How Chinese is Opus Dei?

The work of God, or the Communist Party of China?

I used to read a lot about Japanese art. The principle of wabi-sabi is one more people ought to think about: it’s an acceptance of imperfection and even strangeness, as itself being beautiful. If you look at works to which kintsugi has been applied, you see spiderwebs of gold all over what were once cracked vessels. The patterns are uneven, but you see things in them.

There are lessons for the world of religion, and life in general, in this. Whatever your feelings about Donald Trump are, I don’t really care. There is just one point I want to impress upon you. It was clear to me that he was going to be president when he walked out on the debate stage before the 2016 election. It is true that he dominated the stage, but at the end of the day this is not a question of domination.

The difference between Donald Trump and everyone else in the upper ranks of the Republican Party is that he is free, in a way that all the other ones are not. You can see it in the way he talks, and in the way he acts. He is not a perfect man. He may not even be a good one. But he is a free man. That appeals to people, it’s very powerful. The old Republican point of view, very New England, was that God created the Republican Party to make men free. If not even its leaders are free, what good is it?

There is a profound truth in the idea that we spent five decades fighting the Soviets only to import its drab, lifeless, and coercive style here. Too many Republicans know nothing of wabi-sabi. There is an almost-pagan spirit to which we have recourse in times like this: the old, weird America is not gone, it is alive. You may catch it from time to time out of the corner of your eye. What it teaches us is the surest guarantor against communism is not a large army, nor the best technology, nor the smartest people, but the mystical hobo, the fish fry, and the ghost story. This is the very reason we are not communists.

We’re going to talk about Catholic matters in this post, but I’ll start with a Jewish example of a similar issue—as our elder brothers in faith—and how it ought to be thought about.

In the Trump years Chabad became a player in national politics in a way it never had before. This is not inherently bad. Giving religious people a seat at the table in an increasingly secular age is a very complex negotiation, but it’s something that needs to happen.

I should also say that I’m very impressed by the Chabad people I’ve met. Their religion places heavy demands on their lives, but they wear it with such joy. There is something profound and beautiful in that, and I respect it deeply. I sure couldn’t do it. I’m so sick of these neocons, I’m glad the real Jews are here. I’ve heard a joke from these Orthodox guys, “what do you call a reform Jew?” “A Christian.” That’s very funny.

In the Trump administration, the clemency program appears to have been a joint venture between Chabad and the Koch network under Jared Kushner. Some of those pardons were deserved, others were more problematic. The commutation of Eliyahu Weinstein’s sentence is one to look at. Most of the victims of Weinstein’s fraud were Orthodox Jews from New Jersey, and if you look closely, it might have been a mob pardon.

Am I a little upset to see guys like that—or various other political crooks—get clemency but not Donny Reynolds? Yeah, a bit.

There’s also the more complicated question of whether Chabad is a vector of Russian influence. They are certainly fairly close to Vladimir Putin. It is true that you can find examples of Chabad houses serving as fronts for espionage or drug trafficking. Does this mean it’s a criminal organization? No. If it were done right, the front men wouldn’t know about it. The smart ones in the movement know this is a problem.

That’s how to think about that, now let’s move on to Opus Dei. I’ve been to St. Josemaria’s parish church, and I can’t think of anything he’d want more than to scrutinize his order’s ties to a godless communist power.

We just covered how Leonard Leo, the most powerful lay Catholic in Washington, is sitting on $1.6 billion in partly-Chinese money. A lot of conservatives are failing to do the right thing because they want a piece of it. If the movement can’t show principle here, frankly I’d sooner see the money given to George Soros, or be burned on a pyre.

To lay my personal feelings on the table, I’m not too keen on Opus Dei for several reasons. While powerful people also need to hear the gospel, the way Opus Dei seems to seek them out strikes me as potentially corrupting. You read these stories from former members about depersonalization and psychological control, which are pretty similar to communist techniques. Even the way they pray is quite different from the way we do, in the English style.

If Chabad’s activities in Russia are cause for concern, so are Opus Dei’s activities in Macau and Hong Kong. The bishop of Macau is an Opus Dei numerary, and a lot of the Opus Dei-connected people in Washington seem awfully friendly to China. Bill Barr, who let Chinese drones into the Justice Department, while not a member, is very close to Opus Dei. So was Louis Freeh.

It looks like the Holy Father is making moves against Opus Dei, and has been for a couple of years. He is probably aware that the order is very connected to a large number of espionage scandals in the United States, like Robert Hanssen. The order paid out a settlement to protect former CIC director, Rev. John McCloskey, who was involved in the conversions of Newt Gingrich, Robert Novak and Larry Kudlow.

The thing about power is it exercises a form of magnetism over people’s minds and distorts their thought. In times of great crisis and transition, this can be dangerous.

I love the Church and the Catholic religion, but this is an Anglo political culture, and in an Anglo political culture, things are talked about openly. That is our way of life, and it must be preserved.

The Church will survive. The faith will survive. The Holy Father is with you. Deep America is with you. When you see corruption, stare it down. It will break. This is not complicated.