When I received the invitation from Opus Dei's communications
director to attend a meeting with Prelate Bishop Javier
Echevarria, who was visiting from Rome, my first thought was:
"Uh oh, they're trying to recruit me." Even though I
knew this lay organization was nothing like the sinister sect
depicted in Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code," I had
convinced myself that the prelature was too heavy-duty religious
for an imperfect Catholic like me.
The meeting turned out to be a jam-packed gathering of more than
3,700 faithful at the Hammerstein Ballroom. No tickets were
needed, no collection was taken.
The crowd was a melting pot with representatives of every
continent and every age group, including those in strollers and
wheelchairs. The relative lack of clergy was not surprising, as
Opus Dei is a lay organization. These were just ordinary people
gathering, like at a family get-together, which is what it turned
out to be.
People just call him "Father," and the man who worked
with a saint for 22 years came on the stage to greet what he
calls his children. There was no singing, no choir - just chit
chat that began with Father explaining that Opus Dei was founded
by St. Josemaria Escriva, who was canonized by John Paul II in
2002, to teach us how to seek God wherever we are - in our jobs,
in our family, with our friends.
That's essentially the message of Opus Dei - including God in
every phase of our lives, no matter where we are, and inviting
Him to share our daily existence. How many of us take time to do
that? After this brief explanation, the Father took questions
from the audience, made a few jokes, and that was it. There were
no ushers signing up potential members. It was all quite lovely.
I'm sure that as we exited the ballroom on 34th Street the
passersby wondered who we were. All of us were Catholics, coming
peaceably from a sweet yet spiritual hour.
The pope is our spiritual leader and the vicar of Jesus Christ,
who founded our religion, so it was very alarming to see the next
day news that Muslim leaders were demanding an apology for
remarks he made at a conference in Germany. The newspapers
carried pictures of Muslim mobs, their faces contorted in anger.
Other photographs in the press and on the Internet and television
showed angry Muslims burning an effigy of the pope and waving
sticks and posters with English-language condemnations of the
pope's remarks. Five churches were attacked by Palestinians. So
what exactly did Pope Benedict XVI say?
In a speech calling for dialogue with other religions, the pope
on Tuesday repeated criticism of Mohammad by a 14th century
Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the
prophet brought was evil - "such as his command to spread by
the sword the faith he preached." The Pope was explaining
that the early Muslims were spreading their religion through
violence, which is what prompted the emperor's remarks. Somehow,
his message was taken out of context, and we have to start asking
why.
We constantly have Muslim leaders insisting that Islam is a
religion of peace, yet all we see are demonstrations that refute
that claim. To non-Muslims around the world, that peaceful
epithet is a lie. We can log most all of the terrorist activity
around the world and trace it to Islamic jihadists, so why should
we pay any attention to Muslims insisting that we have their
religion wrong? Who's at fault here? Is it the na·e
journalists who publicize these jihadists threats and hatred, or
is it that this small faction of Islam has cowed the moderate
Muslims and hijacked what really is a religion of peace for its
own vision of world dominance?
I know what peace looks like. I've been in a synagogue with
thousands of people warmly greeting one another in love and
reverence for God; I've been in a Mormon temple where serenity
and a meditative calm reigns; likewise, Buddhist temples exude
the same aura of peace and tranquility; Christian churches of all
denominations range in opulence from the bare to the ornate and
yet remain houses of worship to a loving God. If any of them
preached the overthrow of our nation, it would be goodbye tax
exemption!
Meanwhile, not only do we tolerate hate speech from extremist
imams, we bend over backwards to avoid offending them. While
angry Muslims around the world work themselves into a murderous
frenzy and give credence to the emperor's words, defenders of the
religion of peace and liberal editors demand that the pope
apologize for asking for dialogue.
The world has indeed gone mad.