Originally published at crisis magazine
One comes away from reading Gareth Gore’s new book, snidely titled Opus, in need of a shower. And not because of the supposed revelations in the book, but rather because of the malevolence that Gore ladles out on every page. Equal dollops of malevolence and duplicity.
First, consider duplicity. The touchstone of most of the book, alongside Gore’s intense dislike of St. Josemaria Escriva, is how a cabal of Opus Dei members called—get this—the Syndicate took over and stole hundreds of millions from one of the largest banks in Spain in order to feather the bed of St. Josemaria Escriva and fund Escriva’s master plan to take over the Church and the world. This led to the eventual collapse of Banco Popular. Gore never explains why a supposedly greedy St. Josemaria and his secret cabal would want to kill the golden goose.
Gore conducted dozens of interviews with family and friends of Banco Popular chief executive Luis Valls-Taberner, a member of Opus Dei. After spending hundreds of pages trashing Valls-Taberner, the always oily Gore actually thanks the family members for their cooperation. He “sincerely hopes they don’t read the book as a condemnation of Luis.” One wonders if the family would
