Opus Dei

How does Franco’s reign in Spain connect to the rise of Trump? In this gripping true-crime thriller, financial journalist Gareth Gore, while investigating a bank collapse in Spain, follows the money trail to uncover a vast international conspiracy behind Opus Dei.

What is Opus Dei? It's a shadowy global right-wing organization founded in Spain just before the Spanish Civil War. Supported by powerful Republican figures like Leonard Leo, Opus Dei is a Christian nationalist movement fueling efforts to dismantle democracy and pave the way for dictatorship in America. Gore, the author of the explosive book Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church, delves into this insidious network. In this chilling conversation, recorded just before the U.S. election, Gore reveals how Opus Dei’s influence stretches from Capitol Hill to the Supreme Court—and what is being done, including by the Pope, to try to curb its destructive power.

This week's bonus show features a live interview with Dr. Emma Briant, one of the world’s foremost experts on disinformation warfare and propaganda. Dr. Briant, co-editor of The Routledge Handbook on the Influence Industry and author of Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global Change, shares invaluable insights into the weapons of global propaganda. 

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Transcript

Andrea Chalupa (00:00:11):

Welcome to Gas Litigation. I am your host, Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones, about Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine. The film the Kremlin doesn't want you to see. So be sure to watch it. America's fascist roots go deep and have links to Franco Dictatorship in Spain in a conversation recorded shortly before the election. This week's guest is journalist Gareth Gore, author of The Chilling Must Read book, Opus, the Cult of Dark Money Human Trafficking and Right Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church unraveling how this misogynistic cult Opus Dei is destroying American democracy from within. Important reminder to fight back against what you were about to hear, our Gaslin Nation salons for our Patreon community will be meeting through the holiday season and beyond. To join our salons, be sure to be a member of the Gaslin Nation Patreon at patreon.com/gaslit.

(00:01:13):

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(00:01:57):

What inspired you to write Opus and how did you first become aware of the connections between dark money, human trafficking and the Catholic church?

Gareth Gore (00:02:08):

So I never set out to write a book about Opus Dei. I completely fell into this by accident. So I'm a financial reporter by background, and basically what happened was a bank in Spain collapsed and I was sent to report on it, and so many strands of the story seemed to make no sense. And so I just decided to dig and to dig more. And as I dug more things made even less sense until one day I got a great lead from the former chairman of the bank who'd run this bank alongside his brother. The older brother was called Louis Veles. He was a member of Opus Dei and he'd been at the bank since the fifties. His younger brother, Javier, he joined the bank in the sixties and he was the complete kind of opposite of his brother. They were like chalk and cheese.

(00:02:57):

They were known inside the bankers Opus Dei and Opus Knight. So the older brother, he lived a life of celibacy kind of obedience to Opus Dei. He lived in this all male Opus Dei residence in Northern Madrid. And the younger brother, he was a party guy he loved was a Bon Vivo. He loved good food, good wine, went out to party schmoozed with clients. And so that's how they got these two nicknames. But they worked very well together. And so I met him in Madrid in 2019 and I just said, so much of this makes no sense. In particular, this one big shareholder that seems to have vanished like everyone else is still around, is willing to talk to me, but this one big shareholder, I just can't seem to contact them or talk to them. And he basically explained how this shareholder had been a front for Opus Dei.

(00:03:50):

And that was the start of this long kind of investigation that took me in many directions. And to answer your question about the links to human trafficking, at first I'd pieced together how money had been siphoned from the bank to finance Opus Dei initiatives all around the world. But at first they seemed relatively kosher, you might say, or maybe that's the wrong word for a Catholic organization, but you know what I mean. These were schools, youth initiatives, university residences. But then one day I was, my antenna were kind of perked up for anything to do with Opus Dei. And I saw something in the news about these women in Argentina who had filed this complaint with the Vatican alleging that Opus Dei had recruited them as kids and had enslaved them into this life of working 14 hour days for no pay. They weren't allowed to go into the street on their own.

(00:04:47):

This really horrendous story. At first it seemed to bear absolutely no relation to the story. I was investigating, the finance. But then one day in the archives I was shown this kind of unofficial part of the archive, all of these papers that had been found up in a mansion up in the hills around Madrid. And in there I found evidence of how money from the bank had been used to set up a school in Argentina where these girls were all recruited. And not only that, but there were dozens of other similar schools around the world in places like Nigeria and the Philippines. And so suddenly I kind of started to realize that the story was not just about the connections between this bank and this religious group, but something much bigger. I then kind of felt the need. I need to find out exactly what this religious group is and how this money's being used because it was quite evident to me by then that it wasn't just about schools and youth initiatives, there was something much darker going on.

Andrea Chalupa (00:05:49):

Obsolete. I mean, that's an understatement because we're just getting started here. So I want to ask you about the of Opus Dei. What can you tell us about Josemaría Escrivá?

Gareth Gore (00:06:03):

So he was a Catholic priest in Spain. He had just trained at the seminary and then he was interested in law. And so he asked for permission to relocate to Madrid, which he did. Well, he was going to do a PhD.

Andrea Chalupa (00:06:17):

And what period is this in Spain's history?

Gareth Gore (00:06:20):

This is the late 1920s. And then one day while he was on retreats, he had what he called a vision from God. Other people might call it an epiphany or whatever, but he had this moment, and afterwards he told everyone that he'd received this vision from God outlining the basis for a new organization that would help ordinary Catholics to basically live out their faith more seriously. So it is a way for everyday Catholics who were maybe interested in going a little bit deeper into their faith to be able to do that without the need to become priests or nuns. So the philosophy of Opus Dei and Opus Dei is Latin for "the work of God." So the founding philosophy was that these people, whether they be doctors or teachers or journalists or whatever they might be, they could serve God by simply striving for perfection in everything they did.

