because it is they who imbue the centers with the family spirit that characterizes Opus Dei, and their work frees up the other members to devote more time to giving formation.
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8. Why are the men's branch and the women's branch separate?
There are a lot of reasons. It's just a matter of prudence. There's an old Spanish saying "Entre santa y santo, pared de cal y canto." (Thanks to L. for giving me the correct Spanish!) It means "Between a male saint and a female saint, a wall of brick and mortar." Of course, that's an exaggeration, but the point is that you've got normal people who are trying to be faithful to a life of celibacy. Too much contact between them can lead to all sorts of moral dangers and scandal.
Yet there's another good reason: Men and women are simply very different. The purpose of Opus Dei is to give spiritual direction and other means of spiritual formation. When a priest preaches a meditation to a group of men he's likely to say things in a different way than he would to a group of women. He'll emphasize different points. He'll use different words. He'll use different examples and different humor. The women who give spiritual formation to the women in Opus Dei are much more likely to understand a woman's point of view and her struggles than a man would, and vice-versa.
This view may not be popular today in a world that tries to pretend that the differences between women and men are merely physical, but psychology and psychiatry are continually affirming these differences. In my opinion, St. Josemaría, was truly prescient in this matter.
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9. Why does Opus Dei refer to its chapels as "oratories?"
As I understand it, chapels are open to the public and oratories are private. The centers of Opus Dei are residences. People live there, so the "chapels" in them are private.
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10. Are Opus Dei and "the Work" the same thing?
Yes. "Opus Dei" is Latin for "The Work of God." "The Work" is just a sort of nickname for Opus Dei.
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11. What relationship does a member of Opus Dei have with the parish he or she lives in?
Members of Opus Dei are encouraged to be active members of the parish in which they reside. When I got married I did so in my wife's parish. My uncle, who is a permanent deacon, received our vows. The parish priest said the Mass. Our children were baptized in our parish and attend the parish school. They received their first Holy Communion in our parish, as well as the instruction leading up to it. They made their first confessions in the parish. I was a lector in our parish for many years and served on the parish's pastoral council. I'm a scout leader in our parish's scout troops. My wife served on the Board of Directors of the parish's Home/School Association. We attend weekly and daily Mass in our parish. If we can't attend Mass in our parish we go to another parish, just like anyone else would.
Nevertheless, members of Opus Dei commit to assist the apostolates of Opus Dei and therefore often give more of their time and energy to Opus Dei than to their parish.
From a financial perspective, we contribute to our parish just as every Catholic should contribute to the financial support of his or her parish. Any contributions we make to Opus Dei are above and beyond, but not necessarily equal to the contribution we make to the parish.
This is the relationship members of Opus Dei have with their parish. It's the same as any other Catholic. We're subject to the pastor and local bishop in everything other Catholics are subject to them in. The jurisdiction Opus Dei has over us is in addition to any authority the local priest or bishop has, not in place of it, and extends only to those things that are the proper aim of the prelature: our personal spiritual direction and the apostolic aims of the prelature.
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12. I've heard that members of Opus Dei are forbidden to confess to a non-Opus Dei priest. Is that true?
No. It is not true.
Like all Catholics, we may confess to the priest of our choice. This is a fundamental right of all Catholics and is explicitly stated in canon 991.
Yet it's also true that it's good for a member of the Work to confess to a priest of Opus Dei because they are most familiar with our spirit and can more readily give advice that is harmonious with that spirit. They share the same vocation, after all. So we are encouraged to make a priest of Opus Dei our regular confessor.
Given that the purpose of Opus Dei is to give spiritual direction, and confession is a primary means for doing so, this should not be surprising or difficult for people to understand.
Still, when a priest of Opus Dei is not available we're encouraged to go to confession to a non-Opus Dei priest if necessary.
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13. What's "fraternal correction?"
Fraternal correction is the practice in which brothers and sisters in the faith support each other in the pursuit of the perfection they're both striving for. Jesus recommended this practice in Matthew 18:15 - "But if thy brother sin against thee, go and show him his fault, between thee and him alone. If he listen to thee, thou hast won thy brother."
In Opus Dei fraternal correction is practiced in a way that is intended to ensure that:
The perceived fault in the other person is, in fact, a fault or failing in the spirit of the Work;
The person receiving the correction doesn't get hit with the same thing over and over and over again;
If the directors of the Work are aware of some fact that makes it inopportune to make the correction, it isn't made;
A spirit of fraternal charity is the motivation for the correction;
The person receiving the correction is aware that the matter in question isn't simply the opinion of another member but is, in fact, an issue of the spirit of the Work.
Any member of Opus Dei may give a fraternal correction to any other member. There is an established procedure to ensure that the above criteria are respected. The person who observes a fault or failing in another member first prays about the issue and for the person to whom he will make the correction. He then goes to that person's director or the director of the center and confidentially mentions it. If the director agrees the correction should be made he gives permission. The person making the correction then confidentially tells the other person what he observed, simply and clearly. The person receiving the correction then thanks his brother for making it. When the correction has been made, the person goes to the oratory to pray for the other, and then tells the director that the correction has been made.
