CNN: Inside Opus Dei - cilice

[Coexist]

They had a special on just now (4:49 p.m. Sunday) about Opus Dei - one thing I did not know about is that they still practice corporal mortification

How strange. This is what they wear around their thigh two hours a day (except Sunday). The Priest interviewed did not deny this. He said it didn't hurt. I don't get wearing this:
any more than I get walking over fire or sleeping on nails.

Can someone help me here? I was raised Catholic, but fell off very early on in my life.

[AX10]

1. Opus Dei is a cult.

[Warpy]

4. Bottom line, yes

There was a Newsweek article about them a couple of years ago, a puff piece. One thing they let slip in the article was that the sexes lived separately and all went out to jobs during the week. However, on Saturday, the males had to clear off for four hours or so so the women could come in and clean.

I guess doing god's work doesn't extend to the precious males having to clean up after themselves, does it?

That pretty much told me all I needed to know about them.

[SharonAnn]

14. My Opus Dei niece told me that she would only meet for lunch in NYC

because she didn't like to go back after dark "because of the rats".

I didn't understand what she meant about all the rats around the entrance at night. After all, the Opus Dei HQ in NYC is a $50 million new building, how could there be rats at that exclusive entrance.

It was later that I learned she had to enter through a side door in the alley. Only men are allowed to enter through the front door.

[blm]

2. It's RICH WHITE GUYS afraid to get caught paying for a Dominatrix.

.

[jerry611]

7. LOL!

:rofl:

You know...I wouldn't be surprised...

[BrklynLiberal]

3. I was really taken aback to hear that Mother Teresa wore one.

:wow:
http://www.opusdei.us/art.php?p=16367
In the Twentieth century, people like Saint Padre Pio and Blessed Mother Teresa and Pope Paul VI also used them.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/
Mother Teresa of Calcutta wore a cilice and used the discipline, telling her Sisters, ‘‘If I am sick, I take five strokes. I must feel its need in order to share in the Passion of Christ and the sufferings of our poor.”

[ThomWV]

5. Opus Dei Is A Favorite Target Of Idiots

They seem to think its some sort of cult, they seem to think its some sort of mysterious world-controlling sect. Idiots, every one.

Go to the Web Site for the organization if you want to see what its about. They explain it quite clearly. Its a bunch of believers who do not happen to be Priests or Nuns who have decided as a part of their faith to devote their life to doing all good acts for Jesus. Sort of Catholic born-agains but without the door-to-door bible thumping.

So that's what they are. The idiots will tell you they are everything else including the hit men for the Pope. Like I said, idiot every one.

There, that help?

[acmejack]

11. Damn Thom, are you member?

Quite a forceful statement, somewhat out of character form your usual laid back self! I know Mel Gibson is a member, the hair shirts and that thigh thing looks hurtful to me, but whatever flips your switch. Idiots seems pretty strong, still.

Disclaimer I have no association with Opus Dei or any anti Opus Dei organization!

[ThomWV]

13. No - But I'll Tell You What Got Me To Find Out For Myself

I had never heard of the orginization until one night when a friend started railing against them. His wife piped in too and then I started to see something I had not seen before.

This guy was my closest friend for years. His first wife was, and is, a friend too but they split years ago. The guy - to put it no better way - got married our of sexual desperation I suppose but he married a born again. I did not think the marriage would last a year but its been almost four now.

Anyway here he was spouting all this anti Catholic shit and I had known the guy for 20 years, shot pool with him every friday night, and I never heard him say a single thing like that nonsense before. So I simply went to find out all I could about this orginization from reputable sources. I looked and looked and looked. I was unable to find a single reputable source for any neer-do-well shit by the orginization what so ever.

I did find plenty of the aforementioned idiots though. You can find people everywhere to say Opus Dei is the end of the world but if you go look for specific examples of anything wrong with what they do - anything coercive, anything exploitive, anything like that, and its simply not to be found.

So, all I can say is go look for your self, or join the idiots. Your choice.

[acmejack]

19. No man, I was just taken aback by the vehemence of your reaction

You are generally so mellow, I just wondered why it put such a burr under your saddle.

As I said I have absolutely no problem with a person praying to anything or anybody in any fashion that they choose, as long as it doesn't harm me or mine.

[SharonAnn]

16. Unfortunately, I have experience with a family member who is Opus Dei

and it's not a good organization.

Their recruiting of her was seriously cultish. She was told she had to cut off all ties with her family during the process.

They are all about money and power.

As an aside, her sister joined a cloistered convent with severely restricted participation in public life. Yet, her order required her to maintain contact with her family through the process and she is able to meet with them frequently. She doesn't participate in outside activities becasue she's in a contemplative, cloistered order, but there's nothing secret about it. While I don't understand it, because that's not something I could do, I feel that they're honest and true Christians.

I think that Opus Dei is all about the power and the money. Oh, and misogyny. They went after my niece because she's from an influential family with money.