(00:07:15):

That was a way of offering up their daily life to God, whether they were cleaning the house or out at work or in their relationships with their friends or their kids. So it substantially began with a relatively quite laudable and quite benign philosophy, but things very quickly started to change. So for one, Escriva found it very difficult to recruit. People just kind of weren't interested, and I think he probably found that very frustrating. So he started to develop these techniques for basically collecting information on people and coercing them in some ways to join the group. And he also started to make the group much more political. So this was Spain by now we're in the early 1930s. Spain is a country deeply divided. It's on the verge of civil war. The workers are rising up demanding rights for themselves. They've ousted the monarchy, they're beginning to turn their backs on the church, which they associate with this really repressive regime that they've just overthrown.

(00:08:17):

And Escriva, this priest sees all of this happening around him and he's horrified that people are turning their backs on the church. And so he starts to remold Opus Dei into something completely different. So it maintains this kind of facade of all we want to do is help Catholics. But behind the facade, he's developing this new philosophy for a deeply political, deeply reactionary, deeply anti-modern militant group. And he talks about how his followers, yes, I say he talks about, he doesn't talk about this openly. We know this thanks to secret documents that have hidden within Opus Dei for almost a hundred years, and which were secreted out at the organization by former members and given to me whilst I was writing the book. So he began writing about how his followers were going to be part of this hidden militia that would infiltrate every part of society and especially the kind of the top of society, the worlds of politics and the judiciary education journalism business. And they would abuse their positions in society to basically carry out what Esriva called the orders of Christ would, of course would come through him.

Andrea Chalupa (00:09:31):

And this was all happening during dictator General Franco's regime.

Gareth Gore (00:09:36):

So this was just before the Civil War when he was developing these ideas. And when Civil War finally broke out, Opus Dei was tiny, they had about 20 members. But after the war, after Franco's victory, things really started to take off. So Opus Dei started to receive quite a bit of financial and operational help from the Franco regime. Escriva himself offered private retreats for the Gia as his palace. The conditions of this kind of brutal dictatorship were almost ideal for Opus Dei. So Franco was worried about the potential for young people and for students in particular to potentially kind of rise up and be some kind of opposition to the regime. So he was very keen on enlisting members of the church and particularly the clergy to watch out for these people. So he made a new law that anyone living on campus had to live at a student residence that was run by a religious organization.

(00:10:42):

And so basically day stepped up to the plate and said, Hey, we can do that. So what they did was in the early years at the Franco regime, they set up dozens of student residences all across Spain that were helping out the regime. But what they were also doing was creating these kind of closed environments where they could attract young men and monitor them and collect information on them and basically bombard them with this propaganda and push them into joining Opus Dei. In the forties, Opus Dei really started to take off. By the end of the forties, they already had a couple of thousand members from basically nothing at the end of the Civil War.

Andrea Chalupa (00:11:26):

What was fueling the spread?

Gareth Gore (00:11:28):

So I think a number of things. So Opus Dei was presenting itself because what we've got to remember, and I think this is probably going to be a theme throughout this conversation, there's

Andrea Chalupa (00:11:40):

One of many.

Gareth Gore (00:11:42):

1% presents itself as is different to what Opus Dei really is. So what Opus Dei was presenting itself as back then in the forties was something new. We're a new Catholic movement. We're going to be getting back to the basics. We're going to show you as Catholics how to really serve Gordon. And Spain was, even despite the upheaval of the thirties, Spain was still at its core, a very devout Catholic country. And there were a lot of young people who saw what was happening around them. They'd seen the war, they'd seen the repression that followed the war with Franco murdering tens of thousands of his opponents in peace time. And I guess they were, a lot of them were disillusioned and they were looking for, I guess something to fall back on. And Opus Dei became that thing to fall back on. For many people, a lot of people fell for this philosophy of we just want to serve God by doing our best.

(00:12:40):

I think for many people, seeing these horrors around them and seeing the corruption of the Franco regime belonging to this institution, this Opus Dei was a way of almost kind of returning to their core beliefs and being true to their core beliefs. But there was also this hidden underbelly as well. And we kind of touched on that slightly, the monitoring of students, the coercion, the cult-like tactics that the organization used to coerce young men and later young women into joining the movement. And also this kind of hidden agenda of they were recruiting among the student population, but the intention was that these people would be tomorrow's elite. So by recruiting people at the top universities, it was a way of ensuring that you had a finger in the pie when these people went on to get careers in government or in business or whatever. And it was a very successful way of doing things as well.

Andrea Chalupa (00:13:39):

Wow. And now it's a global enterprise as we'll get to. And the connection of being a tool for Franco's brutal dictatorship, that's not the end of their long, illustrious dramatic history. There's also the real life connection to the Vatican's banker, Roberto Calvi, who was found hanging from a bridge in London and that mysterious murder, including the sudden death of a new Pope, and then the rushed appointment of John Paul II as the first non Italian Pope in many centuries, a whole series of intrigue that happened around the Vatican in the 1980s that would go on to inspire the film, the Godfather Three. Could you speak a little bit about the connection of Opus Dei with those events?