When receiving a fraternal correction should do so cheerfully and without making any excuses. If he disagrees with the correction he may go to the director for an explanation.
Any fault or failing in living the spirit of the Work would be matter for fraternal correction.
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14. Why do Opus Dei priests say Mass in Latin in centers of the Work?
Priests of Opus Dei say the Mass according to the new rite that came out after Vatican II. When they celebrate Mass in a center of Opus Dei they often say it in Latin, but sometimes it's in the vernacular.
Those who find this practice objectionable should note that Vatican II, while allowing the vernacular to be introduced into the Liturgy, actually ENCOURAGED the continued use of Latin. See Sacrosanctum Concilium for more information.
Aside from the liturgical reasons for saying the new Mass in Latin, there is the practical reason that centers of Opus Dei tend to have people living in them and visiting from many different countries. Having the common language of Latin used at Mass allows those attending to participate more readily. Mass is usually said in the vernacular during retreats and other public functions.
There's also the symbolic reason that Opus Dei, being spread throughout the world, and having a universal mission, more readily expresses that reality by the use of Latin.
Having attended Mass in Latin while on my "annual course" (see Question 18), and relying on the fact that many English and Spanish words have their roots in Latin, I've learned a lot about the true meaning of many of the words and phrases in the English translation of the Mass. The experience has definitely improved my understanding of the Mass.
Still, my personal preference is to hear Mass in English, and only occasionally in Latin.
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15. Isn't Opus Dei only for the "professional elite?"
In Opus Dei we're encouraged to see our professional work as a means of sanctification. We're taught that we must do it to the best of our ability if we're going to offer it to the Lord as prayer. Naturally those who are particularly gifted may reach the top of their profession. The prestige they attain can be a genuine help in their apostolate.
Imagine for a moment that you're an atheist. If you were to work with some Catholic who seemed like a nice enough guy, but wasn't particularly good at his work, you probably wouldn't take anything he says about Christianity very seriously. In the Work, we try to remember that our professional reputation can be either a great help or a great hindrance to our apostolic activity.
It is the explicit desire in Opus Dei to help people of all social classes and conditions, especially intellectuals and those at the top of their professions, to accept the teachings of Christ and to sanctify their work so that they may influence civil society according to the will of God. Thus, you will find centers of Opus Dei close to many of the best colleges and universities, and many of Opus Dei's corporate works of apostolate are schools and colleges. See What is a "Corporate Work of Apostolate" of Opus Dei? for more information.
Still, Opus Dei is not only for the professional elite. I was an average college student at a relatively good college, graduating with a C+ average. After 19 years in my profession I'm a staff-level computer programmer at a local hospital with no particular reputation for computer programming greatness. I just do the best I can. I know cops, accountants, teachers, housewives, low and mid-level bureaucrats, bakers, computer network "cable pullers", and even janitors who are in the Work. One of the numeraries I know sells men's clothing in a department store. These are hardly the "professional elite," and most of the members of Opus Dei are like me. We're people who are just trying to support our families and get to heaven doing it.
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16. What are the "norms?"
The "norms" are the specific practices of our daily plan of personal prayer. They are discussed in Question 5.
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17. I've heard that Opus Dei supported Franco and Hitler. Is that true?
Opus Dei encourages us to view our professional work as a means of sanctification. We're taught that we must do it to the best of our ability if we're going to offer it to the Lord as prayer.
If a member of the Work is particularly gifted and works diligently, like anyone else he will likely rise to the top of his profession. This applies to those who work in politics as much as it applies to anyone else.
According to Vittorio Messori, author of Opus Dei: Leadership and Vision in Today's Catholic Church:
Of the 116 ministers named by Franco for the 11 different cabinets that existed from 1939 to 1975, only 8 were members of Opus Dei. There were no members of Opus Dei in the Spanish government until 1957; there were none in the final cabinet. Of the 8 who did serve under Franco, 1 died 3 months after his appointment, and another 4 were in office for only 1 term. At no time did members come close to representing a majority in any cabinet. The myth of an Opus Dei dominated Franco government is just that - a myth.
Moreover, several known members of Opus Dei were opposed to the regime. Rafael Calvo Serer, editor of the daily Madrid, was hounded into exile for his criticism of Franco, who closed the publication. Working underground, Calvo Serer helped to bring democracy to Spain. Antonio Fontan was likewise a journalist who advocated free elections and trade unions. He too was persecuted, but after Franco's death he returned as president of the Senate in 1977 to help draft Spain's new democratic constitution.
Also significant is that the Falange, the political arm of the Franco Regime, conducted several smear campaigns in the press against Opus Dei over the years. The Falangists were opposed to the liberal tendencies of the so-called technocrats - some of whom were members of Opus Dei, including Alberto Ullastres and Mariano Navarro Rubio - who wanted to modernize the economy and introduce cultural freedoms.
