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The Political Ideas of the Opus Dei in Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Leslie Mackenzie
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THE OPUS DEI WAS FOUNDED AS A RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION IN 1928 by Father Escrivá de Balaguer in Spain. Its existence is public but its membership has always been secret. During the period of the Civil War it went briefly underground, to re-emerge in Nationalist Spain. In 1947 it was recognized as the first Secular Institute by the Pope and the centre of the organization moved to Rome. It has been most successful in Spain where it profited from the extremely favourable conditions created by Franco's government for Catholic groups. Its aim was the re-conversion of all social classes and especially intellectual and bourgeois groups to a universal Catholic spirituality. It worked towards this aim through the positioning of its members in places of power within society: preferably in university chairs, banking, business or bureaucratic positions. Each member had the duty to lead an upright Catholic life and at the same time to convert the maximum possible number of his fellows to active Catholicism (or to membership of the Opus Dei), through the example of his life. This implied not only proficiency and diligence at work, but also the traditional spiritual values such as humility, chastity, obedience, etc. Escrivá de Balaguer argued that the further Opus members could rise up the social ladder the more influence they would have on society in general and on their fellows.

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Articles
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Government and Opposition , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1973 , pp. 72 - 92
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Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1973

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References

1 This is a government financed institute for higher education and research in all academic fields. It was founded in 1940 and its first director was J. M. Albareda Herrera who was a member of the Opus Dei. Its object was to foster the growth of Catholic culture and it has, from the first, been a centre of Opus influence.

2 This was a Catholic group which encouraged its members to be active in politics in defence of Catholic principles. Its organization is looser than that of the Opus Dei.

3 His brothers are both Opus members: A. Sánchez Bella is Rector of the Opus University of Navarre and F. Sánchez Bella is Regional Councillor for the Opus Dei in Spain.

4 Opus Member Herranz, J., La naturaleta del Opus Dei y las actividades temporales de sus miembros, Coligite, 1964, no. 37.Google Scholar

5 These were secret documents and were first published in 1970 as an appendix to Ynfante, J., La prodigiosa aventura del Opus Dei, Ruedo Ibérico, Paris, 1970.Google Scholar

6 When I refer to the ‘Opus group’ I am referring to those members of the Opus who, following Opus teachings, are involved in political/cultural life. There were, of course, a considerable number of Opus members who had nothing whatever to do with political or cultural life.

7 The Ateneo Clubs had been centres of liberal debate in Spain from the end of the 19th century onwards. They were closed down during the Civil War since they were considered centres of subversion – the Krausists had considerable influence through them.

8 ‘Spanish society was spiritually and intellectually ill, it was submitted to a surgical operation and now it is moving back to health’, editorial, Ateneo, No. 1, February, 1952. ‘It was necessary to eliminate bloodily the errors and sins of several centuries’. Cf. Serer, Calvo, ‘Una nueva generacián española’, Arbor, Vol. 8, No. 24, 11–December 1947, p. 334.Google Scholar

9 ‘There is a great deal of difference in a country if its intellectual classes are up to the circumstances or if they are a social stratum which hides its lack of ideas with a varnish of unrelated reading.’ Pérez Embid, En la Brecha, Biblioteca de Pensamicnto Actual, Rialp, Madrid, 1956. Also I. Sanchez Bella: ‘One day justice will be done to the small and enthusiastic group of Spanish intellectuals who, in bitter hours for the nation, surrounded by hate and incomprehension, tried to bring light into the best European minds of the time with their burning words and raised eyes.’Homage to Lápez Amo, published by Estudios Generales de Navarra, 15 February 1957.

10 Pérez Embid describes Marxism as the ‘Greatest religious aberration of our time’, in Nosotros lot Cristianos, Biblioteca de Pensamiento Actual, Rialp, Madrid, 1955, p. 27. He calls for vigilance and intransigence in the face of ‘Two irremediably hostile cultural concepts; one Christian, and the other the enemy of Christianity.’En la Brecha (op. cit.), p. 50. Fernández de la Mora, Frente a la Repáblica, Biblioteca de Pensamiento Actual, Rialp, Madrid, 1956, quotes de Maistre: ‘The revolution is essentially satanic.’