Gareth Gore (00:14:30):

Sure. So I mean, thanks to its connections to the Franco regime, the organization did extremely well in Spain and started to expand well the countries, but it was viewed with suspicion in many of those countries. And it was actually viewed with suspicion by the Vatican for a long period of time as well. In the sixties in particular, there were two, so Pope John the 23rd and Pope Paul the sixth, who very much viewed Opus Dei with suspicion, the founder was adamant that the Vatican wasn't giving Opus Dei the kind of status it deserved. He lobbied those two popes to give it a higher status, and they basically said no. And actually for a while, Paul, the VI even considered launching a big investigation into Office Day amid all kinds of accusations of abuse and spying within the Vatican as well. But things really changed. In 1978, pule Paul, the Thei dies.

Andrea Chalupa (00:15:28):

So the Pope that wanted to investigate Opus Dei, he dies suddenly unexpectedly.

Gareth Gore (00:15:33):

Well, no, he's an old man. The pope that dies unexpectedly is John Paul I, so he's elected in, I think it's August of 78, and 30 days later, he's found dead in his bed, and all of the cardinals have to come back to Rome to vote again on a new Pope. And they're in shock, this guy that they've chosen just a month earlier, supposedly with kind of help from God himself for him to die. So suddenly they're in confusion. What's God trying to tell us? And the conclave is completely divided. They have to do seven rounds of voting before they settle on this compromised candidate who's a real outsider, this Polish archbishop called Tiva, John Paul ii, as he's better known by most people. Now, this completely transforms the prospects of Opus Dei. Up until that point, it's been facing hostile Vatican and hasn't been given the change in status that itself craves.

(00:16:35):

But John Paul II has a long and storied history with Opus Dei. They have been grooming him since the sixties. They've been throwing money at him, promoting his writings, publishing his books, posting him whenever he comes to wrong. And so one of the first things that John Paul II does after he's elected Pope, is he invites the leader of Opus Dei into him. And his first words are, this isn't a paper audience, this is a family meeting. And almost immediately he kicks off the process to give Opus Dei this new higher status. And within three, four years, it's all confirmed. Opus Dei is given a special status that no organization before or since has ever been given in the 2000 year history of the Catholic Church. He makes Opus Dei into what's called a personal re. And what that does is that it gives Opus Dei a green light to operate wherever it wants in the world, completely outside of the normal church hierarchy. So it can operate in Japan, Australia, Kenya, the us, without having to report to the local bishop or Archbishop in whatever kind of diocese it's operating in. It can do whatever it wants. It reports only to the pulp. And that's the start of something really big for Alpa Day.

Andrea Chalupa (00:18:02):

And this is all happening against the backdrop of a major Vatican Bank scandal of widespread fraud being exposed at the Vatican Bank, including connections to the American Catholic Church as well as the Catholic Church being seen as a movement against atheist, communists, the evil empire of the Soviet Union. That's also the significance of having Pope John Paul II coming from a communist occupied country of Poland where he was allowed to be active under the communist regime for many years. So his elevation was really seen as a way to challenge the atheist empire of the Soviet Union. So the Cold War was a through line in all of this as well. And so fascinating stuff. I just wanted to give our listeners just a larger place and time.

Gareth Gore (00:18:53):

And that gets to the question of why did John Paul II Grant Opus Dei this special status? And one is his kind of deep running relationship with Opus Dei prior to becoming pulp. But the two things that you touched on there are also critical, right? So there's this huge scandal at the Vatican. The Vatican Bank is discovered to have been engaged in this kind of huge money laundering operation with all of these kind of shell companies in places like Panama and ura and the Italian banking authorities discover what's going on, and they expose this enormous hole of missing funds. And so the Vatican is facing huge embarrassment, potential bankruptcy, and they need to find cash to fill this hole. And so the guy, Roberto Calvi, who is charged with filling this hole, he, according to what he tells his wife and his kids, he is tasked with, well, he's basically told that Opus Dei is going to step in and help out.

(00:19:55):

Whether this is true or not has never been proven. But anyway, this guy tells his wife that opposite is going to step in. But what they're demanding is far greater powers not just in the Vatican, but around the world within church, around the world. Within days of him saying this to his wife, he's found hanging under Black fries bridge in London with kind of bricks and money stuffed into his pockets. The police initially said it's suicide, but then they reopen the investigation and they decide that his death was, it's a mystery. And to this day remains inconclusive.

Andrea Chalupa (00:20:32):

It was Opus Dei. Go on,

Gareth Gore (00:20:35):

Do not know. But yeah, I mean certainly in the weeks following, there were a number of people close to Calv, the banker who was found dead, who alleged that there was some kind of Opus Dei involvement in all this. We don't know, but certainly that name has been thrown around ever since. So that's happening. The Vatican's desperate to, it needs bailing out effectively, the Vatican. And there's talk that Opus Dei is willing to step in and do that. But also, I mean, what you say, you have this ideological battle as well, and it's not just the free world versus the communist world. Within the free world, there's a huge divide division of opinion as well. These are the early ERs that sharers in power here in the uk. It's real conservatives against more kind of liberal progressive schools of thought. And the church itself also feels this division. So in the US you've got all of these bishops, all of these Catholic bishops who are really outspoken about Reagan's policies in places like Latin America where you having countries like Honduras and Nicaragua, you've got left-leaning priests that are being targeted by these right wing militias

Andrea Chalupa (00:21:52):

Funded by and supported by the Reagan administration.

