Gareth Gore Investigates: Opus Dei, Dark Money, and Global Deception
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My guest today is Gareth Gore. He is a financial journalist and editor with close to two decades of experience, who has reported from over 25 countries and covered some of the biggest financial stories. His writing has been published by Bloomberg, Thomas Reuters, and International Financing Review. He's the host of The Syndicate. That's really funny. I just realized that because you referenced that in your book, which tells the behind-the-scenes story of the biggest financial deals in history.

His new book here, here it is, Opus, The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church. Yes, this is the famous Opus Dei. Wow, what a story. It is. Thank you, Michael, for having me on. Greetings from London. Oh, yes. Yeah, well, I read the book. Actually, I listened to the entire audio. I have to say, it's as gripping as a Dan Brown novel. How's that for a comparison? Yeah.

Well, that's very kind of you to say that. I mean, I did...

I'm a huge fan of people like Michael Lewis. I think to tell, I really wanted to tell the story in a very compelling way. And yeah, it's great to hear when readers or listeners, I guess, in your case, come back and say that it was gripping. Well, I mean, of course, I made the Dan Brown reference because most people's knowledge of Opus Dei comes almost entirely from the Da Vinci Code. Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, the Da Vinci Code...

I spoke to the former head of Opus Dei in the United States and he told me that the Da Vinci Code was the best thing that had happened to ever happen to the movement. Because, I mean, it was kind of like, it was kind of a home run for them because this crazy book came out that was, you know, heavily fictionalized, so much made up. But what they did was they ran with it. They said, you know, they really tapped into this public interest around Opus Dei.

But they very successfully, I guess, pushed the line that everything in the book was completely wrong, fictionalized. If you want to know the real Opus Dei, then hey, we can tell you about that. But of course, they only told people half of the story or actually much less than half the story. Right. Yeah, you didn't get into this into your book, but I was always fascinated by that lawsuit that the authors of

Holy Blood, Holy Grail filed a lawsuit against Dan Brown because they wrote that book. I remember I was in college when that came out in the 70s. And it's like, ooh, what is this? I was a Christian at the time at Pepperdine University. It's like, what? What is this now? Jesus wasn't really dead. And they whisked him off the cross and into the tomb where he recovered. And then he went off to France and married Mary Magdalene. It's like, this is crazy. But it was a huge bestseller.

Yeah, I mean, there's something, I guess, about religion and about conspiracies that people really are drawn to. Yeah, I mean, but I mean, as I make the point in my book, I mean, this is a real life conspiracy that was just hiding in plain sight for so many years.

Yeah, well, I mean, people love secret societies and hidden histories and what's really going on. Yeah, so in my conspiracy book, I make the distinction between conspiracy theories, which are theories that there is a conspiracy afoot. Maybe it's true, maybe it's false. And then there are conspiracies, which are two or more people plotting in secret to gain an unfair, illegal, or immoral advantage over somebody else without their consent, right? So Opus Dei was, in many ways, a real conspiracy.

Yeah, so absolutely. So Opus Dei was founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest called José María Escribá, who basically told everybody that he'd received this vision from God for a new organization aimed at ordinary Catholics, which would help them to basically...

live out their faith more seriously without the need to become priests or nuns. And, you know, on the face of it, it was a really, I guess, quite laudable and benign philosophy. I mean, the essential message was that you as a doctor or a politician or a journalist or whatever,

You can serve God by just striving for perfection in everything that you do. I mean, who could possibly object to that philosophy? I mean, telling people that they should just do the best? I mean, I'm sure that's something we can all agree with. But the organization started to change very dramatically in the early years. So

And we've got to go back in history for this. I mean, so this is Spain, the early 1930s, a society that's deeply divided, a country that's on the brink of civil war. The workers are rising up. They've thrown out the monarchy. They're demanding new rights. They're turning their backs on the church. So Escalibar, as a priest, sees what's happening around him, and he's horrified. And so this organization that he's just founded a few years earlier,

with this quite benign laudable philosophy, he starts to change it and he starts to write all of these documents. And this is where the conspiracy comes into it. He starts to envisage his followers as a, what he calls like a hidden militia that will infiltrate every element of society and basically collect information on what he calls the enemies of Christ and plot the

to carry out the orders of Christ, which, of course, will be channeled through Escriba himself. Yes, it helps to have direct line to God. People can't then fact check you. It's like, well, I talked to the man upstairs. That's what he told me. A man's got to do what a man's got to do. Yeah, I'm fond of saying that no one in the history of the world has ever joined a cult. They join a group that they think is going to be good.

