Opus Dei

Opus Dei is a Catholic order that recruits influential laypeople and promotes conservative, especially anti-Communist, values. In the novel, its reach extends beyond religious life: its members participate in political and covert networks, while its standing within the Church becomes a reason to contain revelations about those networks.

Founding and Mission

Founded in 1928 by the Spanish lawyer-turned-priest Josemaría Escrivá, Opus Dei emerged from his concern that the University of Madrid had become a center of left-wing radicalism. The order’s strategy was to identify talented, elite young conservatives moving into government, the press, and business, form them in traditional Catholic values, and send them into those fields to advance the Church’s work. Anti-Communism was central to that mission.

The account also places the order in Spain’s political history: it fought on the side of the fascists in the Spanish Civil War and spent the following three decades helping General Franco consolidate power. This background makes Opus Dei’s later involvement in anti-Communist activity part of a continuing institutional outlook, rather than an isolated response to events in the Americas.

Members and Covert Networks

Salvatore Scachi embodies the order’s overlap with military, intelligence, and criminal power. A Special Forces colonel, CIA asset, Knight of Malta, and Mafia member, he is also described as a committed Opus Dei member. His religious practices include attending Mass daily, confessing only to an Opus Dei priest, and making regular retreats at the order’s facilities.

Scachi’s anti-Communist record spans Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Golden Triangle, as well as operations in Mexico, Central America through Cerberus, and South America through Red Mist. The wider Red Mist network joins right-wing militias and their drug-lord sponsors with military officers, troops, intelligence services, and police forces. Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta work alongside these forces when necessary. The novel thus places the order within a broad political and operational alliance, not merely among private religious associations.

Church Conflict and Containment

Opus Dei’s politics also reflect a conflict within Catholicism. Conservative leadership in the Vatican opposes liberation theologians—often left-wing or Marxist priests and bishops working in the Third World—for influence over the Church. Juan Parada, characterized as a liberation theologian, threatens to expose operations in which Scachi has participated. Scachi consequently considers what to do with information Parada intends to pass to the Vatican, including evidence associated with Cerro that could implicate the Mexican government.

In a conversation with Scachi, Girolamo Antonucci argues that the Pope should not be burdened with the information. He points to the Pope’s support for Opus Dei, including the recent beatification of Escrivá, and warns that exposure could embarrass the order. Antonucci also fears that a scandal would damage negotiations to restore the Church’s full legal status in Mexico and strengthen the liberation theologians. These are Antonucci’s justifications for withholding the revelations; their political consequences show how institutional reputation and Church-state negotiations can become entangled with the effort to conceal covert actions.