The claim was made public recently due to a requested court inquiry of several priests who served as vicars for Opus Dei in that country between 1991 and 2015.

The Argentine Public Prosecutor has asked a judge to approve the inquiry of the former vicars for the alleged crime of human trafficking and labour exploitation based on a complaint filed two years ago by 44 women.

The women claimed to have been recruited by the Catholic organisation when they were minors and subjected to a regime of semi-slavery in Opus Dei's homes, according to the Argentine newspaper Clarín.

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The Holy See press office said on Feb. 15 that the pope had named Msgr. Joseph Marie Bonnemain as bishop of Chur in eastern Switzerland.

Bonnemain, a 72-year-old member of Opus Dei, previously served as judicial vicar and canon of the cathedral chapter of Chur diocese. He succeeds Bishop Vitus Huonder, who retired on May 20, 2019, at the age of 77.

Bishop Felix Gmür of Basel welcomed the appointment.

"After years of waiting for a new bishop for the diocese of Chur, the election of Joseph Maria Bonnemain is a great sign of peace and hope for the diocese of Chur and the entire Church in Switzerland," Gmür said.

"Bishop Joseph is a bridge-builder — a person of clarity and a conciliatory clergyman who knows how to integrate opinions."

CNA Deutsch, CNA's German-language news partner, reported that the diocese has seen fierce internal battles and the new bishop's priority will be to heal divisions in the diocese.

Pope Pius XII established the current rules for the selection of bishops in the diocese in the 1948 decree "Etsi salva." It gives the cathedral chapter the privilege of electing a bishop from among three priests proposed by the Holy See.

Local media reported last November that Chur's cathedral chapter had rejected all three candidates proposed by Pope Francis. At the top of the list was Bonnemain, reportedly rejected for being too old and for his "ideological evolution."

Bonnemain was the only candidate with a direct connection to the diocese, which dates back to 451. The diocese covers seven of the 26 cantons of Switzerland, including the canton of Zürich.

The bishop-elect was born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1948, to a Swiss father and Catalan mother. He studied medicine in Zürich, graduating in 1975. After completing his philosophical and theological studies in Rome, he was ordained a priest of Opus Dei on Aug. 15, 1978.

Sources

Catholic News Agency

Catholic Culture

Originally from Papatoetoe in Auckland, New Zealand Umbers was ordained a priest by Bishop Javier Echevarría, Prelate of Opus Dei. He has served as a priest in Sydney for the past 13 years.

Umbers is one of two new auxiliary bishops appointed in the Archdiocese of Sydney. The other one is Monsignor Anthony Randazzo. He was born in Sydney but is a member of the Queensland presbyterate.

In his recent Letter from Rome Robert Mickens points out that neither the Catholics people or the nor priests of Sydney had any say about the new auxiliary bishops.

"By all accounts, most of them are not happy that these "outsiders" (that is, not members of the Sydney presbyterate) were foisted on them," he says.

"Fr Umbers... was born and grew up in another country - New Zealand. But he went to university in Sydney in the early 1990s and has been living fulltime in the city since 2002."

Umbers is priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei. He originally studied management at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. In 1992 he transferred to the University of Sydney. He did this so that he could receive more intense formation at a Centre of Opus Dei in Chatswood, Sydney.

He qualified with a Bachelor of Economics from University of Sydney and a Masters of Management from the University of Waikato.

He has been chaplain of several educational initiatives including Warrane College and Creston College, residential colleges affiliated with The University of New South Wales, and Redfield College, a school of the PARED Foundation.

Randazzo was actually born in Sydney, but he grew up near Brisbane. He's been a priest of the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1991.

He is currently an assistant to Archbishop Mark Coleridge at St Stephen's Cathedral, Brisbane. He is also judge of the National Appeal Tribunal of the Catholic Church of Australia and New Zealand.

He was until recently the Rector of the Queensland Seminary. During his seven years in that role (and as Director of Vocations) Brisbane saw a resurgence of vocations and 27 new priests ordained.

Before that he undertook post-graduate studies in canon law, was Pastor of Regina Caeli Parish in Coorparoo Heights, and then worked in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome.

"Cardinal Pell's fingerprints are all over these appointments, just as they were all over the appointment of his successor, [Archbishop Fisher]" says Mickens. "Why Francis allows this, to a cardinal who has been opposed or impassive to just about all the pope does except in the financial reform sector, is mind boggling."

"But even more unacceptable is that the 75-year-old Australian is still head of the Vox Clara Committee (which is supposed to consist of residential bishops, not those in the Roman Curia). And, of course, how does one explain that he is also a member of the pope's privy council of cardinal advisors (C9)?"

"The only consolation is that maxim the pope likes to repeat, 'Time is greater than space.'"

"Both of these men [auxiliary bishops] are going to be around for a long, long time." says Mickens.