Gareth Gore (00:21:56):

Absolutely. And so the Catholic Bishops and the US are morally outraged about this, and they're rising up to defend their brothers in Latin America. But also this is a moral outrage. They want to make a moral stand against this. The Pope is quite supportive of Reagan, and he's actually, I guess in some ways he's unhappy about some of these left-leaning priests in central America and wants to stamp his papal authority on the church globally. And so in places like the us, the church is divided between left and right, and Opus Dei very much inserts itself into these kind of cracks. So it's just been given this new status from the Vatican. It's coming in to a church deeply divided. It's presenting itself as loyal to the Pope. And it's then that Opus Dei really starts to make huge inroads, especially in places like the US presenting itself to conservative Catholics as we are the true church. Don't listen to these lefty bishops who are going around complaining about President Reagan. We are loyal to the Pope. We're deeply anti-communist, just like Reagan, join us and we'll be the true church. And so yeah, it was a real kind of pivotal moment for Opus Dei, especially in the us.

Andrea Chalupa (00:23:20):

And then fast forward to the 1990s, and we have now the FBI traitor, Robert Hansen, he turns out is a member of Opus Dei. Could you speak about him, his history in regards to this movement?

Gareth Gore (00:23:44):

Well, actually this going on already in the late seventies and eighties.

Andrea Chalupa (00:23:47):

Yes, he gets caught in the nineties.

Gareth Gore (00:23:50):

No, he gets caught actually in the early two thousands. So it's yes.

Andrea Chalupa (00:23:53):

Oh, right. They took forever to find him. Thank you.

Gareth Gore (00:23:55):

Absolutely. But in 1981, so he and his wife are members of, I should say he died just last year, sorry, was it earlier this year maybe? But anyway, he died very recently, but he and his wife were members of Ops day, and in 81, he starts spying for the Russians. I guess we don't know for sure why. It was probably about money. I think there was a lot of pressure to live a certain lifestyle, and he had all these kids that were being sent to office, state schools and the rest of it. And so I think there was a lot of pressure on him to increase the family's finances. And so he starts spying for the Russians in 1981. His wife discovers him in the basement with a pile of cash, and he basically confesses to her. He says, okay, look, I've been doing this terrible thing.

(00:24:43):

I was approached by the Russians. They offered me all this money. I started giving them information, and I've got myself into this hole. I'm spying for them. So she then calls a very senior member of Opus Dei in the US and the two of them girls to meet this priest, this priest. And the priest initially says, yeah, it's pretty clear what you need to do. You need to hand yourself in. It's the right thing. You need to hand yourself into the authorities and face the consequences because this is terrible. So they go home, I guess Robert Hanson is planning the very next day to go hand himself in. He's going to have one last night for this family. The next morning, the Hansons receive a call from this day priest who presumably he lives in the Office Day headquarters in New Rochelle. It was at the time just outside of New York.

(00:25:30):

And the priest calls and he says, you know what? I've kind of come to a different conclusion. I think what's best is if you don't hand yourself in, what you need to do is just give all the money you've got to charity and just stop spying for the Russians. Now, his incentives are doing this. We don't know. This guy is no longer around. But at that moment, that's when Opus Dei was lobbying the Vatican for its highest status, and it was on the cusp of getting this new high status. The last thing it needed was a huge scandal in the US with this double agent who was spying for the Russians. The guy, the priest that's offering this information is extremely senior. I think it's highly likely that after having a conversation with the Hansons, he consulted other people in the headquarters about all he should do. So anyway, there's this big change of heart. Hanson goes on to spy for another 20 years. He's considered the biggest kind of lapse in US national security in history. Some of the information he provides directly leads to the murder of Russians who were spying for the Americans and countless other important pieces of national security information.

Andrea Chalupa (00:26:47):

Sort of like all those Russians that ended up dead when Trump became President elect, as Peter Str said, as FBI, agent Peter STR said under oath to Congress was him know it was somebody else, but follow the trail of dead Russians. Go on.

Gareth Gore (00:27:02):

And so Opus J gets to keep this story out. The news, there's no scandal, but the wider impact to US national security and to these people who lose their lives is there's a huge cost for Opus Dei being able to maintain its good character in the US at this critical time.

Andrea Chalupa (00:27:24):

Oh my gosh. So let's take it to present day. What is Opus Dei's role in helping establish a Catholic majority on the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade and so many other major landmark cases that have furthered progress in America?

Gareth Gore (00:27:46):

I mean, as we were saying a little while ago, right from the beginning, it's had this secret mission to infiltrate the upper echelons of society, and it's done that very successfully in the us. So right since the 1950s, it's really targeted its resources at Washington DC because if you want to influence policy, Washington DC is the place to do it. And the membership numbers are really quite telling as well. So obviously the US is not particularly big. There are only about 3000 members. These are the official numbers, whether we can believe them or not, I dunno. But officially speaking, there are 3000 members of Opus Dei in the us.

Andrea Chalupa (00:28:24):

And what are the odds that Robert Hansen is a member? That's pretty,

Gareth Gore (00:28:28):

Well, this goes right to my point. I mean, so you would expect as a Catholic organization that the main hubs of Opus Dei membership would be in Catholic cities like Boston or Chicago or New York? No, the largest Opus Dei community in the US is in Washington dc. 800 of the 3000 members are residents in the DC area. And that tells you all you need to know about oppa stay. It's targeted, its recruitment at the wider DC area, because that's how you affect change. And so for decades, it's been pushing its resources at recruiting in dc it's set up these schools. It's got these residences full of these celibate members that go out to recruit for the organization. As far back as the late eighties, it was hosting these, what they called VIP retreats at a center just outside of Washington and Supreme Court. Justice Antonin Scalia was a regular at these retreats.

