Opus Dei: A Face Oculta da Fé

I also left Opus Dei in the second decade of this century.

The docuseries says exactly what I lived through, what we all lived through, in its first few episodes. It's 100% real. So real that it hurts. So real that it makes you want to stop the playback, open the window, and scream: Why do they do things so wrong in that institution???

J. K. Rowling's latest book, The Running Grave, addresses precisely the actions and consequences of religious cult groups. Setting aside the plot elements related to a detective novel, the methods of recruitment, the processes of persuasion, indoctrination, guilt-tripping, idealization of the leader, member categories, exhausting pace of life, money management, etc., couldn't help but remind me over and over again of what I experienced inside Opus Dei. Terrible.

This series is not a Rowling novel (written under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith), but a documentary about my life and the lives of thousands and thousands of us who also left Opus Dei under threats of eternal damnation. Moreover, in my case, when I said I was leaving for good, they tried to convince me that I was mentally unstable (something my psychologist and psychiatrist firmly denied) and that I needed to take pills. Thank God I had the sense to say, "The problem is yours, not mine."

Additionally, the docuseries is very well made, with a great pace. Thank you for remembering the thousands of victims of this institution that does not deserve to take God's name in vain.

I was a member of Opus Dei. I was recruited as a child and was coerced into joining after being pestered and repeatedly told I had a vocation. A vocation to OD does NOT exist as has been determined by the Pope repeatedly. This documentary is 100 percent true.

Any comments to the contry are from Opus Dei themselves and their diehard followers. It is inevitable that they would try to invalidate the experience of these women and it is also inevitable that they would dig in to 'protect' their institution. An institution that they in fact and in reality do not even belong to but have nevertheless given many years and an awful lot of money to. As always the voices of the victims are being drowned out by the abusers and those who benefit from their exploitation.

The HEROIC MINUTE docuseries manifests through the testimony of 13 women in a real and respectful way the dramatic part that many of us experience within Opus Dei. In just two days after the first two chapters of this docuseries appeared on MAX, I have heard comments from other women who belonged to the institution who agreed that the way these testimonies are presented is true to reality and that we feel represented in the voice of those thirteen who bravely appear.

What the protagonists narrate are testimonies of facts that the institution continues to deny in the face of public opinion and interpret in the face of its members in a misleading way as something spiritual because they do not want to show that many founding teachings and practices that have been developed in these almost one hundred years are abusive and violate fundamental human rights. That is why something extremely enriching in the series is the intervention of people outside the Opus who explain from psychology the way in which coercive groups or sectarian aberrations function, as well as the damage and consequences.

It strikes me that the reviews or comments against are practically the same and above all, solid arguments are missing. The common denominator of these criticisms is: 1) That there is a lack of research, for this I recommend seeing the previous interviews with the director of the series where she narrates the work behind the docuseries as well as the reasons that led her to work on it, an investigation of at least 4 years, many hours of listening to diverse testimonies not only of the 13 that appear in the series. There are also 2 investigative journalists who have done in-depth work on a book and several reports in prestigious media, so their argument of lack of investigation seems unfounded to me.

2) Some comments against the series ask for verifiable data from official documents, I don't know if they wrote without seeing it or if they fell asleep at the moments when in the same series texts from Opus documents are read that show that the praxis of what those 13 women and so many of us live are real.

3) It states that there is no concrete evidence, but we know that there are several complaints before the Vatican, not only from former members but from current members, a criminal process in Argentina where at least 4 priests are involved, more than 25,000 testimonies on the Opus Libros platform, and many more testimonies in programs such as Ágora Colloquios on YouTube. It would seem that where the desire to investigate has been lacking has been on the part of the current members.

4) They minimize the testimonies because they are emotional as if that detracts from the veracity of the facts.

5) They mention that they do not invite discussion or show alternative points of view when they did not accept the right of reply, both the headquarters and the spokespersons did not respond to the invitation from the director and producer of the series.

I am aware that the Opus is circulating messages inviting people not to watch the series, thus reinforcing that what the Opus constantly seeks is to manipulate, direct and manage the conscience and lives of the people who are still there.

I have also left Opus Dei, although I am not a woman, but a man. I was interested in the documentary, because, although in many ways the lives of men and women coincide, women have had a much harder life, especially the assistant numeraries. And I really liked it. I find it very interesting and in line with the reality that I knew.

I am going to make three verifiable points -just look them up on the Internet- to understand what kind of organization Opus Dei is: (1) Nowhere in the Statutes of Opus Dei does it say that celibate members have to give all their money to Opus Dei.

(2) In the code of canon law it says that the principal duties of organic cooperators must be in the Statutes. And giving all your money is a very principal duty.

(3) All celibates of Opus Dei have given all their salary to Opus Dei, because they have been told that it was obligatory.

With these three points you can understand what these women say in the documentary. They have entered an organization where there are many good people who have entered because they have been told that what is done there comes directly from God, and they have been able to give their whole life to Him, whether or not they have left the organization. They have also been made to believe that those in charge of the organization have a direct line to God and that submission to their directives is to directly fulfill the will of God. The only way to fix this is for those in charge to seriously acknowledge their mistakes. And this documentary makes visible the consequences that these mistakes have had for the protagonists.

My daughter was a numerary member of Opus Dei for many years. During those years, we lost her as a family. It was like having a ghost. She stopped being cheerful, going to the countryside, riding horses, or participating in family gatherings. She didn't even want to attend her high school graduation party. Now I realize that she had been "abducted," and it wasn't so easy for her to see that she was being slowly manipulated within a strange, Spanish, shadowy group. Later, I tried to understand her, but it always felt like dealing with someone who was no longer my daughter: she was a stranger, who only occasionally shared new and strange things that had nothing to do with our family or traditions. I remember clearly telling her that one of the most notable aspects of Opus Dei was its opposition to "upward social mobility," because of its obsession with keeping maids as maids for life.

I was moved and frightened by the first two episodes of the series. The photography, framing, and camera work are excellent. The pacing and introduction of the people are also well done. I'm a visual artist, and I appreciate these details.

Also, what they show is too real. What the victims talk about (it's hard for me to call my daughter a victim too) is clearly a pattern that repeated itself in my daughter and in all the others who lived with her. Thank you for productions like this. I remember my daughter taking me to an Opus Dei center where she lived to watch a documentary about Opus Dei that reminded me of the propaganda productions of the Third Reich. The things one does for their children! But today, the documentary genre redeems itself with this production.