List of points

Opus Dei places great emphasis on the individual and the freedom of the individual to express his honestly-held convictions. But returning to my previous question from another point of view, to what degree do you feel that Opus Dei is morally obliged as an association to express opinions on crucial secular and spiritual issues either publicly or privately? Are there situations in which Opus Dei will bring its own and its membership's influence to bear in defence of principles it holds sacred, for example in support of religious freedom legislation in Spain recently?

In Opus Dei, we always strive to be in full agreement with Christ's Church in our opinions and sentiments; sentire cum Ecclesia. Our doctrine is no more and no less than what the Church teaches all the faithful. The only thing which is proper to Opus Dei is its characteristic spirit, that is to say, its concrete way of living the Gospel, sanctifying oneself in the world and carrying out an apostolate through one's profession.

As an immediate consequence, a member of Opus Dei enjoys the same freedom as any other Catholic to form his own opinions and to act accordingly. Therefore Opus Dei as such neither should nor can express — nor even have — an opinion of its own. If on a given question the Church has defined a doctrine, the members of Opus Dei adhere to it. If on the other hand the official teaching of the Church — the Pope and the bishops — has not said anything on a question, each member of Opus Dei holds and defends the opinion he sees fit, and acts in consequence.

In other words, the principle which governs the activity of Opus Dei's directors in this area is respect for freedom of opinion in temporal matters. It is not a form of abstentionism. It is, rather, a question of making each individual aware of his own responsibilities and of inviting him to accept them according to the dictates of his conscience, acting with full freedom. It would therefore be incongruous to mention Opus Dei in a context of parties, political groups and tendencies, or of human enterprises and undertakings. More than incongruous, it would be unjust and incipient libel, for it could easily lead someone to deduce falsely that the members of Opus Dei share the same ideology, outlook or temporal interest.

Undoubtedly they are Catholics, and Catholics who strive to be consistent with their faith, so one can classify them as such if he likes. But he should bear in mind that being Catholic does not imply belonging to a closed cultural or ideological group, and much less to a particular political party. From the very beginning of the Work, not only since the Council, we have striven to live broad-minded Catholicism, a Catholicism that defends the legitimate liberty of every individual's conscience and leads us to treat all men (Catholics or not) as brothers and to collaborate with them, sharing their noble ideals.

We might take as an example the racial problems in the United States. With respect to this problem, an American member of Opus Dei will be oriented by the clear Christian principle of the equality of all men and the injustice of any type of discrimination. Furthermore he will be guided by the concrete indications of the American bishops on the question. He will, therefore, defend the legitimate rights of all citizens and oppose any discriminatory situation or project. Finally he will bear in mind that a Christian cannot be satisfied with merely respecting the rights of others. He has to see in every man a brother to whom he owes sincere love and disinterested service.

These ideas occupy a more important place in the formation that Opus Dei give its members in the United States than in other countries where the problem is less grave or non-existent. But Opus Dei can never dictate, nor even suggest, a concrete solution for the problem. Each member has to decide for himself whether to back or oppose a particular Bill, join one civil rights movement or another (or not to join any at all), participate or not in a demonstration. And in fact in all parts of the world it is easy to observe the pluralism of the members of Opus Dei and to see that they do not act as a group.

These same criteria explain the fact that so many Spanish members of Opus Dei are favourable to the recently proposed religious freedom bill in Spain. Their decision is a personal one, as is that of those who oppose this particular Bill. But all of them have been taught by the spirit of the Work to love freedom and to understand people of every creed. Opus Dei is the first Catholic organisation that (since 1950) has the Holy See's permission to admit as cooperators people who are non-Catholics and non-Christians without discrimination of any kind, with love for all.

Is it a myth, a half-truth or a fact that Opus Dei in Spain has become a political and economic power through the positions, in the official and business world, held by its members?

It is purely and simply an error. The majority of Opus Dei members are of modest means and social position: manual workers, farmers, clerks, housewives, office workers, engineers, teachers, etc. A much smaller number are engaged in the world of government and business. All of them act exclusively on their own authority. They are completely autonomous in their work and answer personally for their actions.