(00:29:32):

And this is the late 1980s. Things really start to accelerate in the nineties and two thousands, thanks to this priest called Father c John McCloskey, who everyone knew us. They called him the convert maker for his ability to recruit, especially Republicans, but conservatives more generally, to Opus Dei and to Catholicism. Opus Dei these days, the main hub of Opus Dei in DC is this place called a Catholic Information Center, which is just a bookstore and chapel. But as we were saying earlier, Opus Dei is two things. There's one thing, the thing it presents to the world. The other thing is this kind of hidden mission to infiltrate the corridors of power. And for the past 15 years or so, this CIC, this Bookshop and Chapel has been a hub for radical conservatives in Washington. Its board reads like a who's who of the kind of radical Republicans, people like Leonard Leo, people like Bill Barr, pat Polone.

(00:30:36):

It's become a center where these figures congregate, and it's also a center where they go and they receive spiritual direction from the Opus Dei priest, Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, and the architect of Project 2025 is another regular at the CIC. So Opus Dei is very successfully inserted itself into the political judicial lobbyist circles in Washington. It's recruited heavily from those circles, and it now has huge amounts of influence within those circles. And to come back to what you were asking about Supreme Court sale, of course, Leonard Leo, who's a director at the CIC at the center in Central Washington, this guy is credited with almost singlehandedly, orchestrating the conservative stroke Catholic takeover of the US Supreme Court. And he's been helped along the way by a bunch of Opus Dei members. So there's this couple called Neil and Anne Ery, who were I guess the bag holders for Leo.

(00:31:45):

So they were running a number of nonprofits that channeled dark money raised by Leonard Leo, and funded the campaigns to push the candidacy of these ultra-conservative Catholic, Catholic leaning your Supreme Court justices. There's no implication here that Leonard Leo is acting on the orders of his Opus Dei handlers or some in the opposite leader in Rome. But what Opus Dei has done very successfully is create this network of like-minded radicals that are kind of, I guess, affiliated or loosely affiliated to the CIC in Central Washington. And it's become this hub for this reactionary agenda. And it's not just a kind of a spiritual movement or a political movement. There's huge amounts of money also sloshing around with all kinds of nonprofits helping to fund this agenda and push it forward.

Andrea Chalupa (00:32:45):

How are the nonprofits allowed to do that legally?

Gareth Gore (00:32:50):

Well, I mean, it all boils down to the change in law in, was it 2009, 2010 in the US that kind of allowed these funds to hide where the money was coming from. Jane Mayer writes about this extensively in her book, dark Money, the ruling from Supreme Court in, I think it was 2009, basically opened the door for these funds to collect money from anonymous sources. And

Andrea Chalupa (00:33:16):

Then, oh, citizens United.

Gareth Gore (00:33:17):

Exactly. Sorry, citizens United. Yes. So this kind of paved the way for all of this. This whole model has been something that's Opus Dei has used around the world for decades. Opus Dei has an enormous network or web of, we're speaking like hundreds and hundreds of different foundations that officially speaking are completely independent, have nothing at all to do with Opus Dei, but which in practice are, there's a completely symbiotic relationship between them and Opus Dei, and a number of them have been operating in the us, things like Prop eight that was pushed forward in California in the late two thousands, this anti same-sex marriage bill, much of that was funded by an Opus Dei Foundation. And there's various other initiatives over the years that have been used in the US is trying to shape Republican policy or push it according to the opposite agenda. So there's a whole network of these funds and what's happening now, and especially with this whole network of funds that are positioned around Leonard Leo, the use of dark money to push forward this agenda without any kind of accountability or transparency about it at all is deeply undemocratic and deeply untransparent.

Andrea Chalupa (00:34:38):

Tell us about the nearly 2 billion war chest that lettered Leo just secured.

Gareth Gore (00:34:44):

So for a number of years, Leo worked at the Federalist Society and he was very successful there. He helped to, I think in his words, he talked about creating a pipeline of conservative justices. So he would target these, I mean, it's very much like the LPs Day model. You would target these kids in college, you get them on board, you would help them to get their first foothold in their careers, and then you would kind of have this very rich relationship with them throughout their careers, and you'd help to develop them, develop their thinking, and develop them as professionals. That's very much the way that's Opus Dei operates with its network around the world as well. So whilst he was the Federalist Society, one of his peers was, I guess courting this industrialist, this guy called Barry Side to be a major donor to the Federalist Society.

(00:35:41):

Leo, in addition to his job at the Federalist Society, was also operating a number of kind of side hustles, including some of these Office Day members helping to push these Supreme Court justices onto the bench. And he at one stage decided that he was going to target Barry Side's wealth for his own initiatives and not for the Federalist Society. And this caused a huge rift within the Federalist Society. They were very unhappy that he was taking a donor that they themselves have been targeting for so long, and basically trying to shift him for his own personal initiatives. But he was successful. And three, four years ago, Barry Side effectively signed over his 1.6 billion of, well, he signed over his company, which was worth about 1.6 billion to a trust that Leo was put in charge of. And since then, Leo has diverted hundreds of millions of dollars of that money to fund various radical right wing initiatives, not just in the law, but in education, in public policy. He talks these days about wanting to crush liberal dominance in every field, whether it's academia or whether it's journalism or the entertainment industry, whether it's in terms of trying to address issues around the environment. He's using this war chest to fund this radical, reactionary, anti progressive, anti-modern agenda.

Andrea Chalupa (00:37:17):

What can be done to stop this or counter it? We need good billionaires if they exist.

