Local members of the Catholic institution for lay people and priests say their group is different from the sinister organization depicted in The Da Vinci Code.

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 14, 2006

BY RICHARD C. DUJARDIN
Journal Religion Writer

Charles Kineke recalls the first time he went on a retreat with Opus Dei.

The Annapolis graduate and former F-14 fighter pilot had attended some evening meetings sponsored by the group -- whose name means "Work of God" -- when a friend asked him if he'd like to go on a four-day mostly "silent" retreat at Opus Dei's Arnold Hall in a Boston suburb.

It turned out to be a great experience, he says. People prayed and listened to a Catholic priest talk about how to practice virtue and bring one's faith into daily life. But after two days, the friend who invited Kineke on the retreat, told him, "I'm exhausted from all these prayers. Let's go out and get a beer."

So they did just that, as the retreat continued..

Not bad, not bad at all, thought Kineke, who had first learned about Opus Dei from a "friend of a friend" in his wife's home schooling network.

The retreat mirrored the meetings, known as "evenings of recollection," that he had attended over several months at St. Sebastian Church in Providence . There too, under the auspices of Opus Dei, men would come together to pray, meditate and listen to an Opus Dei priest or layman talk about an aspect of the faith before heading downtown to sing and drink beer at an Irish pub.

"I said to myself, 'this Opus Dei stuff is great. You pray some, you drink beer, sing songs and hang out with the guys. And my wife thinks it's good because I'm going out to pray, which is what she wants me to do. It doesn't get better than this.' "

Kineke acknowledges that his experience is quite different from the image of Opus Dei presented by critics whose accusations have been given new life these last few years by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. The novel, whose film version is set to open this Friday, portrays the group as a dark and sinister organization whose members flagellate themselves and will stop at nothing, not even murder, to carry out their agenda.

Most critics don't go that far, but some liberal Catholics argue that Opus Dei -- founded in 1928 by Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, a Spanish priest who was canonized four years ago by Pope John Paul II -- is an elitist organization that denigrates women. They suggest that the group's emphasis on achieving holiness through prayer and discipline could lead to religious extremism.

As with other Opus Dei members, Kineke thinks the charges about the group, which they refer to as "the Work" are off base.

'You hear stories about people being pressured to join the Work. When I tried to join, it was the direct opposite."

Kineke, a senior vice president at Citizens Bank, said he was so impressed with what he had seen on the retreat and days of recollection that he approached Robert Sylvain, who directs Opus Dei's Mathewson House on Providence's East Side, to say he wanted to join.

"He told me, not so fast, that I couldn't just join, because Opus Dei is a calling. I had to come in for a chat every week or so for four months before I was even invited. Even then, I had to go through a catechism of the faith and 18 months of (spiritual) formation. It was great for me because even though I was born and raised Catholic there was a lot of stuff I didn't know."

WITH 85,000 members worldwide, and about 3,000 in the United States, Opus Dei describes itself as an international lay Catholic group whose main focus is the sanctification of people's ordinary lives, including their work. Members say Father Escriva's great insight was that being a saint is not the province of a few, but the universal destiny of every Christian. The priest taught that holiness can be lived out in one's everyday life.

Toward that end, its members -- both married and unmarried -- commit themselves to a "plan of life," a daily regimen that includes a morning offering, a half hour of prayer, recitation of the Rosary, an examination of conscience and attendance at Mass, as well as frequent confession -- as a step toward holiness and bringing God into their homes and workplaces.

Its U.S. headquarters, once housed on a side street in New Rochelle, N.Y., is now in a 17-story building in midtown Manhattan at Lexington Avenue and 34th Street that Opus Dei built in 2001.

There are two categories of members, numeraries and supernumeraries. Numeraries, about one-third of the membership, are unmarried men and women who live in an Opus Dei center and provide counseling and spiritual direction to other members.

Supernumeraries, married men and women who live in their own homes while carrying out the same basic "plan of life", constitute the other two-thirds.

All Opus Dei members are expected to provide financial support to the organization.

Numeraries are expected to give all their disposable income, after allowing for food, rent, insurance, transportation and retirement, to the Work.

Supernumeraries are encouraged to give an amount equal to what they believe it costs to raise a child.

There are some 30 Opus members in Rhode Island, equally divided between men and women.

Mathewson House in an elegant Victorian house, is one of only three men's centers in New England. It is not only the residence for the four male numeraries but also serves as the central meeting place for the other "supernumerary" men-- who gather there each Monday night for prayer circles.

By contrast, there is no women's center in Rhode Island (though there are a number of them in Massachusetts) prompting members such as Judy St. Thomas, a homemaker from Cumberland whose husband is also in Opus Dei, and Joan "Pixie" Pendergast, a retired nurse in Providence, to employ different options.

While St. Thomas goes to a weekly prayer circle in Franklin, Mass., 20 miles from her home, and monthly meetings at Cumberland's St. Joan of Arc Church, Pendergast attends a weekly women's circle in Warwick and a day of recollection for women at Providence's St. Sebastian Church.

While critics see the separation of men and women as a form of discrimination, Pendergast sees benefits to having separate meetings. "Women have certain needs and men have certain needs. We are different," she says.

Given the renewed controversy over Opus Dei arising from Brown's novel, one might guess that members are upset and angry with the book and impending movie.

Pendergast, 69, who grew up as a Congregationalist but converted to Catholicism, is in that category.

A mother of six and grandmother to 17, she says she was so insulted by Brown's book that she threw it away. "I had to quit. I was so angry."

