The M+G+R Foundation

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Beyond the Threshold, A Life in Opus Dei

By Maria del Carmen Tapia

Continuum Publishing Company
  ISBN: 0-8264-0937-7

PLEASE NOTE: The formatting, notes and the highlighting utilizing Italics Print, Bold Print and Underscoring was done by The M+G+R Foundation to call the attention of the reader to Opus Dei traits about which we have been writing for some years now.

Opus Dei is a socio-religious phenomenon bound up with the political situation following the Spanish Civil War (July 1936 to April 1939). By the end of the war, the hopes and dreams of the country's youth had overcome the animosities and hatred of the adults. We were filled with personal, political, and religious aspirations. We had grown up during the Civil War years, remembering years of hunger, bombings, and often the destruction of our own homes...

I still remember one morning in December 1936 during the siege of Madrid by Franco's troops... I left home very early that day to look for some food for my family... ...walked silently, remembering that people had recently been killed in the area at night. Suddenly someone said, "Watch out!" There was a pool of blood in the middle of the street. I had to look away but I had already seen something I shall never forget...

I cannot catalogue all the sufferings. There was hunger, lack of housing, financial hardships, and when the war was over there were purges, the need for political affidavits, the discovery of betrayal by former friends...

As children of those years, we had to put away our toys and grow up ahead of our time. We had learned that a careless word could mean danger or even death to our parents and friends... Our personal experience made us want to end violence and betrayal... We were religious. Although we had great ambitions we knew how to be happy with very little... Because of Franco's political ideology, Spain was boycotted by all European countries except Portugal.

The disruptions of the Civil War had caused young people to lose years of school; we were now eager to learn... Many young women made extra sacrifices, surrendering their chance of going to college or university in order for their brothers to continue their studies.

Perhaps some of those reading these lines will find aspects of their own lives reflected in some portion of this odyssey. Those children and adolescents of the Spanish Civil War --youngsters from 1940-1950-- initially filled the ranks of Opus Dei.

At that time, Opus Dei was practically unknown. Father Escriva's recently published Camino was a provocative invitation to postwar youth with practically no literature available other than religious books and the required textbooks approved by Franco's censorship. I did not know then that Father Escriva was the Founder of Opus Dei nor did I then see the internal contradiction in this book where the frequent use of military language was combined with passages from the Gospel.

Father Escriva offered the great adventure:


Note of The M+G+R Foundation: What Christ? High position in the intellectual world? Our Lord Jesus Christ rejected those values almost 2,000 years ago. The only Christ that would be interested in those values would be the False Christ.
As we have said before, Lucifer fell because he would not serve God and satan came into being. Ironically satan has to serve God because God IS God. Escriva's own words and philosophies point to him as the forerunner of the False Christ - the Anti Christ. Glory to God!

It was not a question of becoming nuns or monks, but a real challenge to lay people who had never considered a religious vocation. Our apostolic field was our own environment, among our friends. There were no special headquarters and nothing needed to be said. What counted was example, silence, discretion. Escriva's book, The Way, reflects this approach. All these factors constituted a distinctive style that helped create a genuine ebullience among the young men and women who joined Opus Dei during the decade of the 1940s and who, in Opus Dei jargon, are known as "the first" or "the eldest." Indeed, the phrase is a kind of badge of honor within Opus Dei.

Note of The M+G+R Foundation: And a new version of Elitism was born: Nazi-Arianism was alive and well; this time, hiding under the cloak of false piety.

Sometime around 1945, I heard references to Opus Dei for the first time. They were very negative. Several people suggested that it represented a subtle danger to the Roman Catholic Church. More than one acquaintance, playing on the widespread Spanish hostility to Masons as members of a secret society, used the expression "white freemasonry." [1] Some alleged that Opus Dei was envious if not hostile to the two most significant Spanish Catholic lay groups, Catholic Action (Acción Católica) and the Spanish National Association of Propagandists (Asociación Española Nacional de Propagandistas). I even heard stories of young men from Opus Dei who courted young women, with no intention of marrying them, merely for the purpose of recruiting new members for the association!...

A few months later, in October 1946, I finally met someone from the mysterious Opus Dei, a priest named Pedro Casciaro, who officiated at the marriage of my first cousin in Albacete...