Gareth Gore (00:37:25):

I do not know. I mean, and that's very much a question for the American people sitting on this side of the pond. British democracy is not without its faults, and there's money sloshing around I'm sure as well, but not even to nowhere near to the same extent as there is in the us. I find it deeply troubling that these huge pools of money are sloshing around and shaping the agenda, shaping what policies are considered in my eyes, the us. I'm trying to choose my words carefully. So not to be be

Andrea Chalupa (00:38:05):

You don't have to do that here

Gareth Gore (00:38:07):

Because I guess I feel it's kind of not my place to, I think it should be deeply troubling to the American people the way that democracy has become bought and warped by these huge pools of money. And it's not just the right that's doing this. Leon himself makes the point that there are huge pools of money on the left as well, which is true. And I think moving forward, US democracy as a whole needs to think about the role of money in decision making and in the way that policy is discussed and shaped because it seems like a very dangerous game to me.

Andrea Chalupa (00:38:46):

It certainly is. Look at where we are now. What about the evangelicals? They are a huge part of the Republican base. How do they interact with Opus Dei? Is it a turf war? Are they united in a coalition?

Gareth Gore (00:39:02):

I think Opus Dei over the years has shown its willingness to ally with certain other parts of the church and Christian groups more generally, but also even more widely Jewish groups too, where the interests are aligned. For instance, in the late two thousands when it was trying to push through Prop 8 in California, it actually teamed up with the Mormon church to do that and got huge amounts of funding to, they basically put in huge amounts of funding together to push forward this agenda. And I think more recently, Opus Dei and the Leon Network more widely has found common ground with I guess some of the more Zionist movements out there as well, because they, it's a way of teaming up to jointly hit back at the left. So it does pick its battles. Opus Dei sees itself as I guess the elite of the church.

(00:40:05):

It sees itself. So these are very convenient alliances for now, but they'll be dropped as soon as their interests aren't completely aligned because the founder of Opera Day talked about working towards the complete christianization of society. That's the kind of ultimate, that was the ultimate aim of Escriva. He never talked about this publicly, but this is thanks to these hidden documents that I got my hands on, we now know that this was his absolute agenda. And it's anything goes agenda as well. Yeah, mean there are occasional alliances, but the bottom line is Escriva, sorry, Escriva and Opus Dei there kind of out for themselves really.

Andrea Chalupa (00:40:47):

How does Opus Dei see the role of women?

Gareth Gore (00:40:51):

This comes back to this facade and this hidden reality. So Opus Dei likes to talk about how actually a small majority of its members, maybe 60% of its members are women. It'd like to talk about how men and women are equal within the movement. So they have these different classes of members, mainly numeries and supernumeraries, which are basically celibate members and the non celibates who live at home with their families. Men and women can aspire to be, I'm not sure aspire is maybe the right word, but men and women can be part of either those forms of membership, but when kind of rip down that facade behind it, there's very different, quite misogynistic dynamics going on. So the women's section within Opus Dei are invited to vote to discuss and to vote on all major decisions within the movement. But any decision they make is then passed on to the men for them to approve or to reject.

(00:41:58):

So Opus Dei like to say, whenever we make any major decisions or whenever we elect a new leader, the women are fully part of that decision. And on the face of it, they are. But in reality, the vote, the decision can be completely rejected by the men. The men are the ones that are in charge within the group. The women don't really get a look in. They get some kind of fast farcical vote, but it can be ignored if they want to. Also, Opus Dei is quite clear that a woman's role is at home as a mother. Many Opus Dei members, the non celibate members, are encouraged to have as many children as possible, which obviously can have a huge impact on a woman's career. And the expectation generally is that the woman will stay at home. Although that said, there are a number of prominent members of Opus Dei who have powerful jobs or whatever.

(00:42:54):

But for me, the critical thing in terms of demonstrating how misogynistic Opus Dei is the existence of this, there's a subclass of membership. These are the domestic servants that cook and clean in Opus Dei residences around the world. These are the people that basically serve food and clean the toilets of the elite members of these celibate members. And this subclass of membership is restricted to women only. So the founder himself decided that only women were in a position to do those jobs. And this is something that carries on absolutely today. So only women can be these things called numery servants or numery assistants. They could now call them. And this takes us back to what we were saying before about the human trafficking. So these women are recruited as girls, usually in impoverished countries around the world, in places like Argentina, Nigeria, the Philippines, under the kind of auspices of Opus Dei, members are sent out to local communities, to local villages, and they knock on the doors of families with young girls.

(00:43:58):

They, they're often accompanied by an Opus Dei priest. And they go and they tell these families, Hey, your girls around here. There are no prospects for them. The schools are terrible. There are no jobs. Tell you what, we run this amazing hospitality school back in the big city. Why don't you send your girls with us? We're talking here, girls 12, 13 years old. Why don't you send your girls back with us? We'll give them an education. We'll train them in the ways of hospitality, and they'll have a chance at a better life. And once these girls are taken hundreds of miles away from their families, they are indoctrinated, they're coerced, they're manipulated, they're pressured into joining Opus Dei as this subclass of membership, as these numery servants. And then once they've joined, they're shipped around the world to wherever they might be needed. It's a human trafficking ring effectively.

(00:44:53):

And just a few weeks back in Argentina, federal prosecutors filed an official complaint or an official accusation against Office Day for having engaged in human trafficking, for having engaged in the trafficking of young girls for decades. That's Argentina. And so we're about to have a big trial in Argentina where four very senior Opus Dei priests will be put on trial. But I know for a fact that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Similar schools were operating and are still operating in other parts of the world in Africa across Asia and Europe, across the Americas. And so I think this could well be the next big scandal in the church, but it's a very specific Opus Dei scandal, this kind of weird dynamic, this subclass of domestic servants who are, many of which are unpaid and work 14 hour days, can't go out onto the streets on their own. This is something that's very specific to Opus Dei. And yeah, I think the Argentina case could be the start of something much, much bigger.