And a lot of these groups do start off good, you know, like Jim Jones, you know, he was a very liberal, tolerant, uh, preacher from Indianapolis who moved to San Francisco in the sixties, late fifties, early sixties, when it was very segregated, very biased, uh, you know, a lot of bigotry against African-Americans and he embraced them and brought them into the church. And he was, you know, manning the soup kitchens, helping the poor. You can see pictures of him and, and, uh, governor Jerry Brown in his first round in, uh,

you know, in the state capitol. It's like, wow, okay, who wouldn't want to do that? That seems like a good cause. And then, you know, 20 years later, you're down in Guyana drinking the Kool-Aid. But I mean, absolutely. I mean, this duality is something that's been present in Opus Dei throughout its history and which is still used today. So the organization and Escribar back in the early days were,

would entice people into the organization by presenting this, you know, this kind of benign laudable philosophy that we were just talking about earlier about striving for perfection and being a better Catholic. That's the face they would project to the world to reel people in. And, you know, this, this hidden mission, these documents that he penned, which are revealed for the first time in the book, which we got access to, you know,

Um, these are not revealed to members until they reach a certain level within the organization. In fact, in the documents themselves, it's stipulated that, um, no one's allowed to see them and that they have to remain under lock and key in each of the Opus Dei residences around the world. Um, so yeah, I mean like, you know, so, so the message that they are projecting and presenting to the world, um,

Is is, you know, people can't object to that. I mean, it's it's it's also this is an organization that's been recognized by the church. It has this legitimacy of being part of the Catholic Church. But there's this hidden underbelly of abuse, manipulation and conspiracy that there's really, you know, that's that's the real driver here.

Yeah. So this is 1930s Spain, Francisco Franco and the Civil War. Were there any Protestant denominations or was it almost entirely Catholic? No, this is entirely Catholic right from the start. Yeah. And then what are people getting out of Opus Dei that they couldn't get from their regular Catholic church they were going to? I guess what they tap into is –

They're trying to tap into people who want to go deeper into their faith, who maybe go to, you know, mass each day, but feel that they want to take things a step further. And within the church, traditionally, I mean, I guess Escribar spotted a niche for himself. So traditionally in the church, if you wanted to take to go deeper into your faith, what that meant was that you had to become a priest or a nun.

there was no kind of middle ground where you could maybe be a more serious Catholic. You're either just an everyday Catholic or you're a priest or nun. And so he created this kind of, this new area. And, you know, he found a lot of people did want to do that. But there's also, I mean, it's important to emphasize as well that there's a huge amount of, and this is still, you know, current as well. I mean,

There's a huge amount of grooming and manipulation and I guess cult-like targeting going on as well. I mean, and this was evident right from the early days. Escribar initially really struggled to find members for Opus Dei, but he was, I mean, there's a certain admiration I have for him. I mean, what he was doing was horrific and, you know, I guess abusive in many ways, but

How he basically developed this methodology for targeting vulnerable young men and enticing them into the, into the movement, coercing them to become members effectively. He, um,

He drew up this kind of step-by-step plan and had all of these rules about how you shouldn't target anyone over the age of 25 because they ask too many questions and how you should basically split people off from the pack and kind of go after them individually because, you know, that made things easier. How you should tell them not to talk about the conversations you were having with their family or friends. You know, these are standard rules.

cult-like practices that are used by many, many organizations today like Scientology and the rest of it. But, you know, this was a guy who was ahead of his time and coming up with these ideas all by himself. And, you know, these are techniques that the organization still uses today. I mean, they go after children. I mean, the

Just a couple of years back in Australia, in one of the Opus Dei schools, some of the students were encouraged to go to this homework club, which was a front to recruit these kids into Opus Dei. And one of the kids kind of looking around inside the Opus Dei center one day, he found a sheet with all of the names, the names of these young kids. And next to the names, the Opus Dei members had noted names

the weaknesses of each child, the vulnerabilities of each child, and also the potential strengths that each of these kids might offer to Opus Dei if they were recruited into the organization. And, you know, this is a system that was put together by the founder of Screwbar in the 30s, but which is very much present, you know, in Opus Dei centers all around the world, even today.

Yeah, it's amazing. It's almost like there's a cult playbook that everybody reads and then follows, but there isn't. So they must learn it through trial and error. They must just try a lot of different tactics, and these are the ones that work.

Yeah, absolutely. And also, I mean, I think what I find particularly dangerous about Opus Dei is the fact that because it's been approved and has this legitimacy from the Catholic Church, I think a lot of ordinary Catholics welcome the organization into their homes without really asking any questions. They assume that this is a benevolent, trustworthy organization because it has the stamp of approval from the Pope.

And so they welcome Opus Dei members into their homes. They send their kids to Opus Dei schools without really knowing anything about what's going on, without knowing anything about this hidden underbelly to the organization. Yeah, you're right. It was officially recognized in 1950 by Pope Pius XII and then made a personal prelature, 1982, by Pope John Paul II. What is a prelature?

So this was a... Opus Dei is the only personal product shirt in the history of the church. So this was a special, I guess, status that was invented in the 60s, but then not really used until Pope John Paul II came along. Pope John Paul II, before he'd been Pope, when he was just Archbishop Wojtyla from Krakow in Poland...

