Talk:Controversies about Opus Dei

Article Quality
This article is horrifically written and appears to be little more than a categorical denunciation of popular criticisms of the group. For a truly effective page, the writing must be cleaned up, and the article must present unbiased criticisms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.2.228.186 (talk) 20:58, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

(random heading)
(inserted by ... said: Rursus (bork²) 22:02, 20 January 2009 (UTC))

Why not at least put in information that everyone knows, like that Opus Dei figured in the movies "Breach" and "the DaVinci Code". The movies themselves are sort of criticisms of the org and can speak for themselves. Surely no one would mind that? Its not a big secret. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.228.218 (talk) 17:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Isn't the article somewhat biased? I have very little knowledge of the organization, but I do know that it is rather controversial. I haveno real reason to say this, but I doubt that all of the controversy is proved to be unfounded. That is a tall order. Maybe it would be better if someone a bit less in favor of this org. gave their opinions of its short coming. Just why are the criticisms separate ? Why are they not included in the main article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.228.218 (talk) 16:42, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Under construction
As people may have noticed, this article is under major construction. I know major problems do still exist within the article, but I hope to have resolved them soon. --Alecmconroy 15:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Attack site used for reference
Under Controversies about Opus Dei a link used for an online copy of a reference is to the Scientology Parishioners' Committee site www.religiousfreedomwatch.org. Surely there are more reliable sites with an online copy of this paper? AndroidCat 22:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Fixed. I generally don't mind linking to partisan sites which mirror third party sources, but I also don't mind linking to non-partisan mirrors instead if they exist.  But since we're talking about that Brian Wilson essay, does anyone know where it came from, i.e. what journal was it published in? I've looked and looked and I did find out it was from 1984, but no journal name so far.  --Alecmconroy 15:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Intro paragraph lacks a neutral point of view
I find that the initial paragraphs lack a neutral point of view. Anyone else? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.21.96.49 (talk) 14:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

Pictures
I've deleted the picture of an opened letter with a caption saying OD has been accused of reading its members' letters. The picture is rather misleading; what is shown is not, as far as I can tell, evidence of the practice, for which no source is provided anyway. It's just an unrelated opened letter. Its purpose is basically decorative and people don't need illustrations of letters to tell them what letters are. We don't insert a picture of an apple into the article about Isaac Newton for the same reason. --Lo2u (T • C) 03:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The pictures are free and suitable to use in wikipedia.--85.60.227.173 20:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Obviously you don't know the difference between copyright and personality rights. "Free" in the wiki world means free only of copyright. Your insertion of the image of two identifiable women plus the added caption clearly violates their personality rights. -- Túrelio 21:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * [[Image:LeBris1868.jpg|thumb|left|President Nixon flew to China by [[aeroplane]]]]Thanks Túrelio. I'm deleting the letter too. It's not enough for an image to be free. It should also be appropriate. As I said before, this image is misleading. The letter has nothing to do with Opus Dei but the caption implies it's a picture of one belonging to an OD member. These sorts of decorative images are also very silly. They insult readers' intelligence. It's like me illustrating the article on Nixon in China with this image. Find an image of an illegally opened letter and source your allegation too or else explain your rationale on the talk page.--Lo2u (T • C) 01:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry but Opus Dei recognizes the allegations about opened letters. Please see here. If you do not understand Spanish language, I put the automatic translation below.:

Los críticos mencionan el presunto control absoluto sobre las actividades diarias de estos integrantes, quienes de por sí ya tienen estipuladas una serie de actividades diarias (ir a misa, orar, rezar el Rosario, realizar su encargo apostólico -por ejemplo, participar en la formación de otros-).

Se refieren, por ejemplo, a la lectura del correo personal (enviado y recibido) por parte de los directores de los centros del Opus Dei.

El sacerdote José Carlos Martín de la Hoz, de la prelatura en España, admite a BBC Mundo que esta práctica existe, pero aclara que es una manifestación de apertura y confianza de los fieles de la “Obra”.

Sin embargo, hay quienes ven en esto una invasión injustificada de la privacidad, más aún cuando quienes envían el correo –por ejemplo, familiares- no tienen conocimiento de ello.


 * Translation (automatic but sufficient) Túrelio do not need translation ;-):

''Critics mention the allegedly absolute control on the daily activities of these members, that in case they already have stipulated a series of daily activities (to go to mass, to pray, to say the Rosary, to make its apostolic order - for example, to participate in the formation of others).

They claims, for example, the reading of the personal mail (sent and received) by directors of the centers of the Opus Dei.