Andrea Chalupa (00:45:59):

So the enslavement of girls and women, that also includes vulnerability to sexual violence. What connection is there to a sense of an elite pedophile criminal ring we often hear about in regards to Q Anon to Jeffrey Epstein's network? It seems like this would fit the bill for that. There must be some connection to that.

Gareth Gore (00:46:21):

Well, Opus Dei, like many other parts of the Catholic church, not just the Catholic church, but religious groups in general, and society more generally has had its fair share of sexual abuse scandals, including actually with Father C John McCloskey, who was this great priest who converted many of the great and the good of Washington DC in the nineties and the two thousands. He himself had to run off to England to escape charges of having molested one of his parishioners. But I think the sexual abuse scandals in Opus Dei have been kind of relatively few run far between. That said, the organization hasn't always dealt with them very well. On a number of occasions, it's tried to cover them up. In the case of C John McCloskey, it paid, it's the victim a million dollars to buy her silence. And we've had similar instances around the world where it's tried to cover up the abuse or tried to pay people off to prevent it from coming out.

(00:47:20):

But I think the major scandals within Opus Dei right now are not particularly sexual. It's more abuse and manipulation. It's about the recruitment of minors. It's about the targeting and grooming of children in order to join the group. It's about the abuse of the celibate members once they decide to become members. Every minute of their existence is highly monitored and controlled. They're under this acute pressure to recruit constantly. Some of them crumble under the pressure and they have acute mental illnesses. And Opus Dei prescribes them with this whole cocktail of drugs to kind of basically ensure that they can continue recruiting and proselytising for Opus Dei. There's no real attempt to cure them or to get to the bottom of the mental health issues. It's all about filling them up with drugs so that they can carry on working for the organization. So it's more about psychological and spiritual abuse rather than sexual, I think. I mean, there have been sexual abuse instances, but I think the systemic issues are more to do with psychological, emotional, and spiritual abuse.

Andrea Chalupa (00:48:37):

Are any members of Congress Opus Dei members?

Gareth Gore (00:48:40):

So a number of members of Congress have been linked to Opus Dei, certainly very close to Opus Dei. So we've had people like Sam Brownback and Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, these are all people who, Rick Santorum. He went to a big Opus Dei conference in Rome in the early two thousands where he gave this speech talking about how much he took inspiration from the founder of Opus Dei. But in the, the first Trump administration, there were also a number of people who were affiliated to Opus Dei. People like Mick Mulvaney who was the, and the budget czar for a while. And I think he was the chief of staff and the Trump as well. In the later years, you had people like Pat Cipollone who was the White House chief cancel. You had Bill Barr.

Andrea Chalupa (00:49:34):

The coverup king who covered up Iran Contra during Reagan and then the Mueller Report.

Gareth Gore (00:49:39):

Yeah, no, absolutely. So I think, and also, it's not just about Congress, it's about the wider Washington DC lobby groups and all of these political groups. So one of the most prominent members of the kind of Republican establishment these days is a guy called Kevin Roberts, who's a regular at the Opus Dei Center in Central Washington. He gets his spiritual direction from the priest there. And this is the guy that is the architect of Project 2025, he's taught about,

Andrea Chalupa (00:50:12):

And JD Vance wrote the forward to his book.

Gareth Gore (00:50:15):

Absolutely. So he's very close to JD Vance. The two of them have penned joint op-eds together, they've appeared jointly at various public events. As you say, JD Vance wrote the forward to Kevin Roberts book, which was due to come out in September, but which was pulled and delayed until after the election, possibly because it was not very politically convenient to have that book coming out right now. But there's, there's a video of Kevin Roberts at the CIC also talking about how he takes inspiration from the leader of Opus Dei. These are guys that have been weaned on this Opus Dei philosophy. And not only the connection isn't just that, so Kevin Roberts project 2025, now he's, I guess the brains behind it. He's the architect of the policies. He's brought a number of Opus Dei members and affiliates on board to write sections of Project 2025, but it's also being funded by Leonard Leo, who sits on the board of the Day center in Central Washington.

(00:51:25):

So you've got this whole kind of network of Opus Dei affiliates that are funding this deeply reactionary, anti progressive agenda. And to me, what's happening in the US right now is very similar to what was happening in Spain in the early 1930s. You have this deeply divided society. You have the progressives against the reactionaries, you have this culture war, and Opus Dei is in the center of all of it. It's fueling the culture wars. It's trying to expand its network to encompass as many reactionary players as possible. And I sincerely hope that the US manages to avoid what happened in Spain, which of course was civil war. But I sincerely hope that things are resolved. But a very, this is a real political and societal tinderbox. All it takes is one light, and it's a very dangerous situation, and it's a situation that has been fueled by ALPAs Day, and it presents itself as a Catholic organization, and it presents itself as loyal to the Pope.

(00:52:40):

But what it's doing in fueling the culture war and providing a platform to some of the more outspoken radical voices on the right is completely at odds with the kind of agenda that Pope Francis is trying to push. So after the last election in the us, Pope Francis issued a statement where he basically called for people to come together. He said, now is a time for reconciliation. Alpa State completely ignored that. And what it did was all allow itself even further with these radical voices instead of trying to bring people together, try to sow further division within US society.