11 ‘The people who do not know the meaning of their history is irrevocably condemned to death’. Calvo Serer in the presentation article of the Biblioteca de Pensamiento Actual, Arbor, Vol. 8, No. 24, November–December 1947, p. 334.

12 Serer, Calvo, La configuratián del futuro, Biblioteca de Pensamiento Actual, Rialp, Madrid, 1953, p. 115.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., p. 120.

14 He was tutor to the young prince Juan Carlos.

15 ‘Legitimidad revolucionaria y democrática’, Arbor, Vol. 9, No. 27, 1948.

16 Ibid., p. 375.

17 Ibid., p. 376.

18 Biblioteca de Pensamiento Actual, Rialp, Madrid, 1952.

19 En la Brecha, op. cit., p. 96.

20 Serer, Calvo ‘La significatián cultural de Menéndez y Pelayo y la historia de su fama’, Arbor, No. 72, 12 1951.Google Scholar The quotation is from Epistolario de Valera y Menéndez Pelayo, 1877–1905, Madrid, 1946. It continues: ‘The Church is the golden axis of our culture; when all institutions fall it remains on its feet; when unity is broken by war or conquest, it re‐establishes it, and in the darkest and most stormy centuries of national life it rose up like the column of fire which guided the Israclites in their pilgrimage through the desert. With our Church everything is explained: without it the history of Spain is reduced to fragments.’

21 Calvo Serer was the Opus theorist who worked hardest on the theory of the decadence of the West. He traced this decadence back to the 1789 French revolution – anything from then on was ‘contaminated’– this included Rousseau, rational thought, the USA, democracy, etc.

22 Serer, Calvo ‘Una nueva generacián española’, Arbor, Vol. 8, No. 24, 11–December 1947.Google Scholar

23 ABC, 29 April 1950.

24 In Libertad Progreso en los regimens de autoridad, series ‘O crece o muere’, Ateneo, Madrid, 1955.

25 Op. Cit.

26 This is an important polemic which has been carried on in Spain since the end of the 19th century – the heterodox versus the traditionalists.

27 Any attempt to modernize Spain demands guarantees of stability and long term continuity.' Configuracián del futuro, op. cit., p. 187.

28 Serer, Calvo, ‘El fin de la época de las revoluciones,’ Arbor, No. 41, p. 7.Google Scholar

29 Serer, Calvo, Los motivos de las luchas intelectuales, ‘O crece o muere’, Ateneo, Madrid, 1956.Google Scholar

30 No. 44, October 1953.

31 21 June 1954.

32 Perez Embid (same debate, Ateneo), ‘Without the world it is logical to walk in step with the world looking ahead and not behind.’

33 Cf. Informe sobre la situacián social de España, Fomento de Estudios Sociales y de Sociologia Aplicada, Euramérica, Madrid, 1970, p. 384. ‘We are constantly referring to the differences in attitude which age establishes. Historical hazard has meant that the generation conflict is especially acute in Spain, separating the generations which “fought the war” from those who did not, and lastly those who lived through the hard years of the post‐war and those who arrived later.’ The generation which grew up in the post‐war years has been the recruiting ground for the ‘technocrats’.

34 Seminario de Problemas Hispano‐Americanos, Escelier, Madrid, 1948.

35 Biblioteca de Pensamiento Actual, Rialp, Madrid.

36 Most important among this group were Joaquin Costa, Angel Ganivet, Pio Baroja, Clarin. They were intellectuals who had been very much affected by the Spanish defeat in the war of 1898 and who demanded a radical re‐examination of Spain's situation in relation to the rest of Europe and the world. They were in favour of liberalism and a rationalization of Spanish politics.

37 These labels, Excluyentes and Comprehensivos, were important since they constituted the first admission that any kind of intellectual pluralism existed within the regime since the forced merger of the Carlists with the Falangists in 1937.

38 For example, the manipulation of the examinations system etc.

39 That is apart from the clandestine groups.

40 ‘La politique intérieure dans I ‘Espagne de Franco’, Paris, September 1953.

