Archives: Resources

As the largest Catholic lay organization in the world,1 the Knights of Columbus can be found in many parishes, where it has traditionally performed charitable works, led fundraisers to help the needy and brought communities together at pancake suppers.

But the Knights have a darker side. The order has pushed a conservative agenda ranging from the highly specific—a complaint against highschoolers reading Catcher in the Rye 2—to systemic opposition to reproductive choice and marriage equality through sizable donations to programs run by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and other conservative organizations. The Knights of Columbus uses its manpower and money to push for legislation that does not match the beliefs of many Catholics or the will of the electorate. The Knights continue to wage a decades-long battle against abortion legislation, but what stands out now is the scale of its political expenditures—more than $10 million since 2004—and this does not include funds from the thousands of local fraternity councils and assemblies. The Knights’ funding of anti-same-sex marriage campaigns goes towards a cause that is rejected by most Catholics—polling data reflects a stronger support for same-sex marriage among Catholics than any other Christian faith group, or the American population as a whole.

Opus Dei (Latin for “the Work of God”) is one of the most conservative orders in the Catholic church. Founded in Spain, Opus Dei is especially influential in Latin America because of the relationships it has cultivated in political and business circles. Members and sympathizers of Opus Dei hold high-level positions in various governments and it is one of the main forces supporting conservative activities in the region. It vehemently opposes the promotion and provision of a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services.

In just the last decade, people tied to Opus Dei participated in two right-wing coups d’état in Latin America — in Venezuela in 2002 and in Honduras in 2009. In addition, some of the leading personalities on the Latin American right were educated in Opus Dei schools or have ties to it either as members or sympathizers.

Opus Dei’s participation in the business world has also been significant. There, many of its members tend to display a degree of pragmatism that is not apparent in their approach to sexual and family relations, positions that have affected public policy in countries such as Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia, Argentina and others.

However, the public face of Opus Dei has perhaps been most affected not by its activities or ideas, many of which are questionable, but rather with the publication of the novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown which has sold about 100 million copies worldwide, and presents Opus Dei as an evil and even murderous semi-secretive organization.

Priests for Life national director Frank Pavone has spent more than 15 years trying vainly to grow his Catholic antichoice group into the mass clerical movement envisioned in its rhetoric, only to find himself banished to a Texan wasteland.

In a country with some 40,000 Catholic priests, Priests for Life (PFL) has never claimed more than 5,000 members—and quietly stopped counting some time around the turn of the 21st century. Unapologetic electoral campaigning, and unabashed cooperation with the most militant antichoice figures, have not brought PFL membership numbers to match the New York priest’s ambitions.

Pavone’s nonprofit says it is “for everyone who wants to stop abortion and euthanasia,” “not an association that seeks to be some sort of separate and elite group of priests who claim to be more pro-life than all the rest”1; it boasts the church hierarchy’s approval, strict orthodoxy and a board of archbishops and cardinals. Even by PFL’s own optimistic estimates, however, Pavone appears never to have attracted a membership of more than one in five US priests. His reaction has been to all but give up on the existing priesthood, which he regularly castigates as too timid on abortion, and to seek to mold young priests in his image at his new Texas refuge.

The American Life League (ALL) is on the right wing of the antichoice movement, marginalized and isolated even among ostensible allies. Although ALL has made many ambitious statements of intent since it was founded some 25 years ago, it has failed to deliver on many of its promises and has attracted sharp criticism for apparent financial missteps.

So extreme are ALL’s views on abortion and other subjects that it has regularly denounced such reliable conservatives as George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh for failing to adopt ALL’s own extremism. The league has taken fire from other antichoice groups and—despite oft-professed devotion to the Vatican—from church leaders.

In 2004, a spokeswoman for Washington, DC, archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCarrick sought to distance him from an ALL campaign for denial of communion to prochoice politicians. She told the Washington Post McCarrick had been “very clear” that “our teaching” allows Catholics to decide whether to receive communion.1 Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the firmly antichoice National Right to Life Committee, said of ALL in 2003, “I think they’re more interested in making a statement than making a difference.”