He used to travel to Rome, and every time he came to Rome, Opus Dei would basically foster a relationship with him. They were given platform for him to give speeches. They published many of his writings in books. They would fund this. They saw him as a rising star, and they were grooming him and targeting him. So when he became Pope in the late 70s,

He turned to Opus Dei as a natural ally. He'd been elected Pope. Pope John Paul I died within 30 days of being elected as Pope. And the conclave to elect his successor died.

just couldn't decide on anyone. I mean, they were in shock. You know, the guy that they'd elected to be Pope just a month earlier had suddenly died, been found dead in his bed. And it took them seven successive votes to finally elect his successor. And this outsider, Wojtyla, was chosen. He didn't really know how the Vatican power structure worked at

He was a conservative figure at a time when many parts of the church were progressive. And, you know, especially in the US, a lot of bishops were coming out and talking about humanitarian rights, this kind of thing. And so he turned to Opus Dei and he gave them this special status because he saw them as basically his personal army. So Opus Dei had operations all around the world.

He trusted them. They had a long-running relationship. He called them family. And so for him...

He saw Opus Dei as a group of fellow conservatives who would, I guess, push his message wherever they were in the world. And it was a way, I guess, of counteracting any progressive elements or bishops out there who weren't loyal to the Pope. I guess these were to be the Pope's personal ground troops across the world.

Yeah, interesting. Like the SS guards for Hitler became what they became. Yeah, interesting. Okay, just a couple of things on the grooming side. Are they grooming boys for homosexual sex as well as labor and that kind of thing? And are there young women being recruited as well for the straight sex?

People or what? Okay. So I guess there are two main groups of Opus Dei members, right? So there's the Numeri members. So these are...

the kind of, I guess, the elite core of the movement. These are people who dedicate their entire lives to Opus Dei. They take these kind of semi-vows of chastity, poverty, and critically, obedience to the movement. So these, I guess, they're the ground troops of the movement. They're the people that kind of run the organization and

At the same time, there are these supernumerary members. So these are like ordinary Catholics. So the vast majority of Opus Dei members are these supernumeraries. They're just ordinary Catholics that are drawn into the movement by its message or who've been targeted by Opus Dei because of their proximity to power or because of their wealth. So the numeraries are used to, I guess,

control, manipulate, collect information from the supernumeraries. Each supernumerary is allocated a numery spiritual guidance counselor who meets with them once a week, once every two weeks. And, you know, the supernumeraries are encouraged to open up their hearts and talk about the

What they're worried about, talk about how work is going, talk about money problems or, you know, their friends and family. And the numeraries are collecting information on them the whole time.

Okay. So, so, so the numeries are this, um, are essential to the way the entire organization happens because, um, it's the connection between, I guess, the headquarters and the underlying philosophy and all of these members, you know, they're the ones that is the kind of, I guess, the, um, the gel in the middle, the kind of the connection, the connection point. Right. Um,

So when Opus Dei is going out to recruit, when it's recruiting people from a young age, it's generally looking to replenish the numery ranks because what it needs is pliable individuals who are completely dedicated to the movement. These people live highly controlled existences. Like every minute of their lives is controlled. Their interactions with the outside world are controlled. And because...

Opus Dei needs to be confident that these are entirely trustworthy. You know, these numeraries, they're encouraged to inform on each other if they see that one of their brothers or sisters is not kind of acting in a way that's beneficial to Opus Dei. So when Opus Dei is recruiting kids from an early age, generally it's looking to recruit for this, the numeraries. The recruitment of the supernumeraries is very different because basically what Opus Dei is doing then is

They're trying to spot people who are in positions of power or influence or who are wealthy because that's how it's going to achieve its wider aims in society. But I guess perhaps what you're also hinting at is there's also this subclass of membership as well. These are the people that were initially called the Numeri Servants. The name was later changed to Numeri Assistants, maybe a little bit more PR friendly, I guess, rather than calling people servants. But these were...

Girls generally from impoverished backgrounds who are duped into joining Opus Dei, they're told that, you know, basically they're going to get an education and they can aspire to a better life. But basically what they effectively become is servants to the Numeri members. So these are...

are girls and women who are recruited into a life of servitude. Often they're not paid. They cook and clean for the male and female memories and for the elite members of Opus Dei. And, you know, that subclass of membership has been linked to human trafficking. So,

Just two weeks ago, federal prosecutors in Argentina brought formal accusations against Opus Dei for having trafficked teenage girls, for having recruited these girls on the promise of an education and a better life.

have basically coerced them into a life of servitude and then trafficked them around the world to wherever they were needed in these numery residences in the U.S. or in Europe or in Australia or wherever they were needed. Where are the parents of these kids? Or they just don't have parents? Well, the parents are told, the parents have sold this lie that, you know, basically, you know, so what happens, I mean, in the case of Argentina was,

Numerous members of Opus Dei would go out to these impoverished villages. Sometimes they had an Opus Dei priest with them to give this mirage of respectability. And they would go knocking on doors or go to families that they heard of and say, Oh, your daughter, yeah, the education she's getting here is not so great.

