In 1991, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago, entrusted the parish of St. Mary of the Angels to priests of Opus Dei. The Catholic Information Center in Washington, DC, and the Holy Cross Chapel in Houston, Texas, have also been entrusted to priests of Opus Dei.

Opus Dei’s inconspicuous U.S. headquarters is a sedate red-brick $69 million, seventeen-story building at Lexington Avenue and Thirty-fourth street in Manhattan.

On October 6, 2002, Pope John Paul II elevated Escrivá to sainthood in a ceremony “watched by at least 300,000 of the priest’s followers, who filled St Peter’s Square and spilled into the surrounding streets and along the bank of the Tiber River…

“The crowd was so quiet for most of the two-hour ceremony that they might have been holding their breath. It was surely one of the most decorous crowds ever to pack St. Peter’s Square. They arrived in suits and ties, Burberry capes, and the occasional dinner jacket.” The Pope, “dressed in white vestments, arrived at the square in his popemobile,” built with bulletproof glass after the 1981 assassination attempt. Behind his stage, a giant image of the Catholic Church’s newest saint was draped from the balcony of St. Peter’s basilica. A relic of the saint, a fragment of his tooth, was placed next to the altar. At the climax of the ceremony, the 82-year-old pontiff said, ‘With the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, the saint apostles of Peter and Paul and our own, after a long reflection, many invocations of divine assistance, and having listened to the advice of many of our brother bishops, we declare and define blessed Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer saint, and we will write his name in the album of the saints.’

“Many of the pilgrims attending the ceremony were from… Spain, but others came from Latin America, where Opus Dei had strongly taken hold. Spanish doctor Manuel Nevado Rey, whose recovery from radiation-caused skin disease was deemed a miracle performed by Escrivá, was among the crowd… Medical experts consulted by the Vatican said there was no scientific explanation for the transformation.

“The progression of Escrivá to sainthood was rapid. He was beatified, or made blessed, in 1992.” He became the 468th saint to have been created by the Pope during his 24 years in office, more than those created by his predecessors over the past four centuries put together. “It was one of the fastest canonizations on record,…and one of the most controversial.” “Escriva’s path to sainthood was marred by charges that the Vatican refused to hear testimony from his critics.”

Speculating that canonization of Escrivá transgressed canon law, Newsweek magazine religion correspondent Kenneth Woodward said that the Vatican’s ‘Devil’s advocate’ system,” designed to slow down the canonization process by questioning the validity of the “miracle,” “was bypassed when witnesses hostile to Opus Dei were not called.” Opus Dei claimed that “eleven critics of Escrivá’s canonization had been heard.” Woodward said there was only one, and the “‘consultors’ were mainly Italian and members of Opus Dei: this stopped Escrivá’s many critical Spanish peers from upsetting the canonization procedure.”

What is more, said Opus Dei critics, it was “out of order for forty percent of the testimony to come from Escrivá’s two henchmen, both of whom have since become Opus leaders… Dei allegedly pressured ‘hundreds’ of bishops, ‘especially from the cash hungry third world,’ to send favorable reports to Rome ’s saint makers. It was alleged that 1,300 Bishops sent in glowing reports, yet of these only 128 had personally met Escrivá.”

Critics of Opus Dei in the United States pointed to “disgraced FBI agent, Robert Hanssen, who was jailed for life in 2001 for spying for the Russians over a fifteen-year period in return for payment of almost a million pounds, and was exposed as a devout Opus Dei member… Hanssen’s brother-in-law was reported to be an Opus Dei priest in Rome whose office was steps away from the pope.”

Robert Hanssen’s motive for his treachery was said to be a desire to afford the Opus Dei lifestyle and send his children to Opus schools. He allegedly justified his actions by the maxim of the Jesuit moral theology of the greater or lesser good.

In an article for America, the National Catholic Monthly, James Martin, S. J. noted that Opus Dei “is an increasingly strong presence on U.S. college campuses. Traditionally their efforts to attract new members had led them to colleges and universities. And it has sometimes led them into conflict with other campus Catholic groups.” Donald R. McCrabb, executive director of the Catholic Campus Ministry Association, told McCrabb, “We are aware that Opus Dei is present at a number of campuses across the country. I’m also aware that some campus ministers find their activities on campus to be counterproductive.”

One of the concerns was Opus Dei’s emphasis on recruiting, supported by an apparently large base of funding. “They are not taking on the broader responsibility that a campus minister has.” He also related, “I have heard through campus ministers that there’s a spiritual director that’s assigned to the candidate who basically has to approve every action taken by that person, including reading mail, what classes they take or don’t take, what they read or don’t read.”

A former Columbia University student noted, “They recommended I not read some books, particularly the Marxist stuff, and instead use their boiled-down versions. I thought this was odd-I was required to do it for class!”

Susan Mountin, associate director of Marquette University ’s campus ministry, asserted that it was her sense “that there probably is a need for many people to experience some sort of devotion in their lives.” What worried her was a “cult-like behavior, isolation from friends.”

The director of campus ministry at Stanford University from 1984 through 1992, Russell J. Roide, S. J., told McCrabb that he initially approached Opus Dei with an open mind. However, students began coming to him complaining about Opus Dei’s recruiting. “They just didn’t let the students alone,” he said. “Students would come to me and say, ‘Please get them off our backs.’”

When he felt his only recourse was to pass out information to students about Opus Dei, including critical articles, Opus Dei numeraries visited Father Roide and said that he was “interfering with their agenda.” Eventually, because of continued student complaints about recruiting, Roide decided “not to let them anywhere near the campus.”

In 2003, an Internet posting claimed, “As part of its normal modus operandi, Opus Dei attempts to infiltrate and take over other mainstream Catholic organizations with the aim of turning them into recruitment fronts. Opus Dei will attempt to infiltrate both the leadership councils and the general memberships of any Catholic organization that it does not control. Such organizations can include, but are not limited to, young adult groups, CYO groups, college/university Newman Clubs, Campus Ministries, parishes, and schools. The purpose of this Guide is to provide tried and tested methods for maintaining the independence of Catholic groups and to prevent [an] Opus Dei takeover and destruction of other organs of the Catholic Church.”

In April 2003, Elizabeth W. Green wrote in the Harvard Crimson that Harvard had produced “a steady stream of leaders in Opus Dei for nearly half a century, and over the past 40 years, at least three of those holding the highest position of authority within Opus Dei’s U.S. branch were Harvard graduates.” She asserted, “While Harvard students and graduates associated with the group say joining Opus Dei was the best thing they’ve ever done with their lives, others call it a dangerous trap, cult-like in its methods” that were “threatening in its caustic interpretation of Catholicism.”