Behind The Shroud Of Opus Dei

As 45 million-plus readers of "The Da Vinci Code" already know, the fictional Silas, a masochistic albino monk, and murderer, is a member of Opus Dei -- an actual group within the Catholic church -- which may or may not be anything like the Opus Dei in Dan Brown's novel.

It all depends on whom you believe, says, CBS Sunday Morning contributor Martha Teichner.

"In the book, Opus Dei is in some sense the villain of the piece. A dark, menacing cult that dispatches albino monks to slay its enemies. It practices extreme forms of self-flagellation and unthinking obedience to superiors," says John Allen, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter.

He's written what is widely considered the definitive book on Opus Dei.

"There's the Opus Dei of myth which is the Opus Dei of Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code.' Then there's the Opus Dei of reality which is a relatively small group of about 85,000 Catholics worldwide, who are committed to what their founder, a Spanish saint by the name of Jose Maria Escriva called the sanctification of work," Allen explains.

Escriva founded Opus Dei -- Latin for the "work of God" -- in 1928 in Spain. He taught that through any kind of honest work in the everyday world, ordinary people, striving for a kind of spiritual perfectionism, can find holiness.

There are priests in Opus Dei, but they're only 2 percent of the total membership. Seventy percent are lay Catholics, called supernumeraries, who live at home with their spouses and children. The rest, called numeraries, live celibate lives in separate men's and women's Opus Dei residences, but tend to work outside. In "The Da Vinci Code," Silas is a numerary.

In real life, so is Susan Mangels.

"When somebody chooses to make a lifetime commitment to Opus Dei, you can choose a ring of your choice to wear," Mangels tells Teichner.

Mangels was actually engaged when she decided that Opus Dei, not marriage, was her vocation.

Susan Mangels is president of Lexington College in Chicago, an Opus Dei-run women's school that teaches the culinary arts.

Opus Dei points to Mangels as proof that its members aren't weird and to the college as proof that its intentions are good.

Likewise Father Hillary Mahany, an Opus Dei priest at Saint Mary of the Angels church in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood.

"Well I think the city had condemned the building," Mahany says of the church.

It was in that condition in 1991, when the Chicago Archdiocese turned it over to Opus Dei and said, "Here, you save it." Now it's the only fully Opus Dei staffed church in the United States.

Mahany says it took four years to restore the church and now, see it as a source of stability in the neighborhood.

At night, in a church annex Matt Smyczek, also an Opus Dei numerary, runs a volunteer tutoring program for boys.

At the end of each session, there's a short exercise in character-building.

Rightly or wrongly, Opus Dei can't shake its reputation for secrecy.

It didn't help that Robert Hanssen, the former FBI agent who sold secrets to Moscow was a member. And what about those rumors about Mel Gibson being a member and other powerful members in high places, such as Supreme court justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas?

They are not members, Teichner says.

Controversy has always dogged the group, partly thanks to Escriva, the founder.

In "The Way," the spiritual guidebook his followers live by, Escriva wrote, "Never think badly of anyone" but he also wrote "Blessed be pain."

His closest aide described being present when Escriva flailed himself with a knotted, cordlike whip more than a thousand times. "The floor was covered with blood," he recalled.

Dan Brown states his book that Opus Dei is controversial due to reports of brainwashing, coercion and a dangerous practice known as corporal mortification. He says all descriptions of secret rituals in this novel are accurate.

The fact is, Opus Dei numeraries are supposed to use a whip, called the discipline, once a week for as long as it takes to say the Lord's prayer.

They're directed to wear a barbed chain, like this one, called a cilice, around their upper thigh for two hours a day, but they're by no means the only ones. Mother Theresa actually used a cilice.
The whips and chains get all the attention, but not even the most embittered ex-members say that's the source of their beef with Opus Dei.

"You don't have your mind anymore, like the group has taken your mind, your ability to critically think about something and make a judgment," says Tammy di Nicola.

It's all that other stuff Dan Brown mentions.

"At the beginning, you know, you don't hear about, you know, handing over your whole salary, that all your reading is gonna be checked and you know," di Nicola says.

Tammy di Nicola of Pittsfield, Mass., was a freshman at Boston College in 1986, when she was approached to join Opus Dei, eventually as a numerary.

"At first we were happy that she's getting closer to her faith," Tammy's mother, Dianne, says.

Then, Dianne says, her daughter began to change.

"She really started getting very withdrawn. It was as if my daughter had died and yet she was walking around in her body," Dianne says.

Tammy, now married with children, had just graduated when her family confronted her with an exit counselor, the kind used to de-program members of cults.

But, Dianne says, "Out of respect to the Catholic church, we don't call it a cult, we call it cult-like."

John Allen was granted unprecedented access to the organization.

"For the book, I did more than 300 hours of interviews with current members, ex-members, and so on and I heard those stories of mind control, of invasion of privacy of excessive pressure to join and to stay. In time and time and time again I also heard from literally thousands of current and satisfied ex-members.

"What I concluded is that for the most part both sides are describing the same events, but seen from very different perspectives," Allen explains.

Three successive popes have supported Opus Dei. Pope John Paul II fast-tracked Escriva to sainthood. An estimated 300,000 people attended his canonization in 2002 and yet Opus Dei finds itself constantly on the defensive.

Terri Carron, unofficial spokeswoman for Opus Dei, loves to show that the group's U.S. headquarters in New York City is nothing like it's presented in "The Da Vinci Code."

"No dungeon, no torture chamber, no albino monks running around, no, this is it," Carron says of the office.
A longtime member herself, Carron is a wife, mother and a fashion consultant by profession. She estimates roughly 10,000 people use and visit the center each year.

Her point: Opus Dei has nothing to hide.

They're even willing to produce Silas: Silas Agbim of Brooklyn, NY. He's a stockbroker, his wife Ngozi, a retired college professor.

Both of them have been Opus Dei members for nearly 30 years.

"The other one is a fake, a vicious fake," Agbim quips of Dan Brown's character.

He gets the joke, but will the public get the message when the other Silas hits the big screen?