Andrea Chalupa (00:53:19):

So speaking of that, what role did Opus Dei play, if any, with the attempted violent coup on January 6th?

Gareth Gore (00:53:28):

I don't believe Opus Dei played any kind of direct role in that. But what it did do is in the weeks afterwards, it provided a platform to a number of people who were, I guess, on the extreme end of some of the culture wars that we've seen, it almost tried to position itself to take advantage of this really horrendous moment in US history. And like I said before, it was almost trying to, in some ways, fan the flames of the culture war complete opposite to what Pope Francis himself had appealed for.

Andrea Chalupa (00:54:04):

Is there any pushback from Pope Francis' Vatican?

Gareth Gore (00:54:08):

Oh, absolutely. The Pope is well aware of the abuses and some of the more questionable practices that Opus Dei has been involved in over the years, both towards its own membership and also in terms of influencing society more widely through politics or whatever, and through the school network that it operates. And so the Pope for the past three years has been very delicately, very kind of gingerly, almost trying to clip the wings of Opus Dei. And so he's made two papal decrees, these things called multi proprio, the first effectively downgraded Opus Dei within the church hierarchy. So once again, so what he was doing was putting Ste under greater accountability. We were saying before that EY only reported to the Pope in the past. So he's inserted ese back into the normal hierarchy of the church. It now is answerable to the bigger hierarchy of the Vatican.

(00:55:16):

But that was a warning shot to Opus Dei. So he was basically telling them, you need to get yourselves. You need to put your house in order. If you don't, then I will. So after that first warning shot, they effectively completely ignored him. They tried to redraw their internal rules and they presented them to the Vatican, but the Pope said, no, you aren't really addressing the real problems here. So he gave them a second chance. He issued another multi-property. Oh, this time he laid the groundwork for a formal intervention if one were necessary. This was basically saying, if you don't sort yourselves out, I'm going to intervene here. And once again, Opus Dei has completely ignored that call. It has failed to push through the kinds of reforms that the Pope wants. And so we're now in this kind of weird standoff where we know the Pope wants much deeper, more fundamental reform in Opus Dei.

(00:56:08):

We know Opus Dei is resisting those calls for reform, but we're kind of in a holding pattern. I think what's very interesting is that the Pope, the most powerful man in the Catholic Church, feels unable to push through the kinds of reform that he thinks are necessary. And that tells you all you need to know about the power that Opus Dei has in the Vatican and the powerful allies that it has in places like the United States. I think the Pope is worried about opening up this huge schism within the church. He's worried about a potential going after Opus Dei could potentially backfire and create huge division within the church. And so he's trading very carefully, but there's no doubt about it. He's intent on forcing them to reform. But what we have now is with the standoff, Pope Francis is rapidly approaching 90. He's not in the best of health.

(00:57:01):

I think Opus Dei is almost playing for time. It's trying to run the clock down, hopeful that once Pope Francis passes, maybe the next Pope will be more conservative. And certainly a number of Opus Dei allies have been throwing money at trying to influence the next papal conclave to ensure that a more conservative pule is elected. If that happens, Opus Dei may well be able to continue as it has been doing for the last a hundred years without having to push through any major reforms. But if either Pope Francis lives long enough to push through the reforms, or if the next Pope is as progressive as this pope, then Opus Deis, days could be numbered.

Andrea Chalupa (00:57:46):

Let's hope so. And final question to you. During your time researching this book, were you ever threatened, how did you handle the sources, including the interviews? Were people afraid to come forward?

Gareth Gore (00:57:59):

I've never personally felt like I'm in danger. Maybe I'm naive, but I've been asked that question many times, including by, not just by journalists, but by people I've been interviewing. A number of people have been scared to speak out. They've asked to remain anonymous in the book. My acknowledgement section includes, I've had to take a number of people's names out, especially people in Spain, just because the influence of Opus Dei goes a very long way, especially in places like Spain. And people were fearful of not so much the security, but what it might mean for their professional career if they were associated with a book that was openly critical of Opus Dei. But no, I mean, I haven't felt threatened. I mean, since the book came out, I've received a huge amount of vitriol online from a number of people who profess themselves to be devout Christians, which I find odd. But yeah, I mean, it's been a real eye-opener. Something happening to me will be the worst possible outcome for Opus Dei because it would shine the lights even more greatly on them. So in some ways, I feel like the safest guy in London at the moment, but I'm not sure, maybe I'm names.

Andrea Chalupa (00:59:14):

Are they sending bot farms after you, or do you think they have bot farms?

Gareth Gore (00:59:18):

They have a type of bot farm, I guess, which is their membership. And so it's quite clear that they're very heavily leaned on their membership to post negative reviews about the book, to spew out the Opus Dei talking points about the book, about how it's all lies and it's all made up. And like that tells you all you need to know about Opus Dei instead of coming out and engaging with me directly to talk me through exactly what's wrong with the book. They're using the kind of affiliates to do it. They're hiding behind the membership to do this. So whatever. I mean, I'm absolutely confident that everything in the book has been thoroughly vetted by lawyers and editors, and we are confident that the book is accurate, and so they can throw us whatever they like. We know it's true.

Andrea Chalupa (01:00:14):

Well, they say if you're going to take a shot at the Illuminati, you better not miss. So thank you so much. This was a fascinating interview and everyone needs to read your chilling book, Opus.

Gareth Gore (01:00:28):

Thank you very much for having me.

Andrea Chalupa (01:00:37):

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(01:01:45):

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