The first serious journalistic investigation of the highly secretive, controversial organization Opus Dei provides unique insight about the wild rumors surrounding it and discloses its significant influence in the Vatican and on the politics of the Catholic Church. Opus Dei (literally "the work of God") is an international association of Catholics often labeled as conservative who seek personal Christian perfection and strive to implement Christian ideals in their jobs and in society as a whole. It has been accused of promoting a right-wing political agenda and of cultlike practices. Its notoriety escalated with the publication of the runaway bestseller The Da Vinci Code (Opus Dei plays an important and sinister role in the novel). With the expert eye of a longtime observer of the Vatican and the skill of an investigative reporter intent on uncovering closely guarded secrets, John Allen finally separates the myths from the facts.--From publisher description.

This book explores the early years of Opus Dei and shows why St. Josemaría Escrivá so quickly became renowned for his sanctity. Bringing to light details found only in hard-to-find Spanish sources, author John Coverdale highlights St. Josemaría's tireless, courageous efforts to spread the message of lay holiness even amid the terror and uncertainty of the Spanish Civil War. Coverdale explains how St. Josemaría helped others find Jesus Christ through a lay spirituality that anticipated Vatican II by thirty years.

A deeply personal introduction to the biblical theology and spirituality of Opus Dei by the bestselling Catholic author Scott Hahn. To conspiracy theorists, Opus Dei is a highly secretive and powerful international organization. To its members, however, Opus Dei is a spiritual path, a way of incorporating the teachings of Jesus into everyday life. In Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace, Scott Hahn, a member of Opus Dei, describes the organization’s founding, its mission, and its profound influence on his life. Hahn recounts the invaluable part Opus Dei played in his conversion from Evangelical Christianity to Catholicism and explains why its teachings remain at the center of his life. Through stories about his job, his marriage, his role as a parent, and his community activities, Hahn shows how Opus Dei’s spirituality enriches the meaning of daily tasks and transforms ordinary relationships. He offers inspiring insights for reconciling spiritual and material goals, discussing topics ranging from ambition, workaholism, friendship, and sex, to the place of prayer and sacrifice in Christianity today. Engaging and enlightening, Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace is at once a moving personal story and an inspiring work of contemporary spirituality.

"This is the story of a religiously motivated young woman who was manipulated, turned into a fanatic, and only gradually came to her senses - all because of a religious organization working in the highest echelons of the Roman Catholic Church: Opus Dei, "God's Work." Much has been written about Opus Dei, which during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II has become the most powerful organization in the Roman Catholic Church. Described as a "Holy Mafia" by its critics, "The Work," as it is known, has been charged with secrecy, elitism, reactionary politics, and questionable financial practices. But no one until now has described the inner workings of Opus Dei, from its goals and methods to the actual day-to-day activities of it members, with as much thoroughness and detail as Maria del Carmen Tapia." "The author describes what she calls the making and unmaking of a fanatic. There is the devious recruitment, the forced estrangement from her family, the indoctrination, life in the "Golden Cage" of Opus Dei's governing center in Rome, her years as head of the women's section in Venezuela, her sudden recall to Rome, where for seven months she was held virtually prisoner, and finally the reprisals after she left the organization." "In this strongest indictment of Opus Dei to date, Maria del Carmen Tapia reveals the dark side of "The Work": its duplicity, questionable recruitment practices, shocking disregard for human rights, and the unwholesome cult of its founder."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Traces the Roman Catholic organization known as Opus Dei's remarkable movement in Madrid to an international movement with 75,000 members in positions of power and influence throughout the world.

In this follow-up to The Kingdom and the Glory and The Highest Poverty, Agamben investigates the roots of our moral concept of duty in the theory and practice of Christian liturgy. Beginning with the New Testament and working through to late scholasticism and modern papal encyclicals, Agamben traces the Church's attempts to repeat Christ's unrepeatable sacrifice. Crucial here is the paradoxical figure of the priest, who becomes more and more a pure instrument of God's power, so that his own motives and character are entirely indifferent as long as he carries out his priestly duties. In modernity, Agamben argues, the Christian priest has become the model ethical subject. We see this above all in Kantian ethics. Contrasting the Christian and modern ontology of duty with the classical ontology of being, Agamben contends that Western philosophy has unfolded in the tension between the two. This latest installment in the study of Western political structures begun in Homo Sacer is a contribution to the study of liturgy, an extension of Nietzsche's genealogy of morals, and a reworking of Heidegger's history of Being.