Jose Carlos Martin de la Hoz, priest of the prelature in Spain, admits to BBC World that this practice exists, but clarifies that it is a manifestation of opening and confidence of the faithfuls of the Opus Dei

Nevertheless, there are some people who see in this practice an unjustifiable invasion of the privacy, when who sends the mail – for example, family do not have knowledge of this.


 * Well, allegations have reliable source. An Opus Dei priest asked by BBC, recognizes the practice. --85.57.4.109 21:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * That's fair enough. My original ojection was to the use of the images. Reinsert the text if you like, but please not as a caption to an unsuitable image. --Lo2u (T • C) 23:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

POV fork
This article is simply a POV fork of Opus_dei. Much of the critical material in it is repeated wholesale from that article. Where Opus_dei attributes criticisms of Opus Dei directly to sources in the text, this article uses weasel terms like "critics allege". Numerous passages in the article are inline-tagged as unsourced.

This article should be deleted, and any salvageable content noted so it can be rewritten neutrally in the main article. This talk page message is a first step towards that; without any response or correction, my next step will be to WP:PROD the article, and, if necessary, take it to WP:AFD.

--- tqbf 04:27, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Atrocity stories and apostasy
I agree there should be only one article, but the main article is even more biased then this one. There are two completely different view points, as can be expected. Obviously the org has some strong and valid criticism aimed at it. But the main article in the first paragraph denies that there is any legit controversy. That has to change if there is going to be only on entry. If someone is willing to completely rewrite the main article and give equal time to the point of view of Opus Di opponents, then that would be best. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.228.218 (talk) 17:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Again, I notice that the treatment of the article apostasy and atrocity stories is one sided and in the case of atrocity story erroneous. First of all atrocity stories can be completely based on verifiable factual events; they are not necessarily fictional. What sets them apart from other narratives is the degree of moral condemnation and horror that is often highly dependent on the context and the current world view of the narrator and current affiliations. It has been argued that the anti-cult view strongly influences the narratives of the former member. For example, the same factual events can be either interpreted as horrifying brainwashing and indoctrination or as accepting Jesus, the savior, and the mother church. With regards to one-sided view, the article should not quote only Wilson. He voiced only one among many viewpoints in this debate abour the reliabilty of former members and should be treated as such. Andries (talk) 20:38, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Why are you writing about this here, and not on Opus Dei? If Opus Dei is behind atrocities, surely that merits coverage in the main article, not a fork. --- tqbf  21:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * May be this article should be merged back, because it is unsourced, so bad and needs more eyeballs and maintenance to fix it and keep it in reasonable state. Andries (talk) 23:53, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree; I don't even think it needs a merge; compare the two articles, and there is little verifiable information here that isn't already written better in the main article. Like I said, I'm going to have this article deleted if nobody speaks up for it. --- tqbf  23:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Opus Dei apostates and Bryan R. Wilson
I have written about this in a talk page in 2006:

a) Wikipedia says we should report in proportion to the credibility of the expert. I think it is almost beyond dispute that Wilson is one of the most credible experts on this topic (0pus Dei is under the category of religious organization). Duheim and Zablocki could be mentioned only if their credibility is proportionate to Wilson, and if there are no limitations of space and due proportionality. But their position is not altogether absent in the article. John L. Allen, Jr., another highly credible writer, says that the differences in interpreting the same religious data "depends on one's basic approach to a religious vocation, family life, etc.". And in terms of space proportions, Allen's space is greater than Wilson's. b) General scientific statements of an expert in a field which has greater extension, and by the very philosophical definition of extension, general and science, could be applied to specifics. This is done in these specific subjects, as to Keynesian economics, John Dewey. I am sure these experts did not specifically refer to these subjects but their theories are applied to them, because they meant their general scientific statements to be inductions from specifics and later applied to other specifics. c) I read Wilson's paper (but it was not from Scientology but from a human rights or freedom group). Wilson does not brand all defectors as producers of atrocity stories. It is only specific individuals who are. And I am sure you are not one of them. But I think it is important that the people learn from a world expert about these type of individuals, who are few but destructive. It will also protect you and me, if somebody who leaves Wikipedia, for example, one day portray us in a very bad light.

I still subscribe to what I wrote before. Lafem (talk) 06:26, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Missing Items
It would seem that the article could be greatly expanded to deal with such issues as: Samcollins1234 (talk) 23:48, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The alledged assistance of senior Nazi's at the end of the second world war as they sought safe passage to South America, the so called rat-run.
 * Elsewhere much has been written about money and Opus Dei, for example how they seek out well paid people and then take a very large portion of thier earning or how people give all their assets to the group when they join, but get almost nothing back if they leave.