41 The term used by the Nationalists to describe their role in the Civil War.

42 The ABC team: Luca de Tena, Fernandez de la Mora, J. M. Pemán, J. Pemartin, A. Garrigues, A. Lápez Amo, Jorge Vigán; the Ateneo team: Santiago Galindro Herrera, Leopoldo Palacios, Lápez Ibor, Antonio Fontán, J. L. Pinillos, Millán Puelles, J. L. Vázquez Dodcro, Saumells, S. Pons, Vicente Marrero, R. Gambra, álvaro D'Ors. He mentioned also the Jesuit journal, Razán y Fé, the Informaciones group, the Biblioteca de Pensamiento Actual, the Esplandián and Filo de la Cultura groups. He names Arbor as the centre of the whole movement.

43 Ruiz Jiménez moved further left and founded Cuadernos para el Diálogo in 1962. He was linked to the Vatican. The dissident Falangists also moved right away from the regime while a number of the Propagandists remained with it. (Castiella, Silva Muñoz, etc.)

44 ‘Today the whole world depends on Washington.’ Serer, Calvo, La politica mondial de los Estados Unidos, ‘O crece o muere’, Madrid, 1962, p. 9.Google Scholar He described Kennedy as ‘head of all the West’. Fernández de la Mora, La politica exterior de España, Instituto de Estudios Politicos, Madrid, 1961, p. 84, describes: ‘The rise of the United States to the political leadership of the Western world and the transformation of Monroe's old Panamerican isolationism into disinterested, but practically world wide intervention.’

45 ‘Today relations between Spain and the United States are more cordial than ever and they constitute a real example for the rest of the countries associated with the government of Washington in the defence of Western civilization from the communist threat.’ Fernandez de la Mora, La politica exterior de España, op. cit.

46 Bibloteca de Pensamiento Actual, Rialp, Madrid, 1964.

47 Somaza, J. A., ‘Inversiones extranjeras en España’, Nuestro Tiempo, No. 135, 09 1965, p. 287.Google Scholar

48 Serer, Calvo, España ante la libertad, democracia y progreso, Guadiana, Madrid, 1968.Google Scholar

49 In his introduction to Las nuevas democracias, Calvo Serer explained that although his ideas might have changed as the world had changed, his ‘theoretical convictions are still the same which provided the intellectual structure of his previous publications … principles which are based on the Christian tradition of the West.’ Fernández de la Mora criticized democracy: ‘The form which was venerated for decades as a constitutional panacea is beginning to go into the small letters on political prescriptions, the cause lies not just in its theoretical weakness and historical inefficiency but in the fact that the myth on which it rests – liberty – has lost a large part of its capacity of seduction.’Nuestro Tiempo, No. 75–6, September–October 1960, p. 355.

50 la Mora, Fernández de, Pensamiento español, Rialp, Madrid, 1968, p. 184.Google Scholar

51 ‘Sobre la crisis ideolágica en la sociedad industrializada,’Nuestro Tiempo, No. 165, March 1968, p. 284. Cf. also Lápez Rodá, who describes development as a ‘true joint national enterprise’, a ‘great collective task’ towards which Spain moves in ‘dynamic unity’, Politica y desarollo, Aguilar, Madrid, 1970, p. 197.

52 Siguán Soler, M., ‘Sobre la crisis ideolágica en la sociedad industrializada’, Nuestro Tiempo, No. 165, 03 1968, p. 284.Google Scholar

53 Among its more important exponents are: Mannheim, K., Ideology and Utopia, International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method, London, 1952 Google Scholar; Bell, Daniel, The End of Ideology – On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the 50's, Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1960.Google Scholar

54 Biblioteca de Pensamiento Actual, Rialp, Madrid, 1965.

55 ‘In comparison with the spirit of '98 (nihilist negativism) Ortega's idea of public action represents important progress towards the technification of politics … Ortega gave a powerful boost to the broad process of the rationalization of Spanish culture.’El crepásculo de las ideologlas, op. cit.

56 La politica mondial de los Estados Unidos, ‘O crece o muere’, Atenco, Madrid, 1962.

57 Ibid., p. 57. He also said that the United States ‘is capable of excusing the vices of a dictatorship as long as it at least shows efficiency in its actions’.