The aims of Opus Dei are strictly spiritual. The only thing it asks of its members, be they socially influential or not, is that they strive to lead a fully Christian life. It never gives them instructions on how to carry out their work. It does not attempt to coordinate their activities, nor does it make use of the positions they may hold.

In this sense, the Work could be compared to a sports club or a charitable institution that is in no way related to the political or economic activities of the people who belong to

Would you accept the statement that Opus Dei actually 'controls' certain banks, business enterprises, newspapers etc.? If so, what does 'control' mean in this context?

There are members of Opus Dei (considerably fewer than some rumours would have it) who work at an executive level in businesses of various kinds. Some manage family concerns they have inherited. Others conduct businesses they themselves started or helped to start. Still others have been placed at the head of companies by the owners, who were convinced of their ability. They have reached the positions they hold by any of the honest ways in which people usually reach them. That is to say it has nothing to do with their membership in Opus Dei.

Just as with all the other members of the Work, the business executives who belong to Opus Dei seek to live the spirit of the Gospel in the exercise of their profession. This means, in the first place, that they have to be scrupulously just and honest. They endeavour to be honest in their business affairs, paying a just salary to their employees, respecting the rights of the shareholders or owners, fulfilling all the laws. They avoid any type of favouritism with respect to other persons, whether they belong to Opus Dei or not. I feel that favouritism would be contrary not only to the search for holiness, which is the reason for their belonging to Opus Dei, but to the most elementary morality.

I already mentioned the absolute freedom enjoyed by the members of Opus Dei in their professional work. This implies that the business executives who belong to the Work manage their companies as they see fit, without receiving any instructions from the directors of Opus Dei as to how they should carry out their work. The economic and financial policies that they adopt and the ideological orientation, in the case of a newspaper, or other publication, is their own responsibility entirely.

Any attempt to picture Opus Dei as a source of temporal or economic directives is completely unfounded.

Supposing that the political circumstances of a country reached such a point that a lecturer or a student thought in conscience that there was no other licit means of preserving the country from general harm, would he be justified in bringing politics into the university in legitimate use of his freedom?

In a country in which there was absolutely no political freedom, universities might lose their proper nature, thus ceasing to be the home of all and becoming a battle field of opposing factions.

Nevertheless, I still think it would be preferable to spend one's college years acquiring a sound training and a social conscience, so that those who govern later on (those who today are studying) will not fall into the same aversion to personal freedom, which is something really pathological. If the universities are turned into a debating hall for the solution of specific political problems, academic serenity will easily be lost and students will develop a partisan outlook. Thus the universities and the country would always suffer from the chronic illness of totalitarianism, of one kind or another.

Let it be clear that, when I say universities are not the place for politics, I do not exclude, but rather desire, a normal channel of opinion for all citizens. Although my opinion in this matter is very definite, I do not wish to add any more because my mission is not political but priestly. What I say to you is something which I have a right to speak about because I consider myself a university man: I have a passionate interest in everything which refers to university life. I do not act in politics. I do not wish to, and I cannot. But my outlook as a jurist and theologian, and my Christian Faith, lead me always to stand up for the legitimate freedom of all men.

No one has a right to impose non-existent dogmas in temporal matters. Given a concrete problem, whatever it may be, the solution is to study it well and then to act conscientiously, with personal freedom and with personal responsibility as well.

You refer to the presence of women in public life, in politics. What do you consider the specific task of women in this field?

The presence of women in the whole range of social life is a logical and entirely positive phenomenon, part of the broader phenomenon to which I referred earlier. A modern democratic society has to recognise women's right to take an active part in political life and it has to create conditions favourable for everyone who wants to exercise this right.

A woman who wants to play an active role in public affairs has an obligation to prepare herself adequately, so that the part that she takes in the life of the community can be responsible and positive. All professional work demands previous training and a constant effort to improve one's formation and to adapt it to the new circumstances that may arise. And this is very specially true for those who aspire to occupy leading positions in society, because they are called to a very important service on which the entire community's well-being depends.

A woman with adequate training should find the field of public life open to her at all levels. In this sense it is impossible to point out specific tasks that correspond to women alone. As I said earlier, in this field what is specific is not the task or position in itself, but the way in which the work is done. There are values which a woman more readily perceives, and her specific contribution will often, therefore, change the whole approach to a problem, and can lead to the discovery of completely new approaches.