Why don't we take her with us to this school we're running in Buenos Aires where we're teaching young girls like your own how to cook? And, you know, it would be a great way for her to get a career in the hospitality sector. You know, this is a path to a better life. So the families have sold this lie. And then once the girls are taken out of their environment, they're living on their own at the Oba's Day school.

They are basically coerced into joining. I mean, you know, I've spoken to various women who told me about how the teachers who were supposed to be teaching them how to cook and teaching them kind of vocational or professional qualifications were basically the whole time telling them,

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for them, then they would go to hell. Their entire families would go to hell. And these poor kids and their kids, right? I mean, these poor kids, they're,

How do they process that? You know, they're not allowed to, in many cases, contact with their families either on telephone or via letters was highly controlled. You know, they weren't allowed to see them, you know, more than once a year or whatever. And so, you know, in that environment, it's little wonder that many of these girls just basically gave up and said, okay, fine, I'll do this. If this is what God wants, I'll do it. Wow. Amazing.

Yeah, there's no way some kid in that situation is going to say, you know, there are labor laws here where you have to pay. Right. That's why we have laws. And that's why we have police and legislators and so on. So how are they getting away with it? I mean, there's been labor laws against child labor malpractice for a century, at least in America. I don't know about other South American countries, but why are there no politicians or legislators intervening here?

Well, I mean, I think for many years this was a hidden problem. And also it's kind of complex as well. Like, you know, like these people are living like almost like nuns or priests because, you know, also, you know, the numery assistant vacation is only for girls and young women.

But the Numeri members themselves who've been also coerced into joining the organization, you know, they're also completely financially, emotionally dependent upon the organization. So, you know, they're also being abused. But I think a lot of people from the outside, they fall for this veneer of religiosity that's presented to them by Opus Dei. They...

it's difficult to kind of get your head around. Um, and, um, you know, speaking to some of the women that were involved in this case in Argentina as well, they, um, some of them tried for years to get, um, lawyers involved in fighting their cases. Um, I mean, one woman in Argentina told me she approached like three or four different lawyers, um, including I think someone in the United States, um,

And she was basically told, we've heard this time and time again, but Opus Dei are too powerful and there's no way we can take this on or whatever. Or they just simply didn't understand the complexity of what was going on. So yeah, I think it's this, what we were talking about before, this duality of this

um, veneer of holiness and good work that Opus Dei very successfully paints for the world outside and this hidden underbelly, but which I think many people and especially many Catholics find it very hard to believe. Um, like how could this possibly be going on? No, no, no. I mean, this, these must be stories made up by people who are,

who have an ax to grind or who, you know, who want to, to do some, some bad to help us day. Disgruntled employees, right? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it is astonishing how this happens.

back in the 90s, there was a group called the Cult Awareness Network that attempted to get people out of cults, usually contacted by parents. The kid is now like early 20s in one of these cults. And they'd go there and the now adult child would say, but I don't want to leave. I like it here. And then they started kidnapping him and like taking him to a hotel for two weeks and show him documentaries or whatever until they got deprogrammed.

But then there was a ruling that that was illegal. These are adults. You can't just take them away from somewhere. If they say, I want to be here, there's nothing you can do, including the parents. Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that. So in the 90s in the US as well, I guess on the back of the Cult of Awareness Network, a group of parents of Opus Dei numeris and numery assistants, they also set up a website called the Opus Dei Awareness Network. And they were trying to highlight...

the clear abuse and manipulation and grooming that have been taking place in Opus Dei for years. Over the years, people have been sounding the alarm about Opus Dei right across the world. But somehow Opus Dei has just been able to brush this off as just, as you're saying, disgruntled employees who have an axe to grind. And...

What I really hope with my book, because what I hope to prove with my book is that so we've had access to a number of internal documents that have been secrets for many, many years. So these are the writings of the founder and his successors, which basically detail this systematic control and abuse and manipulation that's wrought by the organization on young kids and other members of

What I hope to prove in my book is that this isn't just a few disaffected parties who are, you know, who want to hurt Opus Dei in some way. This is, you know, these are systems that are inbuilt into the regime, which the regime has been kind of founded on. And so it's, I hope by...

exposing this in black and white, quoting the founder's words, that people will begin to realize that there's something deeply wrong with this organization.

Yeah, I think your book will do what Lawrence Wright's book did on Scientology, Going Clear. And then they should do a documentary on this. Well, you're probably already working on that, I'm guessing. Yeah, so that's the PS on the Cult Awareness Network, by the way, is they got sued by Scientology, who won, and then took them over. And then for years, people were calling them going, I have a member who's a, I have a family member who's part of this cult called Scientology. Oh, that's not a cult. We know all about that. It's a great organization. Oh, okay.