58 Ibid., p. 55.

59 This, he argued, is proved by Spanish history, by the fate of the Fourth French Republic and the political instability of the underdeveloped countries.

60 Lápez Rodá, Polltica y desarollo, p. 239.

61 Serer, Calvo, España ante la libertad, democracia y progreso, op. cit., p. 160.Google Scholar

62 The state is the ‘supreme practical leader of the society towards the practical common good’. Puelles, Millán, ‘La ordenaciόn de la sociedad hacia el bien comán practico’ Nuestro Tiempo, No. 91, 01 1962, p. 4.Google Scholar

63 If a minority continue to insist that ideology is not dead they are operating not only against the government (as they intend) but, according to this argument, against the real interests of the people.

64 Lápez Rodá, op. cit., p. 73.

65 España ante la libertad, la democracia y el Progreso, op. cit., p. 131.

66 This justification is not limited to Spain, cf. booklet, Doing Business in Spain, J. L. Goldstucker (ed.), Chicago, 1964. Here Spain is described as ‘one of the most promising areas for investment in the world today’… since it has high political stability (two decades) which is an ‘unusual characteristic in countries with such promising development potential as Spain has. Many areas in the world seem to offer fertile ground for American investment but few of them offer those minimum political and financial safeguards that any prudent man seeks.’ Rev. J. R. Cortelvou, Introduction to booklet.

67 Op. cit., p. 31.

68 ‘In the Western world the class struggle is tending to disappear; the social classes are in equilibrium and everyone can climb or fall because equality of opportunities is a reality. Thus the affluent society has been born, the society of growing prosperity.’ Calvo Serer, España ante la libertad, la democraciay el Progreso, p. 88.

69 Lápez Rodá, op. cit., p. 266. This orientation is again not limited only to Spain, cf. booklet, Doing Business in Spain (op. cit.). Here the United States ambassador in Madrid, R. Woodward, describes the four‐year plans as likely to succeed: ‘Spanish authorities have shown much attention, for a number of years, to the development of human resources in Spain, through programs of social improvement. An impressive expansion has taken place in Spain in public education, in medical and hospital insurance programs, in housing programs and in a large variety of measures to improve agriculture.’

70 This in turn implies a paternalistic attitude of the government to the people. Lápez Rock) (op. cit., p. 233) on democracy: ‘I believe that there is no other acceptable system of government than that in which the people participate in an ordered manner, respecting the rules of the game and with a referee who calls the penalties.’

71 Op. cit., p. 141.

72 Ibid., p. 37, and, he goes on (ibid., p. 197), this is what the Spanish state is now providing: ‘Politics based on the real interests of society has now replaced that which was debated between the old ideological divisions.… From the empty and rhetorical words of other epochs the accent has come to place itself on concrete and positive realities; standard of living, basic production, full employment, social security, salaries, balance of payment.’

73 The state is now ‘The higher centre of our economic life, and this demands that a coherent plan of national life be drawn up and carried out.’Ibid., p. 202.

74 Op. cit., p. 141.

75 Lápez Rodá tends to date the start of Spanish development from the moment when Franco took over control: ‘Rostow, in his well known work on the stages of economic development, points out that a vital factor for the take‐off of an economy is the presence of an exceptional man who knows how to use the latent energies of a people and give them confidence in themselves. The Caudillo has managed to make us Spaniards regain our own confidence.’Op. cit., p. 53.

76 One can detect the trajectory of certain intellectuals towards the left by their attitude to ‘development’. A notable example is the prominent sociologist, Amando de Miguel.

77 Unpublished, 1970.

78 As opposed to the illegal opposition which attacks the whole basis of the regime.

79 La oposicián leal, 1970.

80 Lόpez Rodό, op. cit., p. 387.

81 London, 1 February 1971, BBC One interview with Malcolm Muggeridge.

82 Alberto Ullastres: Letter to L'Européen, ‘Europa se aburrc, porqué tiene necesidad la CEE de España?’, La Actualidad Ecόnomica, No. 459, 31 December 1966.