Opus Dei responds to criticism of Gareth Gore bookOpus Dei has published a press release to respond to the accusations made in the MAX docuseries "Heroic Minute: I also left Opus Dei".
The platform defines this documentary as an investigation in which "women who formed part of the Opus Dei tell their experiences for the first time, denouncing the psychological, religious and economic abuses they have suffered". As the trailer explains, "Heroic Minute" promises to uncover, through the testimonies of thirteen women from diverse backgrounds, the "manipulation", "pressure" and "demands" that members of the prelature systematically suffer.
Recognition of errors by Opus Dei
Faced with these accusations, Opus Dei begins its communiqué by apologizing for the occasions in which members of the Work have caused "pain in others" and admitting that "the criticism of former members has facilitated an institutional reflection to improve and change ways of doing things".
Likewise, Opus Dei accepts some errors that it has tried to improve in recent years: "failures in the discernment processes; too demanding standards for living the vocational commitment; lack of sensitivity to understand the weight that this requirement meant for some people; eventual shortcomings in the accompaniment during the process of leaving.
The bias of "Heroic Minute".
However, the Work categorically rejects "the approach that the docuseries assumes", since it "does not represent the reality of Opus Dei", but rather presents the facts "in a biased way", pointing to the Work "as an organization of evil people whose motivation is to do harm".
This bias has also been denounced by some critics of the series, who doubt that an authentic journalistic investigation can be carried out based on the testimonies of 13 celibate women, which, taking into account the number of members of Opus Dei, do not even represent 10 % of the entire Work. An example of this is the published review by Ana Sánchez de la Nieta in Aceprensa.
False accusations in "Heroic minute".
The proof that the accusations are false, the statement continues, can be found both in the teachings of St. Josemaría and in "the experience of thousands of people who live or have lived an experience of fullness and development in Opus Dei, as a path of encounter with God in everyday realities."
Other accusations pronounced in "Heroic Minute" and rejected by the organization are "recruitment", "reduction to servitude" and "abusive system to manipulate people". The Work explains in the communiqué that "these statements are a decontextualization of the formation or vocation freely chosen by some women" and that it is all part of "a narrative" constructed by some people known for trying to present an image of Opus Dei "alien to an approach of faith and Christian commitment."
Healing protocols
In spite of everything, the Work understands that "any process of disengagement, when there is a personal commitment lived with intensity, generates pain and suffering. For this reason, it reiterates that "currently the majority of people who leave Opus Dei do so in an accompanied way, without severing the relationship".
The organization also explains in the communiqué the "healing and resolution protocols aimed at receiving any negative experiences that may have occurred, asking for forgiveness and making amends in appropriate situations".
Lack of dialogue on the part of the production company
Finally, Opus Dei denounces that during the four years in which MAX has been working on "Heroic Minute", "the production company did not contact the information offices of the Work, neither in Rome nor in Spain or in other countries". Only at the end of the recording did they ask for the intervention of the Prelate or an authorized person in conditions that, according to Opus Dei, "were not the usual ones for a series of these characteristics".
Faced with this situation, the Work "declined to participate in what was a product created from a previous framework and with a bias that only wanted to be confirmed". Opus Dei, therefore, points out that there was "no prior expressed desire for dialogue" on the part of the producer and complains that they were only offered "the possibility of a reply at the last moment".