I was intrigued about Opus Dei, and discussed it at length with my fiancé. He told me that he had heard the same rumors as I had, but that one of his classmates at his engineering school was a member and seemed perfectly normal, though he did not socialize with women...

In 1947, a year before our intended marriage, my fiancé, now a forestry engineer, accepted his first job in Morocco. To relieve my boredom during his absence and to pursue my own intellectual interests, I accepted a position at Arbor, the general cultural journal of the Council of Scientific Research, CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas) in Madrid. I was an assistant to Arbor's associate director, Raimundo Panikkar.

When I was introduced to him, I was quite surprised to find a priest in such a major cultural post. I was even more surprised that he was an Indian with a Catalonian accent. Although only recently ordained and still a young man of twenty-eight, he was highly regarded at the CSIC as one of its founders. Everyone considered him brilliant... He was kind, although extremely serious with the staff of Arbor, with whom he very seldom used more words than those essential for greetings and work.

I began work at eight o'clock, an hour earlier than the other members of the staff, and I also left an hour earlier. One morning I was called by Dr. Albareda, the general secretary of the CSIC. His own assistants were not due to arrive for at least an hour and he had an important and confidential letter to write immediately. When he started dictation I was very surprised that the letter was addressed to Monsignor Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer, the author of The Way.

Absorbed in my own thoughts I went back to my office. By then, my two co-workers were there, and they started pulling my leg with typical Iberian irony and asked me if I had been promoted.


I was appalled at the news that the author of The Way, a book read by many young people at that time, was the Founder of such a dubious group as Opus Dei and that the CSIC, the main Spanish center for research, was a platform utilized by Opus Dei. And since I had such a positive opinion of Dr. Panikkar, I was angry to learn that he was an Opus Dei priest.

The possibility of talking directly with Dr. Panikkar regarding Opus Dei and its control of the CSIC was little less than utopian...

An opportunity presented itself, however, when Dr. Panikkar asked me to work the following Saturday, since he had a backlog of correspondence that had to be answered. After three hours of dealing with his correspondence, Dr. Panikkar suddenly said: "May I ask you why you work here?"

Astonished at the question, I said that I was planning to get married the following year and hoped to make my fiancé's absence more bearable by working at something that interested me.

Dr. Panikkar made no comment, and we resumed our work. When we finished at lunch time, and I was locking the doors, he started another conversation, this time about Barcelona, where he had been recently.


"I am not asking you to make your retreat under my guidance," Dr. Panikkar continued calmly. "What I meant was that you can have a week off at that time."

There was an embarrassed silence on my part. I did not know whether I should apologize because of my reply or how to pursue the conversation.

Finally Dr. Panikkar broke the silence with the question:

...when I came to work the following Monday, Father Panikkar greeted me affably, saying he was ready to resume our discussion.

I recounted all the things I had heard about Opus Dei: that it was a "freemasonry" [1] because of its mysterious way of doing things such as not disclosing the identity of its members... That Opus Dei plotted to "capture" chairs at the university, hoping to preserve them for members and were ruthless about getting rid of anyone who was in their way...

Father Panikkar heard me out without betraying any emotion, [2] but his reply, when it came, was forceful:


Somehow, the assurance with which Father Panikkar spoke [2] was more convincing to me than the accusations I had just made.




PLEASE NOTE: The formatting and the highlighting utilizing Italics Print, and CAPITAL LETTERS was done to call to the attention of the reader to Opus Dei traits about which we have been writing for some years now.


SECOND CANONICAL ADMONITION

[Carmen speaking] Toward the middle of May of that year, the earth seemed to shake beneath my feet. I was summoned on the run, as always, to the sessions chamber of the central advisory. Monsignor Escriva was seated at the head of the table, with Father Francisco Vives and Father Javier Echevarria on his left, Don Alvaro del Portillo was absent. At Father's right were the central directress, Mercedes Morado, and Marlies Kucking, in her new capacity as secretary of the central advisory. I was told to sit between Mercedes Morado and Marlies Kucking.

Shouting, puffing and beside himself, Monsignor Escriva said, "Look, Carmen, this has to end. You are not going to laugh up your sleeve at us."

Complaining that she had opened up a post office box to receive mail from the outside, Escriva said:


Speaking to Gladys, Escriva screamed, "Do you take letters to the post office for her, for this wicked woman? Do you comprehend the gravity of what you have done…Answer, ANSWER."