Well, I mean, what I'm fascinated, so, I mean, so the Pope himself being Argentinian is acutely aware of what's been happening. So he's been trying to push Opus Dei into reform. He's been taking very delicate steps because Opus Dei is a very powerful organization within the church. And the Pope, I guess for understandable reasons,

He doesn't want to create this huge schism within the church. He doesn't want to split the church apart. So he's been very delicately basically sending the message to Opus Dei that you guys need to reform. And they've been ignoring him. And I think, you know, there's a fight that's very slowly building up, which I think will be coming to a head shortly after.

But it's, yeah, it's very clear that the church is aware that something needs to be done about this organization and something I think will be done in the weeks and months ahead. But to come back to your point about Scientology, I mean, yeah,

Lawrence Wright's book was amazing. And I think there's an acute general awareness of the dangers of Scientology, of the Church of Scientology, among the general population today.

But this organization is still able to recruit, is still able to flourish. And I do wonder what will happen with Opus Dei. So even if the Pope comes out and says, right, we're going to close you down, which I'm not sure is quite going to happen because that's going to cause more problems than it's going to solve, I think, for the church. But, you know, but let's assume it came out and closed down Opus Dei.

I don't think that would be the end of it. You know, I think... I don't know how this is going to play out. And I'm not sure that even my book and, you know, even if...

the book becomes a bestseller and everyone knows about Opus Dei, I'm still not sure that that would be the end of the organization. I think it would still probably be able to continue to recruit. Yeah, I think that's probably true. Because in the case of Scientology, I've been hearing since, well, really since the late 90s, early 2000s, when the documents started to be leaked online.

And then there were a number of books by disgruntled former members and so on. They're still around and they own a lot of property and they have a lot of money invested. I mean, like billions apparently. So even if the membership plummets, they still have the resources to keep going. It doesn't have to be a lot. I mean, here you quoted total membership of Opus Dei at 93,784 people.

Well, there's a billion Catholics. I mean, this is nothing. How are they able to wield this power? Well, money, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I think you've kind of hit the nail on the head there. I mean, I think, so Opus Dei over the years, well, I mean, a large part of the book, I should say to your listeners and viewers, is that it's dedicated to the story of how this organization basically hijacked a bank in Spain in the 1950s.

and turned it into its personal cash machine. So Opus Dei was able to siphon hundreds of millions, at least if not billions of dollars from this bank over the years, and to basically fund its expansion to every corner of the world and to accumulate vast amounts of especially real estate assets, but not just real estate, also cash and bonds and stocks all around the world.

And Opus Dei has been very clever about, um, it's, um, about structuring this, this wealth. So it operates, um, on a, a principle of arms length. Um, so it distances itself from any of any, any of, um, this wealth. What happens is, um,

There are hundreds and hundreds of Opus Dei-linked foundations all around the world. In the US alone, I've identified about 100 Opus Dei-linked nonprofits, which between them have assets of around a billion dollars.

the US isn't even a big country for Opus Dei. In somewhere like Spain, its membership is probably like 10, 15 times bigger. And so if it has a billion dollars of assets in the US, then you can only imagine what it has in somewhere like Spain or Italy or Mexico. And the way this web operates is that

Opus Dei decides who the directors of each of these non-profit organizations should be. And in some cases, it takes the decisions about what the foundations should do. So I met this one guy in Spain who told me he was a director of one of these foundations, one of these non-profits organizations.

And he said one day he was just presented with a sheet of paper that was basically the minutes of a meeting that had supposedly taken place, but which had never actually happened. And this guy had supposedly been at this meeting and all of these decisions had been taken. It was a complete fiction. You know, basically the national headquarters of Opus Dei had decided what was going to happen at this foundation. But again,

Legally, it has nothing at all to do with these nonprofits and foundations. Whenever there's any abuse or criminality, it just washes its hands, says it's nothing to do with us. But in reality, it's completely controlling and directing. It has this vast web of companies, foundations, and nonprofits all around the world that are doing its actions. And I think just to your point then about even if the Pope comes out and closes them down,

Well, it's impossible to trace this network anymore.

So I think what could happen is that Opus Dei would shrink back into the shadows and we'll have all of these pockets of cash and wealth that it can fall back on to restart itself, possibly under another name. But, you know, from the grassroots up. So, yeah, I think that's certainly something that we should keep our eyes on. You know, if even if the Vatican does intervene in this organization, then

it's going to be interesting to see whether it's actually able to kind of capture the wealth and the money behind it. I see, yeah. So these are independent organizations such that either the Pope or even if the state stepped in to charge them with labor law violations or whatever, these other organizations can say, we don't have anything to do with them. We are an independent. Here's our filings, our paperwork, our board of directors. It has nothing to do with that. And then they're clear.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So your on-ramp into the story was covering the collapse of the Banco Popular. Talk about that. How did it collapse? If they're so good at handling money, what happened? So I came into this story completely by accident. I was never looking to write a story about Opus Dei. I mean, I'm a financial reporter. I was sent to Spain to cover the collapse of this bank. But the more I dug into the story, the less sense it seemed to make. I mean...