"Opus Dei points out Mortification (being beneficent to the needy, NOT "Corporal Mortification") was practiced by many highly-revered individuals such as Mother Theresa, Óscar Romero and Padre Pio."

The above quote which appears in the article is false. I don't know about Oscar Romero, but both Padre Pio and Mother Teresa DID practice Corporal Mortification.

A K T, 18th Dec 08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.218.114.172 (talk) 14:54, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * False statements are OK, as long as they have citations and are properly countered by arguments (with citations) claiming them to be false. Feel free to add! ... said: Rursus (bork²) 22:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * On the other hand: if citations cannot be found, then add a and wait some time (f.ex. some weeks) to see if there are still no citations added. Then remove them. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 22:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Vocational crises are staged
What does that mean? It is "This should be your vocation (task, occupation)" or "You might be fired" LeedsKing (talk) 17:52, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

What Are They?
It is clear that Opus Dei is not a catholic relgious order, so what are they and what is their relation to the RC Church? The order cannot ordain priests, so who are their "priests"? Are they from other orders? I am not surprised the Jesuits hate them like the Devil hates holy water. 75.243.138.208 (talk) 15:01, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * In case you really want to know, it might help to read the article Opus Dei. Opus Dei is a personal prelature of the catholic church. As the prelate of Opus Dei is a bishop, he can ordain priests. --Túrelio (talk) 15:24, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

wow opus dei wrote this then?
this IS NOT an article on the "Controversies about Opus Dei". this IS an article attempting to discredit criticism of Opus Dei. it's so biased i don't think it can be repaired, it prob needs to be entirely re-written by an unbiased editor (once a good version is completed it's going to need protecting!). this article fails N:POV on so many levels it's just not funny. the opus dei page itself has issues but nothing in comparison to this article, so perhaps a small section there for now and a deletion/re-write for this page. Teknotiss (talk) 13:45, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed. It should definitely be scrapped and a placeholder of some sort put in place until a proper article is written by someone well versed on the topic. 92.7.27.182 (talk) 19:33, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * seconded. 184.18.7.187 (talk) 19:11, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

"Apostate syndrome"
If the testimonies of ex-members are inherently unreliable, and the testimonies by non-members are obviously ignorant (or worse, biased), then that leaves active members as the only remaining reliable source. ...and after reading the article, it seems that this was the attitude taken by the author.

I've taken a few minutes to reword sentences that particularly made me cringe, but the reason I'm here is I'm no expert -- so, like the two commenters above, I beseech anyone reading this with the capacity to do so to help this sad, sad article out of its hopelessly-biased misery. Even if like me you can only fix one sentence, it's surely better than nothing.

Perhaps we need to create a secular order for the protection of this page from sinister reverts and weaseley edits? I've got a great idea for the handshake..,

184.18.7.187 (talk) 19:19, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

"apostate"
dear all, I've re-edited the section "ex members as unreliable witnesses", since the earlier version simply referred to ex-members of OD as "apostates". This is of course inaccurate, since an apostate is somebody who abandons his or her religion, and leaving OD clearly does not imply abandoning the catholic faith. Guardaiinalto (talk) 09:38, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

one-sided
This article is not objective. The author's main purpose is to present his/her personal beliefs, rather than providing information on the subject. There are blogs for this type of information, but Wikipedia is not the forum to state support for a religion. A controversy is the disagreement between two points of view. Utterly biased. For more accurate and reliable information, search for Opus Dei, this one shows both points of view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cccperez (talk • contribs) 16:19, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

removing POV tag with no active discussion per Template:POV
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
 * This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
 * There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
 * It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
 * In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:24, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

ODAN is not reliable
ODAN is basically the same for Opus Dei as ReGAIN is for Regnum Christi. ReGAIN was removed as a reliable source based on a discussion on the reliable source noticeboard: Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_136. Therefore it is not a reliable source. It can be once in the links (not 10 times in various ways) and be referenced for its own opinion (primary source), but not otherwise. >> M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 02:15, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

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"Alleged baby selling business"
I have removed the section „Alleged baby selling business“ as unsourced and highly speculative. The claim of an involvement of Opus Dei members in illegal adoptions of the so-called „stolen children of Francoism“ was made in 2011 in media, but has never been corroborated. The alleged source, an article from elpais.com, mentions Opus Dei only once and rather casually without providing details or specifics ("The link that enabled the practice of taking children from their mothers ... was made up of a network of priests and nuns, as well as Catholic doctors, judges and notaries, many of them belonging to the highly secretive Opus Dei movement")

