For most people, Opus Dei exists as a whispered reference — part secret society, part relic of Catholic mystique. But peel back the secrecy, and what emerges is something far more grounded in human frailty and hubris: a meticulously engineered network built to fuse faith with power. From the ashes of Spain’s civil war to the heart of Washington, D.C., Opus Dei perfected the art of blending piety with politics, turning obedience into influence and spiritual fervor into financial leverage. Think Bill Barr. Think Leonard Leo.
It is a story of how belief becomes bureaucracy, how a promise of holiness can harden into hierarchy, and how an institution that once cloaked itself in prayer has become a blueprint for political control.
Financial reporter Gareth Gore began reporting on the collapse of the global banking powerhouse Banco Popular, but quickly unraveled a wild and far-flung conspiracy dating back decades with powerful tentacles inside the American government — tentacles bent on bringing down the liberal institutions we all rely on. Banco Popular, it turns out, had become Opus Dei’s billion-dollar ATM.
Opus Dei’s modern heirs sit not in cloisters but in think tanks and judicial chambers, preaching moral order while pursuing political supremacy. Opus Dei’s story is less about religion than about the weaponization of belief — the transformation of faith into infrastructure. When devotion becomes a strategy for power, and purity a currency for control, democracy itself becomes collateral damage. The deeper question is no longer whether a group like Opus Dei is religious or political — it’s how long societies can endure when the two become indistinguishable.
In a twist, Pope Leo is signaling that he may attempt to end Opus Dei, after a hundred years of coercion and corruption and abuse. Is it enough to stop the Christian nationalists taking over our country?
Well. No. But it’s a start.
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Trump Is No Longer the Most Important American in the World
With great humility, Pope Leo XIV delivered his first homily on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square.
