Word: opus
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Under Del Portillo, Escrivá's closest collaborator, every Opus action still conforms to "the founder's" intentions...
...other momentous mark of papal favor occurred in 1982, when John Paul granted Opus a new status known as personal prelature. The prelature, a position achieved by no other church group, gives Opus autonomy as a worldwide, nonterritorial jurisdiction with its priests and laity subject to Opus' prelate...
Such unique status is appropriate, for there is nothing in Catholicism quite like Opus Dei. Its membership includes both men and women, though in separated branches. It includes priests, but more significant, it makes demands of its laity more often associated with priests and nuns. Yet it is not a religious order, since its lay members hold secular jobs. It is both highly centralized and decentralized: men's and women's General Councils in Rome, appointed by Del Portillo, set policy and assign national directors, but chapters in each nation plan and finance their own operations...
There are three categories within Opus Dei. The leaders are the university-educated "numeraries," about 30% of the total membership, who make commitments to lifelong celibacy and obedience, turn over their secular incomes, live in communities and take all the course work needed to be priests, although few are ordained. "Associates" (20%) are celibate but do not live in communities or do advanced theological study. "Supernumeraries" (50%) are not celibate and follow modified commitments. Each category contains roughly equal numbers of men and women. There are also 700,000 "cooperators," like 1972 Vice-Presidential Nominee Sargent Shriver...
...Opus vision is immensely attractive to traditionalist Catholics with a strong sense of the church's mission. One well-known supernumerary is Russell Shaw, 49, public-affairs secretary of the U.S. Catholic Conference. After his son went to an Opus camp, Shaw decided to attend retreats with a friend. "What I like about the organization is its seriousness," says Shaw. "If you're not committed 100%, you're in the wrong outfit." Numerary Joseph Billmeier, who directs the Opus center in Milwaukee, says that Opus kept him on "an even keel" during his New York stockbroker days...