Two years after the collapse of the bank, what I found interesting was that many of the investors who'd lost their money were trying to sue. They're trying to get their money back. But the largest shareholder of all, this thing called the syndicates, this group of seemingly, I mean, coming back to what we were just talking about of these foundations and whatever, these seemingly independent foundations were

had kind of clubbed together and they owned about 10% of the bank, a stake which at its peak was worth about $2 billion. And they were all, or almost all, connected to Opus Dei. And they had basically had this controlling...

in the bank for 40, 50 years. The syndicate was the latest kind of, I guess, it had had kind of various...

formats kind of over the years, but the syndicate was the latest one. And yeah, I just kind of basically began to investigate. And one day I met the former chairman of the bank whose brother was a member of Opus Dei. They'd run the bank together, but this guy was not a member of Opus Dei. And I said, so what, what was this syndicate? And he, he told me it was 100% Opus Dei. And so from there I started to dig and it was, you know, it's a bit of a cliche, but it was absolutely in this case,

you know, another follow the money thing. And so that's, that's exactly what I did. I followed the money and it took me into this rabbit hole from which I'm just starting to emerge right now. And although I keep, I keep getting dragged back into this rabbit hole as, as more and more things. Yeah. So what happened to all those billions of dollars and did the, you know, regular customers get any of their money back?

So, no, I mean, there are still, there are cases still ongoing. So I should be clear as well. There's no implication in the book that Opus Dei was directly responsible for the collapse of the bank. But what I believe is that the need to protect this unusual ownership structure

was indirectly responsible for the collapse of the bank. So normally when a bank gets into trouble or a company gets into trouble, what you would do is you would look for an outside saviour. You would invite another investor to come in to buy a chunk of the bank or buy a piece of your company to give you the cash to carry on, to fill the hole and carry on. But they couldn't do that because...

inviting someone in from the outside was to upset this delicate power balance within the bank and would risk exposing all of these financial links to Alper's day. So, you know, I do believe that this unusual on-ship structure was indirectly responsible for the collapse of the bank. And this was a normal Spanish bank. You know, this is the equivalent of like

You know, JP Morgan Chase collapsing or whatever, you know, like, and, and this was, you know, ordinary Spaniards were, you know, paying the wages or getting the mortgages or, you know, having the savings at this bank. This was a high street bank. Everyone knew this, this bank in Spain. It was a, you know, familiar to, to, to every single Spaniard. And this was a conspiracy kind of hiding in plain sight, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing.

All right, let's talk about the influence of Opus Dei on American politics and society, which will surprise many people. I was telling somebody about your book last night at a party in

And they go, give me an example. I said, well, you realize that six of the nine Supreme Court justices are Catholic, right? Yeah, I kind of know that. Well, guess how that happened? I don't know. I said, have you ever heard of the Federalist Society? Yeah, I've heard of them. Okay, and then you're off and rolling. So talk about some of that. Okay, so like, okay, I'm going to preface this section by saying that –

I'm not a conspiracy theorist and, and there's no implication in my book that there's some guy in Rome at the head of Opus Dei who is sending like orders down to people like Leonard Leo or Kevin Roberts in Washington, telling them what to do. No, that's not what's going on here. Right. But what Opus Dei has always done right from the start is it's gone after people in positions of power and,

Because what Opus Dei wants to do is it wants to infiltrate government and the media and business because, you know, it wants to create this hidden army to what it calls carry out the orders of Christ. And so over the past, especially over the past 30 years, Opus Dei,

plowed resources into penetrating the Washington DC political and judicial circles. And, you know, we now, you know, you scratch the surface in Washington, especially on, I guess, you know, the conservative part of, of Washington, you scratch the surface and you're going to find Opus Dei members or people allied to Opus Dei. I mean, some of the biggest names are,

on the political and kind of judicial rights. You know, people like Leonard Leo, who is the guy credited with orchestrating a conservative takeover of the US Supreme Court. People like Kevin Roberts, who...

who is the president of the Heritage Foundation and the architect of Project 2025. People like Bill Barr, the former attorney general, Pat Cipollone, the former White House chief counsel, Mick Mulvaney, the kind of the budget czar under Trump.

These are all people who are either members of Opus Dei or allied to Opus Dei. So Leo, for example, he's a director of the Catholic Information Center, which is the Opus Dei hub in central Washington. Robert, he's a regular at the CIC. He gets his spiritual guidance from the Opus Dei priests at the CIC. He's given speeches where he talks about how he takes inspiration from the Opus Dei founder. Um,

Bill Barr was, was also on the board of directors at the CIC. And, you know, as was Pat Cipollone, Mick Mulvaney is a, is a known member of Opus Dei. Opus Dei has very successfully infiltrated the Washington conservative Catholic elite. I would argue that Opus, the Opus Dei philosophy is now the dominant philosophy within those circles. And,

And just to give you kind of, you know, to put numbers on this as well. So Opus Dei has about 3,000 members in the US. 800 of them. This is it.