"Mgr Randazzo is only 49 years old. And Fr Umbers, at 45, is even younger. Archbishop Fisher, though he is still struggling to overcome a major health setback, is not exactly an old man. He's only 56, which gives him another nineteen years until the canonical retirement age."

The Episcopal ordination of Monsignor Anthony Randazzo and Fr Richard Umbers will take place at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney on Wednesday 24 August 2016.

Source

• globalpulsemagazine.com
• opusdei.org.au
• sydneycatholic.org
• Image: nd.edu.au

The ceremony is expected to attract 100,000 people from at least 50 countries.

Some 3000 families will open their homes to those travelling to Madrid from abroad and 2000 young people have signed up to work as volunteers for the event.

The current prelate of Opus Dei, Bishop Javier Echevarria, has sent a letter to all cloistered and contemplative nuns in Spain asking for their prayers for the beatification.

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The game, the brainchild of a philosophy student, is described as philosophy-themed and strategy-based. Opus Dei is demanding that its trademark be revoked and financial compensation be paid.

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It has all the makings of a Hollywood adaptation of a Dan Brown novel. Secrets of the Vatican exposed, documents stolen from the Pope's desk, rows and rivalries between cardinals, vast sums of money, the involvement of the cultish organisation Opus Dei. And then the so-called Vatileaks scandal, which has had Rome agog for months, went a bit Da Vinci Code-meets-Cluedo: the butler allegedly did it.

Paolo Gabriele, who has worked for Pope Benedict XVI as one of his most personal aides for six years, has now been charged and sent to trial by a Vatican judge for leaking papal documents, including papers containing allegations of corruption. Read more

Sources

• Catherine Pepinster in The Sydney Morning Herald
• Image: The Guardian

"My hope is to try and help the Holy See take the necessary steps to go in the right direction," he said after accepting what he describes as a "high risk" appointment.

Burke took on the job as media advisor to the Vatican Secretary of State — a new role conceived in the light of the Vatileaks scandal and various public relations mishaps — after turning it down twice.

The 52-year-old American has worked as a journalist in Rome for 24 years — for the National Catholic Register, Time magazine and Fox News.

A member of Opus Dei since he was 18, he is a numerary — a celibate layman who lives at an Opus Dei centre in Rome.

"When the Vatican explained to me what my role would be, the position which immediately sprung to mind was the White House communications director," he said.

"In this case, the spokesman does all the public appearances and then there is another figure who works behind the scenes to come up with the strategies: how to formulate a given message, how to get it across, when and where."

Father John Wauck, a professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome and a friend of the new Vatican media advisor, described him as "a lay person, from the professional world, who understands how theologians think and shares their faith….

"Plus, he's well respected and genuinely liked by the journalists in Rome."

While Burke works with the Vatican Secretariat of State, Father Federico Lombardi will continue in the role of official spokesman for the Holy See.

Sources:

Vatican Insider

National Catholic Register

Washington Post

Image: Vatican Insider

"If it comes into full communion of the Fraternity of St. Pius X with the Apostolic See and a personal prelature is established, this will be a cause of great joy," said a spokesman of Opus Dei. Continue reading

The latest such row, featuring a public call from academy members for its papally appointed leadership to resign, pivots in part on the question of just how "pro-life" is pro-life enough to faithfully represent Catholic teaching.

Also at stake is whether affording a Vatican platform to people who don't completely share Catholic positions risks blurring the church's message — or whether refusal to engage in such dialogue betrays, as one Vatican cardinal has asserted, an insecure, "fundamentalist" position.

Founded by Pope John Paul II in 1994, the Pontifical Academy for Life is essentially a Vatican think tank composed of roughly 70 academics, medical experts and activists. It's led by a bishop appointed by the pope, along with a small staff of Vatican personnel, and coordinated by a six-member governing council.

The recent controversy went public in early May, when Austrian Catholic philosopher and academy member Josef Seifert wrote a six-page open letter to Spanish Bishop Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, an Opus Dei member and president of the academy, to report "enormous concern" that the academy is losing "its full and pure commitment to truth." The letter was released to the media.

Seifert cited two recent conferences held under the academy's aegis as problematic: one last February on infertility, and another that had been scheduled for April on stem cell research. In both cases, Seifert charged, organizers had invited speakers who hold public positions contrary to Catholic teaching.

Seifert suggested that the academy's leadership should step down.

Other academy members voicing complaints have included Belgian Msgr. Michel Schooyans, a retired professor at the Catholic University of Louvain; Mercedes Arzú Wilson, a Guatemalan natural family planning advocate; Christine de Vollmer, a Venezuelan who serves as president of the Latin American Alliance for the Family; and American Thomas Hilgers, founder of the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction in Omaha, Neb.

Sources

• John L Allen Jr in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Word on Fire