[ClintonTyree]

6. It's supposedly a constant reminder..........

of the pain Jesus suffered on the cross. It's supposed to purify their thoughts when they're thinking of something naughty or some kind of horse-hockey like that. They're a bunch of numb-nuts if you ask me. :eyes: Religious fanaticism in any form is dangerous in my opinion.

[C_U_L8R]

8. If you're gonna whip yourself...

it's best to have many noodly appendages.

heehee

[roguevalley]

9. medieval mindset, the need to mortify to understand the 'passion'

of Christ. Frankly, I would appreciate them more if they nailed themselves to the floor.

[Glorfindel]

10. How repulsive. Are there no hungry to be fed? No prisoners to visit?

Spiritual masturbation is no different from physical masturbation, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not opposed to either one, but don't pretend to be doing "God's Work" while engaged in it. O8) :P

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. I have a problem with people who are so into themselves

that they take things to such extremes. It's like people who spend half their lives in church or praying. I feel like yelling at them to get off their ass and do something for someone else for a change.

[Cleita]

15. There is a lot of mortification rituals practiced among certain

orders and clubs within the Church. Many think it will get them sainthood. I knew a girl in one of my dorms who was hoping to become a Carmelite nun and she made a point of wearing scratchy undershirts as a sort of offering to God for the souls in Purgatory. :eyes:

[NoodleyAppendage]

17. Sadomasochism masquerading as religious practice. Opus Deiers are deviant

I guess when the Catholic sexual deviants aren't buggering children, they opt instead for CLASSIC SADOMASOCHISTIC fetishes. It's all a bunch of bullshit about wanting to feel the pain and suffering of Jesus on the cross. When in reality, these sexual deviants are getting an endorphin high from inflicting pain upon their bodies.

Screw tolerance. It's time to bring out into the open the deviant practices of these Xtian cults.

J

[PassingFair]

23. They EAT THIS *HIT UP!

"I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying."
Chapter XXIX; Part 17, Teresa's Autobiography

[NoodleyAppendage]

25. Wow. The phallic and sexual imagery in that passage is undeniable.

BTW - the wonderful Bernini work, "Le Estasi di Santa Teresa," in your post is thought to have Freemasonry symbolism throughout...particularly the arrow tip.

J

[texasleo]

18. At least they don't hurt others.

unlike other religions that shall remain nameless.

[spanone]

20. weird shit

[Jigarotta]

21. early Cath myself, never heard of this

particular thing before, the physical pain on the thigh thing.
Just remember from catecism (sheesh, I forgot the proper spelling) that 'you are bad' message....

[TygrBright]

22. Mental instability often seeks relief in religious excess and/or...

...sexual abnormality.

The Opus Dei are like any other group of moderately functional nutjobs who have found a system that works for them. Creepy repressed sadomasochistic physical rituals are part of extreme religious practice in many faith groups. As long as they confine it to psychospiritual masturbation they're not doing ME any harm, so who gives a flying monkey?

The thing is, one in some (large) number of functional nutjobs is also a great saint, genius, artist, etc. and makes fabulous contributions to humanity out of their own pain and chaos. So you have to be careful about assuming that the weird ways they find to deal with their own nuttiness are necessarily a bad thing.

Contrariwise, one in some (large) number of functional nutjobs ends up going completely bughouse and harming others with their nuttiness. So you have to be careful about assuming that the weird ways they find to deal with it are harmless, too.

Most of the functional and moderately functional nutjobs in Opus Dei are neither geniuses nor criminals. They're adults who have made a somewhat informed and perfectly legal choice to live a lifestyle that involves creepy displaced sadomasochistic sexual practices tarted up as religious ritual, totally disgusting levels of discrimination and misogyny, and the exploitation of themselves, their bank accounts, and/or their labor for the advancement of other power-hungry functional nutjobs. To keep them comfortable in the cult, they are focused on altruistic and noble religious impulses acted out in carefully structured "works of charity," which may or may not offset the overall harm of how they are, in effect, self-medicating their mental instability. By convincing themselves that they are "doing good," and acting for a higher religious purpose, they hold still for fleecing and exploitation longer.

The ones who are really caught up in the power games, of course, get further enmeshed in the heirarchical games of gaining "advancement" in the cult, which convinces them that they are getting "better" in some way.

They're all adults, they're all free to piss away their potential futzing around with this creepy stuff, and the cult is careful to see that enough "good works" are done to make a case for it not being totally without redeeming social value. They aren't supermen, illuminati, or secretly in charge of the Church bleeding off the Vatican Bank to fund vast underground networks of pedophiliac Satan worship. They're just sort of sad, really. But it's their business, unless you happen to be a family member of one of them. If so, work with a therapist or attend Alanon or something to help yourself deal with the pain. You can't do much for them unless/until they start to question their own participation in the cult.

expositorially,
Bright

[magellan]

24. He said it didn't hurt?

Then why wear it?

The thing about self-flagellation is very similar to the practice of some Shi'a sects, once again confirming (to me at least) how much more in common than difference the main religions of the world share.