Cover story Opus Dei the centrists at schools meeting
By JOHN L. ALLEN
JR. NCR staff Steubenville, Ohio
It was a telling measure of the Independent Schools conference --
and perhaps of how far to the right some elements of the church have drifted --
that Opus Dei stood out as a veteran moderating influence.
In a room full of educational insurgents, most of whom have come
to the cause within the last few years, Opus Dei members represented decades of
tradition in running independent schools. On such key issues as relations with
the bishop, whether to accept non-Catholics and how hard to push the envelope
on devotions, catechesis and the Catholic character of the school,
Opus Dei members struck a more centrist tone than many of the other voices at
the Steubenville meeting.
Weve always had very, very cordial relations with the
diocese in our cities, said James Stenson, an educational consultant and
Opus Dei member who has served as headmaster in Opus Dei schools in Washington
and Chicago. We never saw ourselves as a protest operation at all. I know
some of these people do, unfortunately. I dont quite understand where
theyre coming from, he said in an interview here.
Comparisons are invidious, Stenson said. Who are
we to judge the job that other people are doing? We know there are many ways of
looking at things in the church, theres great diversity of opinion,
people have many, many approaches that lead to God.
Then why create schools at all -- which cant help but be
seen as a judgment on the Catholic schools that already exist? Fr. Malcolm
Kennedy, an Opus Dei priest in Washington said the work of Opus Dei members in
education was a logical outgrowth of Vatican II. The vocation of the
laity is to sanctify the world from within, to be the leaven in the world and
not just to be on the fringes of ecclesiastical structures, he said.
Kennedy is a tall, gaunt, silver-haired cleric with an
aristocratic demeanor who came into contact with the prelature during his
student days at Harvard in the 1940s. There were a number of us there at
that time, he said. Kennedy later co-founded the Heights School in
Washington with Stenson in the 1960s.
Today Kennedy said he was shocked to find himself a father figure
to a new wave of educational activists. To come here and think, my God,
Im like the granddaddy of all these schools. Ive always considered
myself the newcomer on the block and suddenly Im the old man in the
movement.
Opus Dei, an international association of lay Catholics and
priests, was founded in 1929 by Msgr. Josemaria Escriva. The controversial
Spanish cleric was declared blessed in 1992. In 1982, the organization was
accorded the status of a personal prelature by the Holy Father,
meaning that its members activities fall under Opus Dei jurisdiction
rather than directly under the local bishop. Such papal preferments, along with
the groups reputation for secrecy, for what some see as excessive control
over members lives and for involvement in right-wing politics of both the
secular and ecclesial sort, have made Opus Dei something of a bête noire
among many Catholics.
Though overseas Opus Dei operates an extensive network of schools,
in the United States at grade levels K-12 it has only five: The Heights School
for boys and Oak Crest for girls in Washington, the Montrose School for girls
in Boston, and Northridge Prep for boys and Willows for girls in Chicago. The
Heights and Oak Crest are formally tied to Opus Dei, while the remaining three
are the initiatives of Opus Dei members with a looser connection to the
prelature. According to both Stenson and Kennedy, most of these schools have
over time received official recognition from their local diocese as
Catholic schools.
The relationship with Opus Dei in the school is not
hands-on, so to speak, Kennedy said. Just the appointment of
chaplains -- thats it. The school is run by an administrative committee,
and then its board of directors. The selection of the new headmaster, decisions
regarding policies and the financial development of the school -- those are all
the work of the board of directors. Opus Dei doesnt get involved in that
at all. Of course, Kennedy acknowledged, many of the key players, both as
administrators and board members, are Opus Dei members.
Unlike many of the more recent lay-led independent Catholic
schools, Opus Dei schools tend to emphasize academic rigor as opposed to
religious fervor, stressing their college preparatory curriculum and the
intellectual achievements of the faculty. Schools offer optional daily Mass and
have an Opus Dei-approved chaplain, but much course content is non-sectarian,
and many students are not Catholic.
Non-Catholics are not required to take religion classes or to
engage in devotional practices. And unlike many of the schools at the
Steubenville conference, originated by parents and run on a shoestring budget,
the Opus Dei schools tend to be led by seasoned educators and backed by
considerable resources, often drawn from other lay members of the
prelature.
Kennedy went so far as to throw a bit of cold water on the obvious
enthusiasm of many in the Steubenville crowd for the Baltimore
Catechism, saying at one point It does need some updating, after
all. And Stenson said he didnt quite understand the lust of many
independent schools for Latin.
Lest there be any mistake, however, about where his -- and, by
extension, Opus Deis -- sympathies lie, Stenson peppered his keynote
address in Steubenville with references to St. John Paul II, and
said that The first blow in the fulfillment of Our Lady of Fatimas
prophecy about the destruction of Marxism came in 1978 with the election of
Karol Wojtyla.
Despite the ecumenical tone to Opus Deis educational
philosophy, Stenson made it clear that winning souls for the church is still an
important objective. He related anecdotes drawn from his experience in Opus Dei
schools about an Asian student who converted to Catholicism because of the
kindness shown to him by students who attended daily Mass and about a faculty
member who returned to the faith and became an Opus Dei
cooperator.
Kennedy acknowledged in an interview with NCR that Opus
Deis legendary taciturnity may be partly responsible for the negative
image it has acquired in some quarters. It may be true what you say, that
Opus Dei has never really been publicity-hungry, is kind of publicity-shy in
many respects. I dont think Opus Dei is much for blowing its own horn.
That may be a factor.
But I think more important is the whole idea that these are
ordinary people, they are not consecrated people, people who are set apart in a
religious state of life or a secular institute or something like that, he
said. Since they dont wear the Opus Dei name tag, you might say
theyre hiding something. What some people might say is a lack of
disclosure might simply be more naturalness, just living my life and not trying
to say, We are the guys who are really doing it well.
National Catholic Reporter, September 11,
1998
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