There have been numerous media attacks on the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei in recent years. Many reconstructions have been made by former members who have been kicked out of this personal prelature.
As it happens in various ecclesiastical realities, think for example of seminaries where future priests are trained, when some member is removed he starts spreading false news in order to take revenge. These people are much loved by conspiracy journalists.
This is the case of journalist Gareth Gore who wrote a book about Opus Dei full of errors and serious inferences.
The prelature in the past few hours released this document that refutes in detail everything Gore claimed in his book Opus.
Bias and bad journalism
The Opus Dei Communications Office provided Gareth Gore (author of the book Opus) with broad cooperation for the preparation of his text. With a desire to be as helpful as possible, we provided him with abundant documents and materials, spent many hours openly answering questions, and arranged numerous interviews. This is what we usually do with other similar requests, even if they come—as in this case—from professionals who are not specialists in ecclesial themes or who are not part of a faith experience. They too deserve our respect.
With the publication of the book in October 2024, we realised that the author had used this collaboration to support a pre-established narrative. He dishonestly distorts real data to build plausibility for his story, while disregarding anything that did not align with his preconceived thesis. In Gore's Opus everything is bad and the good becomes bad; the book does not even seek the appearance of objectivity, as can be seen from the first pages in the repeated use of adjectives such as "secret," "dark," "recruit," "dystopian," etc. Not a single good deed by anyone in Opus Dei is recorded; not a single response from Opus Dei is included to the many charges leveled against Opus Dei in the book.
The result is an example of a distorted polemic, which builds verisimilitude from this variety of elements: misrepresented facts, half-truths, statements of unequal value, errors and lies, unfounded hypotheses from biased or misinterpreted sources, fanciful interpretations.
When we saw the marked bias of the book and its numerous factual errors, those of us who had been in contact with Gareth Gore from the Opus Dei Communications Office decided to prepare a document to offer the readers of this website the complementary explanations that the author often silences. We have tried to separate truth from falsehood; to distinguish truths, half-truths, lies, and judgments and interpretations about intentions; to clarify false narratives by giving context and additional explanations.
In its more than 400 pages, the book compiles criticisms that Opus Dei has received from its foundation in 1928. Many of these issues were addressed in the seventies, eighties and nineties of the last century, but these explanations of Opus Dei are not easily found on the web. In this sense, this book also offers us the opportunity to make available to all readers those older references, sometimes buried in the paper archives. Going page by page through Gore's book, we wish to make available to the general public the other point of view and numerous factual clarifications.
We offer this document with a necessary premise: respect and openness towards critical views, which can usually be helpful. No human institution is perfect. Opus Dei tries to be receptive and on numerous occasions has acknowledged mistakes and taken responsibility: attending to criticism and analyzing it is part of the task of its government. Being the bearer of a Christian charism does not grant immunity from error. Criticism often reveals blind spots in one's own performance and is an opportunity for change and improvement.