Church Militant’s Hatred for the SSPX Explained: Part 3 - Do Opus Dei and Church Militant Share a Nest?

Birds of a feather flock together….and sometimes nest together as well!

For 25 years I have published a quarterly newsletter in the Diocese of Arlington. I use my personal home address for mailing rather than a P.O. Box. Anyone who noticed that the address for the newsletter and my home address are the same could reasonably conclude that I am deeply involved and committed to the work. In fact, it would be unreasonable to conclude that I had nothing to do with it. My name is actually on the newsletter, but let’s presume for my point, that I published anonymously. It wouldn’t take much of a Sherlock to figure out my connection. 

Which brings us back to the connections between Church Militant, Opus Dei, and Opus Dei supporters. 

Let me begin with what sounds like a joke. Networthspot.com, which calls itself the “largest resource that estimates influencers’ net worth,” lists OD’s worth at $100,000 but say it could be as high as $250,000. You read that right. The $3 billion OD organization is seen to have a net worth of only a quarter of a million dollars at most. How could that be? How could one of the wealthiest Church-affiliated organizations in the world get such a ludicrous summary of its net worth? How could an organization with a building in Rome that takes up an entire block and a massive headquarters in New York City, and about 2,000 OD residences around the world get such a “net worth” evaluation? 

Good question.

Perhaps it’s because of OD’s accounting practices which hide their massive holdings. Few, if any, are listed as belonging to OD by name, but the organization continues to multiply and grow with many none-the-wiser to the true scope of OD’s financial power and influence. Most of OD’s schools and residences operate under secular names with nothing indicating a connection to Opus Dei or even religion. Try to find a residence with the name of a saint; you’ll be looking until the final judgment. Take a few examples. Their female residence in South Bend near Notre Dame iscalled the “Southold Center for Education.” Their national office in Manhattan, a 17 story building on Lexington Ave., is called “Murray Hill Place.” One of our daughters attended OD’s Oakcrest High School for a few years when it was located in D.C. Their brother school was called The Heights. Virtually all of OD’s holdings use the same secular disguises while the programs offered in these “charitable and educational organizations” are all based on OD spirituality and practices.

The Irish Times recently ran an article by Arthur Beasley titled “Opus Dei Charity Planning Multibillion-Euro Apartments Scheme in South Dublin” another OD for-profit enterprise expected to rake in millions for the “work of God.” So under what name is this project being advanced? The Glenavy Educational Foundation. If you look them up on-line,  there is NO indication that Glenavy is connected to Opus Dei in any way. 

Researcher Randy Engel exposes the manipulative way Opus Dei operates in her article, “All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain.” She links many of OD’s holdings to “auxiliary societies” operated by supernumeraries who essentially act as front groups with names that keep OD so far in the background as to be virtually invisible to those not in-the-know. She writes that, “Even when such entities are not technically owned by the Prelature, they are subject to the authority of the Prelature. Such an individual may become merely a ‘front man’ or ‘shell’ or ‘public face’ for what is, in reality, an Opus Dei operation.”

So back to Mike Voris and Church Militant. You no doubt thought Real Catholic TV, the precursor of Church Militant, was a project of Michael Voris, but it was not! It was operated by Greenstar Enterprises, Inc. run by OD supernumerary Marc Brammer. The organization shares his home address in South Bend, IN. So how did the media partnership begin? Voris met Brammer in 2008 when he gave a lecture on “the role of Catholic media in the age of the internet” at the Windmoor Center, another Opus Dei residence, this time in South Bend. That’s where Voris and Brammer first planned their venture, Real Catholic TV, with Brammer providing a quarter of a million for the startup and owning the organization. Brammer and Voris later separated when Terry Carroll arrived on the scene with his big bucks. Carroll’s hatred for the SSPX was so deep that he described their activities as worse than abortion and labeled all those who supported them as “spiritual pornographers.” 

One particularly interesting fact about the media startup of Real Catholic TV is that their original studio (They moved in 2012 to their current address at 2840 Hilton Rd. In Ferndale.) was located at 22007 Woodward Ave. also in Ferndale. That was also the address of an Opus Dei center that opened in about 2006. OD priests offered Mass and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament there and ran a number of OD events on the property based on OD spirituality. So from at least 2008-2012 Voris was intimately involved with OD, their priests and their spirituality, nesting side by side so to speak.

What’s Voris’ current status with the group? Does OD still share the nest? I haven’t researched who provides Mass at the new studio — yet. Would it be surprising if OD continues their cozy relationship with Voris and company? Are they the deep pockets behind CM?

And speaking of Mike Voris, is he one more front man, a “cooperator” in “the work.” That would explain a lot about the vicious attacks on the SSPX and CM’s failure to examine with the same magnifying glass the many, many scandals associated with Opus Dei including sex abuse.

I’ll close by echoing one of Randy’s questions. Is St. Michael’s Media an Opus Dei apostolate? OD engages in many media works. Is CM just one more?

TO BE CONTINUED….