Opus Dei and politics

of Opus Dei point out that accusations of support to Hitler, Franco or totalitarianism have been often based in scattered information and individual testimonies of former members of the organisation.|date=December 2022}} They[who?]

[citation needed] An article in the Telegraph also reports that Felzmann heard Escrivá, "Vlad, Hitler couldn't have been such a bad person," the Father apparently said.

Members make a commitment to dedicate their professional talents to the service of God and to seek to win converts through their missionary zeal.

The organization in Spain and everywhere else has emphasized professional excellence, whether they are farmers or teachers, and it has expected its members who have talents for politics to serve in government positions, in accord, it says, with the Social Doctrine of the Church.

[4] John Allen (2005), an American journalist, drawing from the latest historical research, said that "some members worked in Franco's Spain, became ministers of his.

Allen cites the dissident Rafael Calvo Serer, who was driven into exile in the early 70s and saw the newspaper he published closed by the government.

Allen says: "The Benelli story offers a good case for testing whether Escriva was serious about Opus Dei having no political agenda.

of Escrivá (written 8 years after the US, the UN and Allies recognized Franco) shows his exemplary[peacock prose] virtues as a citizen and a Catholic priest, as he says: "Although a stranger to any political activity, I cannot help but rejoice as a priest and Spaniard" that Spain's Head of State should proclaim that Spain accepts the law of God according to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, a faith which will inspire its legislation.

Escrivá tells him that "It is in fidelity to our people's Catholic tradition that the best guarantee of success in acts of government, the certainty of a just and lasting peace within the national community.... will always be found."

They say that Escrivá acknowledged Franco's role in bringing order to the country but he totally rejected any form of clericalism whereby Catholics have a single-party mentality or use public power as a secular arm of the Church.

agree that the Catholic Church, of which Escrivá was a member, was a bulwark of the Franco regime, notwithstanding the dictatorship's brutal repression against Republicans and Communists following the Spanish Civil War.

“[I]t’s worth noting that in the context of the Spanish Civil War, in which anticlerical Republican forces killed 13 bishops, 4,000 diocesan priests, 2,000 male religious, and 300 nuns, virtually every group and layer of life in the Catholic Church in Spain was ‘pro-Franco.’” Allen goes on to note that despite this fact, “there is no instance in which [Escrivá] either praised or criticized the regime” throughout its long reign.

“The overall impression one gets is that Escrivá strove to maintain neutrality with respect to the Franco regime, even if privately he felt some sympathy for a leader trying by his lights to be an upright Christian,” Mr. Allen concludes.

Others note the origins of Opus Dei itself and the decision of its founder, Escrivá de Balaguer, to flee first to France during the Spanish Civil War and then to join the insurgent generals[citation needed] in Burgos, then capital for the rebels seeking to overthrow Spain's democratically elected leftist government.

[citation needed] According to Berglar, the claim that ministers who served under Franco are proof of the link between fascism and Opus Dei is incorrect; he argues that many Opus Dei members had the personal qualifications to be appointed in government as technocrats assisting in the NATO-USA supported economic Spanish miracle: "In 1957 Franco restructured his cabinet with a view to restoring the economy of Spain and guiding the nation toward a modern fiscal system.

Both López Rodó and Navarro Rubio suggested Ullastres...Bright, hard-working functionaries were emerging who were more concerned to get top jobs in the state apparatus than to implement the ideology of Falangism.

That was entirely true of men like López Rodó and Navarro Rubio who were labelled as being primarily of Opus Dei but were more accurately seen as being part of what came to be called the 'bureaucracy of number ones', those who had won competitive civil service examinations or university chairs while still very young."

(Italics added) Brian Crozier also states: "The charge that Opus Dei had been aiming at political power, and had achieved it at last, was heard in February 1957, when Ullastres and Navarro Rubio joined Franco’s cabinet.

Franco had heard of the intellectual and technical merits of Ullastres and Navarro Rubio and sent for them; they happened to be members of Opus Dei.

(See Opus Dei: Prominent Members) Antonio Fontán and Rafael Calvo Serer are examples of journalists who fought for democracy and press freedom and were persecuted by Franco's Regime.

Falangists, the main political organization supporting Franco, suspected Escrivá of "internationalism, anti-Spanish sentiment, and freemasonry," according to Berglar, who states that "during "the first decade of Franco's regime, Opus Dei and Escrivá were attacked with perseverance bordering on fanaticism, not by enemies but by supporters of the new Spanish state".

[citation needed] Journalists John L. Allen Jr. and Vittorio Messori claim that Opus Dei as an institution was neither pro-Franco nor anti-Franco.

Messori says that Opus Dei's fidelity to the Catholic faith makes it capable of new ideas and its members contributors for the advancement of society.

Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer was canonized by John Paul II in 2002, a choice which has been criticized by progressive sectors of the Church.