Til now only one "stolen baby" case has gone through court. The accused doctor was acquitted because of statute of limitations (though not found innocent) and there was no mention of Opus Dei, see: El Confidencial 2018,The Guardian, 2018, Los Angeles Times, 2018. More interestingly, shortly after this court verdict, the adopted woman who had filed the lawsuit not only found her true biological family via DNA analysis, but also had to realize that her mother had given her up voluntarily. Therefore, the state prosecutor considers her no longer a "stolen baby", see: El Confidencial, 2019,The Guardian, 2019. In addition, the adoptive mother of this woman stated at court that she had paid nothing when she was given the few-days-old girl in 1969.El Pais, 2018

At the request of justice, the Spanish es:Instituto Nacional de Toxicología y Ciencias Forenses de España has performed 120 exhumations of graves of children whose relatives claimed them as potential victims. However, instead of being empty the researches found in 117 of 120 remains fitting to newborns. A genetic profile could be produced of 90 and in 81 of them the genetic relation to the reporting relatives could be confirmed.El Pais, 2018 Following this twist, some editorials in Spain question the previously claimed extent of the scandal and the claimed organized plot at all, for example: Psicosis colectiva: los bebés robados del franquismo... que nadie puede encontrar. Another recent publication by Maite Rico in the liberal es:Vozpópuli in Spain even speaks of fraud wrt the "lost-children scandal": La estafa de los bebés robados. --Túrelio (talk) 16:56, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Reliable sources are required
we will have this conversation on the article talk page, which is the place where we discuss article improvement, and you will not be accusing us of bad faith and COI again. Thanks. Now, as for my reverts: We cited WP:NPOV and WP:ELNO. The reason we cited NPOV is because a neutral point of view must be taken on Wikipedia. The "controversies" articles are not well-equipped for neutrality, because by nature, the material added will be negative. That is fine, that is the status quo of this article. IWe welcome controversies to be covered here. The reason we cited ELNO is because the links were added improperly, as inline external links rather than references. This is contrary to the manual of style and it is not how we do things. But even if the links were formatted properly as references, they would still be problematic. Here is why.

opuslibros.org is not reliably published. It is essentially an attack site for disgruntled O.D. members and others to congregate. It is a fancy blog. We cannot accept this as a reliable source: see WP:SPS, WP:BLPSPS and WP:PRIMARY. Wikipedia is based on reliable, independent secondary sources. odan.org is similiar to opuslibros.org but in English. Neither one is acceptable as a reliable, independent secondary source. opuslibre.free.fr appears to feature books. Great, we have not evaluated the books themselves. They appear to have ISBNs. Better. If the books are reliably published then perhaps we can use the contents of the books, with WP:BIASED in mind. But somehow we doubt the books are indeed published by reputable houses known for fact-checking, editorial oversight, and accuracy. That remains to be seen, but you are not trying to use the contents of the books, are you? Now we have opusfrei.org. Once again it's a "survivor's network", a primary source, a glorified blog and forum for disgruntled members and non-members with an agenda. In no way do these qualify as sources that are acceptable on Wikipedia! We welcome controversy, we welcome it! Of course there is controversy! And there are answers to that controversy.

Now we come to ladiaria.com.uy. This is a reliable source. This is a news site that, as we read it, has an editorial staff and actual expertise going into articles. It appears to have editorial oversight and a facility for fact-checking. We can allow assertions cited to this news site. Another principle to keep in mind is WP:DUE. This is related to NPOV; DUE says that all valid viewpoints should be adequately covered in the article. If there are 50 articles in favor and 50 articles against, then coverage is half and half. If there are 80 articles against and 20 in favor, then again, there can be 8 paragraphs against, and 2 in favor, representing DUE coverage. elpais.com too is reliable. We have recognized this major publication for a long time. Assertions sourced to El País are welcome in this and other articles.

amazon.com is not a reliable source and is discouraged. Use books.google.com or another non-commercial books clearinghouse instead.

canarywharfchaplaincy.co.uk is a WP:PRIMARY source; it can be used, but with caution. Only to cite uncontroversial facts. Never about living people.

That is all the material we found in the diff we reverted. We only covered a single diff. If there are other controversies about the controversy, then feel free to discuss them right here on the article talk page, where we discuss the improvement of this article. Thank you and happy editing! Elizium23 (talk) 09:14, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Lead citations
If the lead needs 43 citations, we are doing this wrong. The lead should be a summary of the main text. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:52, 10 February 2024 (UTC)