CHAPTER 5
Murray Hill Place—the new Opus Dei World
Headquarters and conference center—is located
at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.
With a price tag of just over $47 million,
the 133,000-square-foot tower is clad in red
brick and Indiana limestone.
Designed by May & Pinska, the building contains
over one hundred bedrooms, six dining rooms,
libraries, living rooms, meeting
rooms, and offices.
The second, eighth, and sixteenth floors contain
chapels, ornamented with mill-work and marble.
The seventeenth floor is entirely residential.
Men enter the building through the main doors
on Lexington Avenue.
Women enter through a side street and are
"acoustically and visually separated" from
the men at all times within the building.
Earlier this evening, within the sanctuary
of his penthouse apartment, Bishop Manuel
Aringarosa had packed a small travel bag and
dressed in a traditional black cassock.
Normally, he would have wrapped a purple cincture
around his waist, but tonight he would be
traveling among the public, and he preferred
not to draw attention to his high office.
Only those with a keen eye would notice his
14-karat gold bishop's ring with purple amethyst,
large diamonds, and hand-tooled mitre-crozier
appliqué.
Throwing the travel bag over his shoulder,
he said a silent prayer and left his apartment,
descending to the lobby where his driver was
waiting to take him to the airport.
Now, sitting aboard a commercial airliner
bound for Rome, Aringarosa gazed out the window
at the dark Atlantic.
The sun had already set, but Aringarosa knew
his own star was on the rise.
Tonight the battle will be won, he thought,
amazed that only months ago he had felt powerless
against the hands that threatened to destroy
his empire.
As president-general of Opus Dei, Bishop Aringarosa
had spent the last decade of his life spreading
the message of "God's Work"—literally, Opus
Dei.
The congregation, founded in 1928 by the Spanish
priest Josemaría Escrivá, promoted a return
to conservative Catholic values and encouraged
its members to make sweeping sacrifices in
their own lives in order to do the Work of
God.
Opus Dei's traditionalist philosophy initially
had taken root in Spain before Franco's regime,
but with the 1934 publication of Josemaría
Escrivá's spiritual book The Way—999 points
of meditation for doing God's Work in one's
own life—Escrivá's message exploded across
the world.
Now, with over four million copies of The
Way in circulation in forty-two languages,
Opus Dei was a global force.
Its residence halls, teaching centers, and
even universities could be found in almost
every major metropolis on earth.
Opus Dei was the fastest-growing and most
financially secure Catholic organization in
the world.
Unfortunately, Aringarosa had learned, in
an age of religious cynicism, cults, and televangelists,
Opus Dei's escalating wealth and power was
a magnet for suspicion.
"Many call Opus Dei a brainwashing cult,"
reporters often challenged.
"Others call you an ultraconservative Christian
secret society.
Which are you?"
"Opus Dei is neither," the bishop would patiently
reply.
"We are a Catholic Church.
We are a congregation of Catholics who have
chosen as our priority to follow Catholic
doctrine as rigorously as we can in our own
daily lives."
"Does God's Work necessarily include vows
of chastity, tithing, and atonement for sins
through self-flagellation and the cilice?"
"You are describing only a small portion of
the Opus Dei population," Aringarosa said.
"There are many levels of involvement.
Thousands of Opus Dei members are married,
have families, and do God's Work in their
own communities.
Others choose lives of asceticism within our
cloistered residence halls.
These choices are personal, but everyone in
Opus Dei shares the goal of bettering the
world by doing the Work of God.
Surely this is an admirable quest."
Reason seldom worked, though.
The media always gravitated toward scandal,
and Opus Dei, like most large organizations,
had within its membership a few misguided
souls who cast a shadow over the entire group.
Two months ago, an Opus Dei group at a midwestern
university had been caught drugging new recruits
with mescaline in an effort to induce a euphoric
state that neophytes would perceive as a religious
experience.
Another university student had used his barbed
cilice belt more often than the recommended
two hours a day and had given himself a near
lethal infection.