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Those are based in Washington, D.C. Now, Washington, D.C. isn't a big Catholic town, right? You know, the big Catholic towns in the U.S. in places like Chicago and Boston, maybe even, you know, New York or Miami these days because of the Latino populations. Washington, D.C. isn't a big Catholic town.

But for Opus Dei, it's the biggest Opus Dei community in the US is in DC. It has 800 members in DC and it has countless other sympathizers and affiliates, people like Leonard Leo. Yeah.

I truly believe that these days to get ahead in life in D.C., it helps to be either a member of Opus Dei or at least kind of be operating within these circles. So Opus Dei has absolutely penetrated the conservative Republican circles in D.C. And what is that philosophy? So, I mean, as we were saying before, so Opus Dei has...

uses its kind of religiosity and spirituality to basically entice people in. But...

the hidden underbelly of the movement is that it wants to infiltrate society in order to... This is a deeply reactionary, anti-modern group. So what they want to do, and the speeches given by Leonard Leo and people like Kevin Roberts really echo what Escribá was doing back in the day in the early 30s in Spain,

Leonard Leo has talked about how he wants to crush liberal dominance. I mean, basically these people want to turn back the clock. They want to rip up, you know, obviously,

The anti-abortion, as are, you know, I was going to say many Catholics, but actually I think polls show that actually for most ordinary Catholics, abortion isn't really a thing that's high on their agenda. So obviously, you know, abortion is high on these people's agenda. Things like same-sex marriage, you know,

But their ambitions go far beyond that. And Project 2025 gives us some insight into the types of change that they want to push through. But how far we've come since JFK gave that speech in 1960 saying, I will not let the Vatican influence my decisions if I'm president. What was that? Well, yeah, I mean, I mean.

It's extraordinary. So yes, I mean, absolutely. So before, when he was running to be elected president, JFK felt the need to come out and make a speech to reassure the American people that he would be

he would be ruling in the interests of American people, that he wouldn't be taking orders from Rome. Now, what's kind of an interesting twist of that is that Rick Santorum, who himself...

who is very close to Opus Dei and who has given speeches about how he admires Escriva, the founder. He made this speech at an Opus Dei conference in, I think it was 2002. So he was invited to Rome by Opus Dei. They paid for him to make the trip over and he was invited to make the speech. And he said that JFK was wrong.

to have made the speech. Wow. You know, that basically we ought to rethink this relationship, which was extraordinary. I mean, like, yeah, like...

Right. All right. So the line to influence is not that direct through, I don't know, money or whatever, but that the people doing it, Centorum and Barr and so on, actually believe it. This is their philosophy. They think, you know, abortion should be banned or gay marriage should be reversed or whatever. Right.

Men should be head of the household and all that kind of old-fashioned stuff. And they actually think that is better for the country if we go in that direction. And also, it's important to understand that these people, whether they're Opus Dei members or not, you know, the contact with Opus Dei means that they're weaned on this philosophy. So the priests of Opus Dei

I haven't met a single progressive or liberal Opus Dei priest. Opus Dei priests, it's interesting, right? Unlike your everyday Catholic priests, who I guess, you know, these are men who,

who decide for themselves that they want to go into the priesthood and they, I guess they choose whichever order or, and, or they just kind of become priests through the local diocese or whatever. But Opus Dei priests are different. So Opus Dei selects people within its own numery ranks. So these are the people we were talking about before. These are the, I guess in this case, the young boys that are groomed at a young age and kind of coerced into joining the movement.

Once these people are formally numeries and one, you know, Opus Dei is controlling them, watching them the entire time. At some point, Opus Dei, if Opus Dei is happy with you as a numery and they think you're dependable and reliable and that I guess that you're

you share the same kind of politics and philosophy, then they will pick you out to become a priest. So, you know, basically it's, Opus Dei priests don't become priests because it's something that they want to do themselves. In fact, people join Opus Dei precisely because they don't want to become priests. They want to live out their faith more seriously as lay people. But at some point, these numeries get a tap on the shoulder from the higher ups and they're told, well,

Rome has decided that you're going to become a priest. So Opus Dei priests are selected precisely because they share the right philosophy. And so when these guys are taking confession or giving sermons or whatever, the Opus Dei higher-ups can be confident that they're pushing the right message, the right agenda. In the Catholic Church,

There's a wide variety of views among, you know, you can find all kinds of different priests from priests who are radically conservatives to, to priests who are, you know, quite supportive of progressive LGBTQ plus agendas and whatever, you know, there's a whole, there's a wide range within Opus Dei, not so much. And that's because, you know, they are, you know,

Attaining the Opus Dei priesthood is something that is in itself highly controlled. This Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, they track judges through their careers such that when it comes time for a president to appoint judges,

Oh, or nominate a Supreme Court justice. Here's a list and they have, you know, ratings or something. Is this something like the NRA gives politicians ratings on how gun friendly they are? And what's wrong with that? What do the Democrats do? By the way, my...

person last night I was talking to said, well, what do the Democrats do? Do they have the equivalent of a Federalist Society on the other side? I said, I have no idea. Well, if you listen to Leonard Lear, then he certainly thinks that the Democrats have similar foundations. But it's, but the, I mean, okay, there's no, this is just an interesting kind of parallel thing because I don't think the two of them are related necessarily.