But James Latimer, a physical scientist who works at the Environmental Protection Agency's research labs in Narragansett, said he thought The Da Vinci Code was a "good read" and he will probably see the movie.

Not that he found the book without fault. "It wasn't so much how Opus Dei was portrayed, but the bad theology, and the notion of Christ getting married," he says.

For all their issues with the book, members say the novel may be one of the best things to happen to Opus Dei -- stimulating discussion and giving members an opportunity to explain the "real story" of what they consider their not-so-secret group.

Sylvain, whose own involvement with Opus Dei began when he attended an introductory workshop in the ninth grade, grants that not all his acquaintances know he is in Opus Dei, but neither do they all know he is in the Boston Bluegrass Union and plays the banjo .

"It's not a secret, but it's not something you put on your résumé."

Sylvain acknowledges that while Opus Dei describes itself as a lay group (except for a few priests) whose members do not take vows, it has high standards when it comes to people becoming numeraries. In practice, if not by regulation, entering numeraries must have college degrees.

The reason, he says, is simple. In addition to their jobs out in the world, the numeraries provide spiritual direction and counseling, and so should have at least a level of education required of any priest.

And the reason for requiring even supernumeraries to go through a long process of discernment: "because a decision to join is not to be taken lightly. It is a vocation, the same as priesthood or married life."

Critics allege that Opus Dei deliberately targets as potential members men and women who are in powerful and influential positions as a way of increasing its influence on society. Sylvain says that's only partly true.

"Our primary goal is to help ordinary people find God in ordinary activity, but it is also true that if you want to influence society you try to reach out to people who are leaders in our culture . . . people who have a wider influence on the culture."

The other numeraries who live at Mathewson House include native Rhode Islander Kevin Stevens, a scientist ; Dr. Beej Macatangay, a native of the Philippines who is doing his residency at Roger Williams Hospital; and the Rev. George Craft, an Opus Dei priest who grew up in Somerville, Mass.

While all Opus Dei members are expected to try small acts of mortification each day -- whether it be delaying having a cup of coffee when the urge arises or trying to be nice to an unlikeable person, as a way of being more spiritually attuned -- there is one act of mortification reserved for the numeraries.

For two hours each day, typically after dinner, Sylvain will wrap a 9-inch chain with small metal spikes -- known as a cilice -- underneath his trousers and around his thigh as a small reminder of the sufferings Christ endured.

It's not, he says, excruciatingly painful. "To me, the most annoying part is finding the time to take it on and off." '

He says wearing it is really not so different from going on a 10-mile walk to raise money to fight breast cancer or AIDS. "Why do people go through all the trouble of walking when they can just collect the money?" he asks. "Because it's a way of showing solidarity with people who are really suffering."

As for the money that other numeraries send in, Sylvain says he writes a check each month to the Woodlawn Foundation, established by Opus Dei, which uses it for a variety of needs, from paying the expenses of priests living at the various Opus Dei centers to helping schools and retreat centers affiliated with the organization.

St. Thomas, a former school teacher who organized mock trial tournaments before she took to home schooling her two oldest children, is in many respects a "soccer mom" who spends a great deal of time cheering her children in school plays, karate and cross country.

Between all the running about, however, she takes time to read passages from the Gospels and to contemplate.

"I used to think that being a Christian woman meant wearing long skirts and no makeup," she confided. "I didn't understand that I could look normal and fashionable and pretty and still strive to be a saint.

"Opus Dei helps us to learn we can grow in holiness through the ordinary, just by applying the beautiful richness of the church to what we do."

Latimer, the scientist from EPA, noted that he was a Presbyterian and then an Episcopalian before he and his wife, Kirsten, decided to become Catholic.

He said his former religious experience has given him a perspective about the role of lay people that he doesn't see among most cradle Cathholics.

"In all the Protestant churches I experienced, people just don't sit around and wait for the priest to do something," he said.

Opus Dei, he says, is the same, relying on lay people to act on their own.

"Some people think that in Opus Dei there is someone telling us what to do. But that's absolutely not true. No one told me to start a Summa Study Group [a group that meets monthly and studies the voluminous writings of St. Thomas Aquinas]. I did it because I felt it was what God was calling me to do."

For that reason, Latimer bristles when he hears people describe Opus Dei as a group of conservative Catholics trying to push the church back to what it once was.

"I don't like it because, one, I don't like categorizing, and two, a Catholic who is well educated and thinks with the mind of the church will neither be conservative nor liberal. I think this is the fruit of Vatican II. The church wants educated, holy, active Catholics in the world, living their lives in a way that would be a leaven to the world and make it a better place."

Pendergast agrees. Over the years she has been involved in many different religious movements. In the 1970s, she and her husband, Jack, moved their family to Providence's working class Smith Hill neighborhood to be part of the charismatic revival taking place at St. Patrick parish there.

"People from all over the world came to visit us. A couple from Paris and a priest from South America, all kinds of people wanted to see what the Holy Spirit was doing there."

These days, Pendergast says there are certainly differences between the communal style of the old charismatic renewal and Opus Dei's emphasis on living a contemplative life of prayer while going about one's daily affairs.

The special gift of Opus Dei, she says, is that it makes the point that "it's not a second-rate vocation to be a lay person."

It's an ongoing battle, because "we are always struggling and beginning again to try to be good Catholic Christians," she said. "The whole name of the game is to love the Lord with all our heart, mind and soul, and to learn the faith of our church."

rdujardi@projo.com / (401) 277-7384