Opus Dei claims to take no political position whatever, and that has been my experience. I have never heard anyone in Opus Dei give a political position as part of any kind of Opus Dei activity. That isn't to say that I've never discussed politics with other members of the Work. To ensure that Opus Dei never even gives the appearance of promoting one political position over another, the priests of Opus Dei are expressly forbidden to discuss politics. Of course, members of Opus Dei, including priests, are fully entitled to speak out, even in activities of Opus Dei, on issues like abortion and stem cell research - issues which have clear moral implications and where the Church has given clear guidance on what constitutes acceptable behavior for Catholics.
In my opinion there is a clear tendency among the members toward political conservatism. But Opus Dei does not impose any political ideology and there still exists a wide variety of political opinion among the members of Opus Dei, even if it is somewhat lopsided. I've known members who worked in the administration of President Carter. I've also known members who worked in the administration of President Reagan. I myself am a tree-hugging pro-life Democrat, and I'm not the only one.
Should anyone be scandalized by the fact that a member of Opus Dei worked in the administration of a pro-abortion president? Does that mean that Opus Dei supported President Carter or his policies? Of course not.
Should members of Opus Dei be prohibited from working in politics? Absolutely not. As long as Catholics in general can work in politics, there will be members of Opus Dei who do so.
As far as Hitler goes... The only thing I've ever heard from a source I consider to be credible regarding St. Josemaría and Hitler was a comment he once made that implied that when compared to the communists, Hitler was the lesser of two evils. The comment was made during or shortly after the Spanish Civil War, in which the communists persecuted the Church mercilessly, even executing a man they thought was him. It was also before the full extent of the horrors of Nazism were known to the world.
I remember viewing a movie of a get-together with St. Josemaría in which he said that "Jesus is a Jew and Mary is a Jew." He then emphasized "Notice that I say he IS a Jew, not that he WAS a Jew, because Jesus still lives!"
As an aside, the sentiments he expresses here are the same ones that make it so difficult for me to see how any Christian could ever be anti-semitic. It just makes no sense.
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18. What is an "annual course?"
An important aspect of a vocation to Opus Dei is the vocation to give good doctrine to those around us. This requires extensive and ongoing doctrinal formation ourselves. Thus, every year we try to go away for a short course in philosophy or theology. These courses are typically held at a conference center run by Opus Dei and are taught by a member who has received a higher degree in one of the sacred sciences, either a priest or a lay person. They are also called "workshops."
Because of time constraints these courses last about a week for supernumeraries. For numeraries and associates they are typically 3 weeks long.
Because Opus Dei is a spiritual family these courses also provide the opportunity to experience the fraternity of the other members, and to get to know them better. The time spent together in an environment conducive to fellowship and prayer serves to strengthen our commitment to the Work and to each other, and to get to know the spirit of the Work more deeply.
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19. Why do Opus Dei members have so many kids?
Because they're madly in love with their spouses and they (... um ... how shall I put this?...) like to express it! (If you know what I mean.) ;-)
And they don't use birth control. (Gasp!)
See Pope Paul VI's masterful work, Humanae Vitae, for details.
Members of Opus Dei are encouraged to be exemplary in their witness to the beauty of large families. In today's world where so many people, Catholics included, view both children and the elderly as distasteful burdens, this witness is sorely needed. Still, we must exercise our own judgment about the number of children to have. If, in our own conscience, formed in the privacy of our own prayer we believe we have a serious reason to limit the number of children, we enjoy the same freedom other Catholics have to use Natural Family Planning. It's good for all Catholics to consult a priest in this matter when making this decision, but the decision belongs to the couple alone. The decision should be made taking into account the financial, physical, and emotional needs of the spouses and the children they already have. This includes the likelihood of being able to provide a suitable home and an adequate education.
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20. You mean Opus Dei prohibits its members from using birth control?!
No.
God does.
See Pope Paul VI's masterful work, Humanae Vitae, for details.
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21. I heard Opus Dei spent over $1,000,000 getting Escrivá canonized. What's with that?
I'd be very surprised if that's all it was!
Let's do some math...
Assuming they had only 5 people working on the canonization for the 20 years it took, and if it cost only $10,000 per year to support each of them, that would be $1,000,000 right there!
If you add in the cost of travel, documentation, research, bulletins promoting his cause, verification of the required miracles, the beatification ceremonies, etc., etc., etc., you can see that the total cost would be well over the $1,000,000 figure that critics complain about.
These are costs that are simply part of the process. Those who are promoting any person's cause for beatification and canonization have to find a way to pay for them.
Given that Opus Dei has over 84,000 members, the $1,000,000 figure critics find so offensive would work out to less than $12 per member. And that would be assuming no one outside of the Work contributed.
Between 300,000 and 500,000 people attended the canonization. That's three to six times the total membership of Opus Dei. And there were many, many thousands of people who wanted to attend but couldn't.
It seems to me that this "criticism" is much ado about nothing. But that's just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.
One reader accused me of being disingenuous in my answer to this question. He says that the question had to do with accusations that Opus Dei "paid" the Vatican in a sort of "quid pro quo" to have Escrivá canonized. I have encountered these accusations on the Internet, but obviously would have no way of knowing whether they are true any more than any other ordinary Catholic. What can I say to defend the canonization? All I can say is that I haven't seen any evidence that this is true - just vague accusations of impropriet