But in many ways, Opus Dei operates very much like the Federalist Society. But it uses religion to collect information on its members. So the numeraries are allocated, these supernumeraries to look after. And...

they have to do these kind of spiritual guidance sessions. And the whole time the numeraries are collecting information on them and the compiling reports on the supernumeraries, which are then passed up to the national headquarters. So, you know, Opus Dei, it's like the Federalist Society on steroids. You know, they're not just collecting information on lawyers and ranking them or whatever. They're collecting information on politicians and business people and journalists and academics and teachers. You know, this is like,

the Federalist Society for everything. Yeah, it's incredible. All right, a couple other points here that people recognize. Prop 8 here in California to define marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. That was backed by Opus Dei funding. So yeah, I mean, so this was...

was an organization called the National Organization for Marriage, which was headed by an Opus Dei numery based out of Princeton, who runs a series of nonprofits which have in the past used Opus Dei money to and have been directly financed and helped by the Opus Dei higher ups in New York and in Rome to push this agenda forward. And actually this guy, Luis Tejas, he he

He struck up an alliance with the Mormon church to fund this vehicle. And they used millions and millions of dollars.

to, um, to get Prop 8 onto the ballot papers. And yeah, they, they, yeah, it was an extraordinary effort. Um, Yeah, the funny thing about that was that, um, you know, Catholics and Christians tend to think of Mormons as a cult. Uh, but here, I guess the, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Right. Well, at least we're on the same side on this issue. Yeah. An alliance of cults. Yeah. Absolutely. An alliance of cults. All right. Yeah, go ahead. But,

I was going to say, but this figure, Luis Tellez, who I spoke to for the book, I mean, he's also got a bunch of other initiatives that he's going. I mean, one of the big things he's doing now is he's really seeking to expand the presence of Opus Dei on campuses across Ivy League universities right across the US. I mean...

They're really trying to, I guess, infiltrate the next generation. I mean, they've very successfully infiltrated Washington, D.C. And now they're going after tomorrow's leadership. They really want to indoctrinate tomorrow's, you know, the kids, today's kids and tomorrow's leaders. Amazing. Yeah, because back in the 70s and 80s, there was the Campus Crusade for Christ, where they tried to do that in college campuses.

I would imagine it's much more challenging now that campuses have gone so far left. But maybe that'll actually help them because so many regular people kind of see that a little bit of craziness there on the super far left. But I think, I mean, I guess, I mean...

There's been this kind of bifurcation in society. So, you know, everyone's gone almost to the extreme. And so I think if you're even slightly conservative leaning on campus, Opus Dei can be a home for you, you know, because if the other side is so extreme, then why not also go, you know, to the conservative extreme? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amy Coney Barrett, another one, you know, ripped off right off the headlines. And you write about when Obama gave his nomination and the and the Republicans just immediately blocked it. But that I just thought that was so unfair. I mean, it was just they just made up this rule like, well, if it's in the year of the election, then we can't, you know, proceed with the nomination.

And the guy that was, you know, basically driving that media and political campaign was Leonard Lee. He was using these various dark money vehicles to fund the campaign. And...

And actually, you know, one of those vehicles was being run by this supernumerary, this Opus Dei couple that was close to Leonard Leo. And the whole, this whole network of, it became known as the Judicial Crisis Network, this kind of vehicle that they used to fund the media campaign for

This had been an idea that had been cooked up at a dinner between Leo and this kind of Opus Dei couple and Antonin Scalia, which, you know, as we were saying before, was a regular attendee at the Opus Dei retreats. I mean, so like I was saying before, like these people aren't receiving direct orders from Rome. But what Opus Dei has done is, I guess,

infiltrate and foster this network of like-minded radical Catholics who are now part of this community, this very powerful community with huge amounts of money at their disposal to push through their agenda. Yeah, it's like all the recent stories of Clarence Thomas and all his trips and gifts.

All that stuff. And then last year there was a story about him at Bohemian Grove. You probably know about Bohemian Grove in California there. It's, it is like an old boys club. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, you just gotta, you gotta know that in the privacy of their conversations and their private jets or wherever they are, you know, there, there's influence there. This is how the world works. Yeah, no, yeah, that's absolutely right. All right, Garrett, this is great. Really, really love the book. Here it is again.

the cult of dark money, human trafficking, and right-wing conspiracy inside the Catholic Church. Not conspiracy theory, but an actual conspiracy, because it really is going on. So keep up the good work. I hope this is made into a film and becomes a highly influential work, because it's important. Michael, thank you for helping me get the word out about this important subject, and I really appreciate you having me on. Thank you.