In Boston not long ago, a disillusioned young
investment banker had signed over his entire
life savings to Opus Dei before attempting
suicide.
Misguided sheep, Aringarosa thought, his heart
going out to them.
Of course the ultimate embarrassment had been
the widely publicized trial of FBI spy Robert
Hanssen, who, in addition to being a prominent
member of Opus Dei, had turned out to be a
sexual deviant, his trial uncovering evidence
that he had rigged hidden video cameras in
his own bedroom so his friends could watch
him having sex with his wife.
"Hardly the pastime of a devout Catholic,"
the judge had noted.
Sadly, all of these events had helped spawn
the new watch group known as the Opus Dei
Awareness Network (ODAN).
The group's popular website—www.odan.org—relayed
frightening stories from former Opus Dei members
who warned of the dangers of joining.
The media was now referring to Opus Dei as
"God's Mafia" and "the Cult of Christ."
We fear what we do not understand, Aringarosa
thought, wondering if these critics had any
idea how many lives Opus Dei had enriched.
The group enjoyed the full endorsement and
blessing of the Vatican.
Opus Dei is a personal prelature of the Pope
himself.
Recently, however, Opus Dei had found itself
threatened by a force infinitely more powerful
than the media... an unexpected foe from which
Aringarosa could not possibly hide.
Five months ago, the kaleidoscope of power
had been shaken, and Aringarosa was still
reeling from the blow.
"They know not the war they have begun," Aringarosa
whispered to himself, staring out the plane's
window at the darkness of the ocean below.
For an instant, his eyes refocused, lingering
on the reflection of his awkward face—dark
and oblong, dominated by a flat, crooked nose
that had been shattered by a fist in Spain
when he was a young missionary.
The physical flaw barely registered now.
Aringarosa's was a world of the soul, not
of the flesh.
As the jet passed over the coast of Portugal,
the cell phone in Aringarosa's cassock began
vibrating in silent ring mode.
Despite airline regulations prohibiting the
use of cell phones during flights, Aringarosa
knew this was a call he could not miss.
Only one man possessed this number, the man
who had mailed Aringarosa the phone.
Excited, the bishop answered quietly.
"Yes?"
"Silas has located the keystone," the caller
said.
"It is in Paris.
Within the Church of Saint-Sulpice."
Bishop Aringarosa smiled.
"Then we are close."
"We can obtain it immediately.
But we need your influence."
"Of course.
Tell me what to do."
When Aringarosa switched off the phone, his
heart was pounding.
He gazed once again into the void of night,
feeling dwarfed by the events he had put into
motion.
Five hundred miles away, the albino named
Silas stood over a small basin of water and
dabbed the blood from his back, watching the
patterns of red spinning in the water.
Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean,
he prayed, quoting Psalms.
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Silas was feeling an aroused anticipation
that he had not felt since his previous life.
It both surprised and electrified him.
For the last decade, he had been following
The Way, cleansing himself of sins... rebuilding
his life... erasing the violence in his past.
Tonight, however, it had all come rushing
back.
The hatred he had fought so hard to bury had
been summoned.
He had been startled how quickly his past
had resurfaced.
And with it, of course, had come his skills.
Rusty but serviceable.
Jesus' message is one of peace... of nonviolence...
of love.
This was the message Silas had been taught
from the beginning, and the message he held
in his heart.
And yet this was the message the enemies of
Christ now threatened to destroy.
Those who threaten God with force will be
met with force.
Immovable and steadfast.
For two millennia, Christian soldiers had
defended their faith against those who tried
to displace it.
Tonight, Silas had been called to battle.
Drying his wounds, he donned his ankle-length,
hooded robe.
It was plain, made of dark wool, accentuating
the whiteness of his skin and hair.
Tightening the rope-tie around his waist,
he raised the hood over his head and allowed
his red eyes to admire his reflection in the
mirror.
The wheels are in motion.