…Gladys said, "Yes, Father."

Monsignor Escriva breathed deeply before going on. "You will no longer work for the central advisory. You will not set foot upstairs on the advisory office floor. Let them find you some other job in the house. And now, go to your room and don’t leave it for any reason? Do you hear? For any reason!"

When Gladys left the sessions chamber, Monsignor Escriva told the central directress and Marlies Kucking, in the presence of the priests already mentioned, "After this, take that one," he said, referring to Gladys, "lift up her skirt, take down her panties, and whack her on the behind until she talks. MAKE HER TALK."

Addressing me, Monsignor Escriva shouted, "I give you the second admonition, hypocrite. You write me a letter on my saint's day, telling me you want to begin again, and this is what you do to me! Tell these people everything, everything. You're a bad piece of work. I warn you that I'm waiting for some affidavits from Venezuela, and you will find out what's trouble. You're a wicked woman, sleazy, scum. That's what you are!"

THIRD CANONICAL ADMONITION

…He (Escriva) went on: "And don’t return to Venezuela! Don’t even think of writing to anybody there. Because if you even think of going to Venezuela, I will assume the responsibility of telling the Cardinal what you are. And it would dishonor you!" Pacing the room, he continued, shouting at me: "I was thinking all night about whether to tell you this or not, but I believe it is better that I should tell you." Looking directly at me with a dreadful rage, moving his arms toward me as if he was going to hit me, he added at the top of his voice,…


…he turned around to shout a final insult. "Hear me well! WHORE, SOW…" While Monsignor Escriva shouted his insults, I had only two thoughts: One, that Christ remained silent in the face of accusations; the other, that God had liberated me…

Are these the words of a "saint?" 

Maria del Carmen was not permitted to give testimony in opposition to the beatification of Msgr. Escriva.


Final COMMENTS by The M+G+R Foundation:

Indeed, we must all ask ourselves - Are these the words of a "saint?" A "saint" adored by power seekers in the U.S. and Worldwide? The World should consider itself amply warned about the Opus Dei and keep very much in mind the Words of The Only Way, Jesus Christ:



Note Added on April 19, 2003: A kind reader notified us that Beyond the Threshold, A Life in Opus Dei, is now available, in English, from Amazon.com and also from their Canadian, UK, German, and French branches. Because of the hidden power of the Opus Dei we encourage the reader to acquire Mrs. Tapia's book before it becomes mysteriously out of print in the English speaking countries, as it happened in Spain. Detailed information on the Publisher may be found at the end of this document.


NOTE Added on October  6, 2005:  On October 2002, the The Catholic Weekly (Sydney, Australia), published what they claimed were statements made by Maria del Carmen Tapia, in essence, denying everything that she had written in her book, published under her authority in both English and Spanish, about Escrivá and Opus Dei.

Statements such as "she supports the canonisation of Opus Dei's founder and has never doubted the group's 'divine origin'" and  "To me, a saint is the person who fulfills and carries out God's will to the end of his or her life," she said. "And faith was, in my opinion, the most relevant feature in the life of Mons. Escriva - his unshakable confidence in God."

We thank and Praise God for placing these gems of disinformation in our hands; as we have said many times, even satan has to serve God! Of course, for those who do not have eyes to see and ears to hear, Ms. Tapia alleged retraction will be a vindication for what they want to believe. This in turn, using the same reasoning that Jesus used when explaining to His disciples why He spoke if parables [Matthew 13: 9-17], will prevent them form conversion since they do not belong to the Father.

Of course, those who indeed have eyes to see and ears to hear, will immediately see through the disinformation sham and, even if they were temporarily misled by the false piety of Opus Dei, return to the true Way, Jesus Christ and His Gospel, and not the falsified "Way" published by Jose María Escrivá.

 For those who are having difficulty in believing what Ms. Tapia reported and wish to ascribe it to the "ranting of a hysterical woman", there are volumes of supporting and enhancing her revelations from individuals and clergy of greater stature than Ms. Tapia. Just take a look at this brief Index.


(C) 1997 Maria del Carmen Tapia. All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-8264-0937-7


NOTES                                                 
[1] Ecclesiastical Masonry Who may they be?
[2] On Brainwashing Techniques and Opus Dei

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