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Nevilledog

(53,354 posts)
Thu Sep 19, 2024, 10:09 AM Sep 2024

How Opus Dei Conquered D.C.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/opus-dei-members-catholic-washington-dc-politicans-jd-vance.html

No paywall link
https://archive.li/K5K8C


In 1998, a prematurely silver-haired, baby-faced priest named C. John McCloskey was dispatched by Opus Dei, the secretive right-wing Roman Catholic group, to Washington, D.C., to minister to some of the world’s most powerful men. He arrived at the Catholic Information Center, which the organization runs, on K Street, the lobbying district of the nation’s capital, to act as a kind of lobbyist for the nation’s soul. Before being ordained, the priest had spent a few years on Wall Street at Citibank and Merrill Lynch. And even after taking his vows, he retained his dealmaker’s personality.

From his office at the CIC (which bills itself online as “the closest tabernacle to the White House … providing sacramental access to busy Washingtonians for seven decades”), to the capital city’s private clubs and white-linen restaurants, McCloskey — known to the flock as “Father John” — set about networking. In a few years, he succeeded in converting some of the most influential American conservatives of his time, among them Robert Bork, columnist Robert Novak, Kansas senator Sam Brownback, Larry Kudlow, Newt Gingrich, as well as lesser-known figures like right-wing publisher Alfred Regnery. Fox News host Laura Ingraham credits Opus Dei–connected lawyer Pat Cipollone with her conversion.

Father John is gone — removed from his post by a sex-abuse scandal, he died last year — but the CIC is still on K Street. It is still run by Opus Dei (Latin for “the Work of God”), which is not focused on ministering to the masses (and if it were, it would be failing spectacularly, as more Americans are leaving the Catholic Church than joining it, by as much as four to one). Instead, it is focused on marshaling the people who have various forms of authority over the masses (Opus Dei reportedly calls them the “intellectuals”) to its various revanchist causes. The group targets, and attracts, people like Donald Trump’s current running mate, J.D. Vance, a convert to conservative Catholicism by way of Opus Dei–connected clergy and influencers.

Wait, Opus Dei, you say? That menacing group of self-flagellators to which albino assassin-monk Silas belonged that lies at the center of the web of conspiracies in The Da Vinci Code? In the Tom Hanks movie, Paul Bettany played Silas. The group was admittedly fictionalized to up the drama in the thriller, but it does, in fact, exist and has for nearly a century, one of the more exotic of the many factions within the vast Catholic Church. It would seem to be precisely the kind of mysterious clique with tentacles into the elites that would pique MAGA’s conspiratorial fever. But the CIC, which doubles as the Opus Dei office in Washington, and the national network of wealthy and powerful right-wing Catholics affiliated with it are among the most effective forces in MAGA world and the American Christian-nationalist movement. It is allied with Protestant Evangelicals in many of its goals but is more hierarchical and often more institutionally organized. Opus Dei can marshal centuries of intellectual heft of the Church behind it.

*snip*
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How Opus Dei Conquered D.C. (Original Post) Nevilledog Sep 2024 OP
Bill Barr is a member of Opus Dei and probably all six right-wing justices of the Supreme Court. Lonestarblue Sep 2024 #1
Power and religion are never a good mix. leftyladyfrommo Sep 2024 #2
How the worm turns. tanyev Sep 2024 #3
J. Edgar Hoover prepared the ground for pushing religiosity into politics. He and Billy Graham. Timeflyer Sep 2024 #4
How perfect!: Leghorn21 Sep 2024 #5

Lonestarblue

(12,004 posts)
1. Bill Barr is a member of Opus Dei and probably all six right-wing justices of the Supreme Court.
Thu Sep 19, 2024, 10:12 AM
Sep 2024

If the next Democratic administration fails to balance the Court, we all may be losing rights well into the future as the US becomes more theocratic.

tanyev

(44,813 posts)
3. How the worm turns.
Thu Sep 19, 2024, 10:22 AM
Sep 2024
The Roman Catholic religious faith of Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy played a major role in the 1960 Presidential campaign. Widespread anti-Catholic agitation by Protestant groups which feared the election of a Roman Catholic to the Presidency was answered by other Protestant groups and leaders in both political parties who denounced the introduction of a “religious issue” into the campaign.

The convention of the American Council of Christian Churches April 28 unanimously passed a resolution disapproving a Catholic as President. The resolution said, in part, “The present accusation of bigotry by Kennedy supporters and others we believe is an effort to silence those who are raising pertinent questions relative to our historic American heritage of separation of church and state. Therefore, the American Council of Christian Churches goes on record as being opposed to a Roman Catholic for President.”

The National Assn. of Evangelicals April 29 adopted a resolution expressing doubt that a Catholic President “could or would resist fully the pressures of the ecclesiastical hierarchy…. The real source of unrest in respect to church-state separation is the total lack of any convincing commitment of the Roman Catholic Church to the principle of church-state separation….”

The American Lutheran Magazine April 19 called for an official declaration by the Roman Catholic Church that “its traditional position of union or collaboration of church and state” did not apply to the United States.

https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal60-880-28174-1331407

Timeflyer

(2,745 posts)
4. J. Edgar Hoover prepared the ground for pushing religiosity into politics. He and Billy Graham.
Thu Sep 19, 2024, 10:24 AM
Sep 2024

Interesting book, "The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism," by Lerone A. Martin, 2023.

Leghorn21

(13,761 posts)
5. How perfect!:
Thu Sep 19, 2024, 10:29 AM
Sep 2024

Father John is gone — removed from his post by a sex-abuse scandal”

TUH DUH

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