By virtue of their special gifts, women greatly enrich civil life. This is very obvious, for example, in the sphere of family or social legislation. Feminine qualities offer the best guarantee that genuine human and Christian values will be respected when it comes to taking measures that affect family life, education. and the future of youth.

I have just mentioned the importance of Christian values in the solution of social and family problems, and I want to stress their particular importance in all public life. Just as for a man, when a woman takes part in political activity, her Christian Faith confers on her the responsibility of carrying out a genuine apostolate, that is to say, a Christian service to the whole of society. This does not mean representing the Church officially or semi-officially in public life, and even less using the Church for your own personal career or for party interests. On the contrary, it means forming your own opinions with freedom in all those temporal matters in which Christians are free, and accepting personal responsibility for your opinions and actions, which should be always in keeping with the Faith you profess.

This doctrine of holy Scripture, as you know, is to be found in the very nucleus of the spirit of Opus Dei. It leads you to do your work perfectly, to love God and mankind by putting love in the little things of everyday life, and discovering that divine something which is hidden in small details. The lines of a Castilian poet are especially appropriate here: 'Write slowly and with a careful hand, for doing things well is more important than doing them.'

I assure you, my sons and daughters, that when a Christian carries out with love the most insignificant everyday action, that action overflows with the transcendence of God. That is why I have told you repeatedly, and hammered away once and again on the idea that the Christian vocation consists of making heroic verse out of the prose of each day. Heaven and earth seem to merge, my sons and daughters, on the horizon. But where they really meet is in your hearts, when you sanctify your everyday lives.

I have just said, sanctify your everyday lives. And with these words I refer to the whole program of your task as Christians. Stop dreaming. Leave behind false idealism, fantasies, and what I usually call mystical wishful thinking; if only I hadn't married, if only I hadn't this profession, if only I were healthier, if only I were young, if only I were old… Instead turn seriously to the most material and immediate reality, which is where Our Lord is: 'Look at My hands, and My feet,' said the risen Jesus, 'be assured that it is Myself, touch Me and see, a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see that I have' (Luke 24:29).

Light is shed upon many aspects of the world in which you live, when we start from these truths. Think, for example, of your activity as citizens. A man who knows that the world, and not just the church, is the place where he finds Christ, loves that world. He endeavours to become properly formed, intellectually and professionally. He makes up his own mind with complete freedom about the problems of the environment in which he moves, and then he makes his own decisions. Being the decisions of a Christian, they result from personal reflection, in which he endeavours, in all humility, to grasp the Will of God in both the unimportant and the important events of his life.

But it would never occur to such a Christian to think or to say that he was stepping down from the temple into the world to represent the Church, or that his solutions are ' the Catholic solutions' to problems. That would be completely inadmissible! That would be clericalism, 'official Catholicism', or whatever you want to call it. In any case, it means doing violence to the very nature of things. You must foster everywhere a genuine 'lay outlook', which will lead to three conclusions: be sufficiently honest, so as to shoulder one's own personal responsibility; be sufficiently Christian, so as to respect those brothers in the Faith who, in matters of free discussion, propose solutions which differ from those which each one of us maintains; and be sufficiently Catholic so as not to use our Mother the Church, involving her in human factions.

It is obvious that, in this field as in all others, you would not be able to carry out this program of sanctifying your everyday life if you did not enjoy all the freedom which proceeds from your dignity as men and women created in the image of God and which the Church freely recognises. Personal freedom is essential to the Christian life. But do not forget, my children, that I always speak of a responsible freedom.

Interpret, then, my words as what they are: a call to exercise your rights every day, and not merely in time of emergency. A call to fulfil honourably your commitments as citizens, in all fields — in politics and in financial affairs, in university life and in your job — accepting with courage all the consequences of your free decisions and the personal independence which corresponds to each one of you. A Christian 'lay outlook' of this sort will enable you to flee from all intolerance, from all fanaticism. To put it in a positive way, it will help you to live in peace with all your fellow citizens, and to promote this understanding and harmony in all spheres of social life.