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The Da Vinci Code offers a surprising array of definitions of Opus Dei. The author can’t seem to make up his mind, and in the end never manages to get it right.
1. “Vatican prelature” – the “Fact” page.
2. “Catholic sect” – same page, same sentence.
One would have imagined that there might be some tension between being a “sect” and being a “Vatican prelature,” but no matter. Moving right along…
3. “A conservative Catholic group” – Chapter 79. Amazingly enough, in Chapter 103, the Vatican and Opus Dei are described as “two groups.”
4. a “Congregation” – chapter 5. This must refer to the Protestant wing of Opus Dei (just kidding). Actually the Roman Curia has “congregations” and there are religious “congregations” in the Church, but neither has anything to do with Opus Dei.
And most startling of all:
5. “A Catholic Church”! – chapter 5. Responding to questions about whether Opus Dei is cult or a secret society, Bishop Aringarosa makes the remarkable statement, “We are a Catholic Church.” (And you thought there was only one – as in “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic”!)
As it happens, the right answer is “personal prelature,” which Brown does use, but in a way that shows he doesn’t understand it.
`So, for instance, in Chapter 5, Opus Dei is called a “personal prelature of the Pope himself”. This formulation is repeated in Chapter 7 (in quotation marks for no apparent reason), and in chapter 100, where we find “a personal prelature established by a previous Pope”.
The problem is that the word “personal” in the expression “personal prelature” does not refer to the pope or any particular person. The prelature is personal because it is not territorial. Prelatures are ecclesiastical jurisdictions including clergy and laity, and they can be territorial (defined by geographical boundaries) or personal (defined by the very people who form them, wherever they happen to be). The “persons” in the “personal prelature” of Opus Dei are the members themselves.
When Brown does chance upon the correct words, he gives the impression that a “personal prelature” is somebody’s private fiefdom.
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Your ‘personal blog’ (not ‘territorial’, of course) is great!
What really is the Iluminati…Opus Dei…the Priory of Sion?????
What is Illuminati…Opus Dei…the Priory of Sion????
Kathleen, there are a lot of answers to these questions in the various posts on this blog, especially the first few. The Illumati have nothing to do with The Da Vinci Code or Opus Dei, but they did once exist.
Opus Dei is a prelature of the Catholic Church that helps Christians seek holiness in their ordinary daily life. It was founded by St. Josemaria Escriva in 1928, and there are centers of Opus Dei throughout the world.
The Priory of Sion is a fraudulent organization invented in the 1950s in France, claiming to be an ancient secret society. Its own founder admitted that it is a hoax.
“For the Roman pontiff (pope), by reason of his office as VICAR OF CHRIST, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal POWER over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise UNHINDERED.”
–CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, 1994, P. 254 #882
Christ alone is given power over the churches…The bible doesn’t give power to the pope to rule the church (nowhere is it stated in scripture!)
“[W]e hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.”
–POPE LEO XIII
“…I will be like the most High.”
LUCIFER, ISAIAH 14:14
One cannot falter the similarity (and equality) of the above two sentences!? If you want to understand Jesus, God and the truth then read the new testament and old testaments…then apply what you learn to what is spoken to you. Jesus makes it incredibly simple for all to sEE
Not sure why you are writing this here at this time, Colin, but you’re welcome to your opinions and their placement.
It is good, though, to read the scriptures carefully before expressing opinions about them. Jesus does, in fact, give supreme authority to St. Peter (see Matthew 16, where he is given the keys of Christ’s kingdom and the power to bind and loose), and that authority has been passed on to his successors – call them what you like: the bishops of Rome, the popes, the Roman pontiffs . Moreover, St. Peter is also commissioned by Jesus to feed his sheep (see John 21).
This is what the vast majority of Christians, after carefully reading the scriptures, have always believed and what the vast majority of educated Christians believe today. It is true that, starting in the 1500s, a small and now-dwindling number of Christians have made various other claims about the nature of authority in the Church – that it belongs to the King of England, for instance, or a monk named Martin Luther – but these claims tended to be unpersausive to Christians who were not under the political thumb of the English monarchy or some German prince, and, in any case, references to the English monarchy and German monks and princes are extremely rare in the Bible.
Yes, the interpretation of scripture is so simple, in fact, that those who follow this approach have found themselves in wild and often violent disagreement from the days of Martin Luther until today. Indeed, the history of Protetestism is the history of contradictory interpretations of scripture. Moreover, the ability to quote passages from Sacred Scripture is in, fact, one of Lucifer’s own tricks. He tries it on our Lord Himself when Jesus is tempted in the desert. This abuse of scripture was already an old story by the 5th century, as St. Jerome makes clear: “Heresies have been born because of understanding in a way that is not good the scriptures, which are good.” (Jerome, In Ioann. Evang., 18, 1)
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