Bernard Law's Harvard Days -- III: Was He Opus Dei?

From the outline of the Fr Feeney case in the last post, it's hard to avoid thinking that the Archdiocese of Boston, having done all it could, including excommunicating students at the St Benedict Center, to kill enthusiasm among Catholic students at Harvard, then went looking for a way to rekindle Catholic enthusiasm at Harvard. Cardinal Cushing then settled on Opus Dei, a new arrival in the US. It had established a first foothold in Chicago, but it began a second effort in Boston. Its main focus was on the Harvard Catholic Club, which had been in existence under different names since the 1890s, but which had apparently faded as interest in the St Benedict Center grew.

As we saw in yesterday's post, Fr Joseph Muzquiz, an Opus Dei priest assigned to create a US presence for the movement in the early 1950s, met in 1951 with Fr Lawrence Riley, Cardinal Cushing's secretary and briefly the chaplain of the Harvard Catholic Club, about establishing an Opus Dei presence at Harvard. Cushing approved the idea, and the Opus Dei organization grew at Harvard via the Catholic Club in the period between 1951 and 1953.

My own view of Opus Dei continues to be a version of "by their fruits": the movement became active and increasingly influential in the Vatican, as well as in the US, from the late 1940s onward. That period can hardly have been more disastrous for the practice of Christian morality, whatever the influence Opus Dei has been able to exert in the Church or the world. This discussion refers to Opus Dei's influence in Spain, where the movement started, and where it has continued to wield political and economic influence:

Things did not go well [in the 1950s] for the network of interests and enterprises woven around the "Work", as they internally called the institution. Mostly led by people without experience, the group ventures into the realms of finance, publishing, and international trade, ended in internal and external conflicts, spectacular failures, and a reputation for immorality and arbitrariness that have subsequently characterized the business ventures of men whose mentors proclaimed the idea of sanctification of work.

I've repeatedly characterized Msgr William Stetson, an Opus Dei priest and highly influential figure in The Work in the US, in this blog as a "bungler", and the more I learn, the more I'm inclined to say that he's not an exception. Still, I recognize that there are devout and sincere people in the movement.

Interestingly, although Opus Dei prefers to keep a low profile and discourages members from identifying themselves as such, there are two major histories of Opus Dei activities in Boston and at Harvard that cover the time Bernard Law and William Stetson were there. One is linked above, by Frederico M Requena and focuses more on the later 1950s, although it's valuable in covering the early meetings with Cushing and Riley. The other has frequently been referenced here, by John Arthur Gueguen, Jr, himself apparently an Opus Dei numerary. I quoted extensively from it here on September 8. The relevant part is worth repeating:

Searching online, I discovered a document The Early Days of Opus Dei in Boston As Recalled by the First Generation (1946-1956), by John Arthur Gueguen, Jr. This was compiled primarily from the memories of the principals, including Msgr Stetson. On page 73, we find in a footnote,

Stetson and Law had met at the Harvard Catholic Club in fall 1950, shortly after Stetson entered Harvard College. Law introduced Stetson to other Catholic students, including Carl Schmitt, then a senior.

On p 74, in a footnote:

Law, Stetson, Bucciarelli and others met frequently at the early Mass at St. Paul’s, the parish that served Harvard students. Several of them sang in the choir.

In a footnote on p 85:

In his senior year, Law served as the [Catholic] Club’s vice-president and sang in St. Paul’s student choir with Stetson.

On pp 102-103:

Like Bucciarelli, Bill Stetson had been introduced to the Work by Bernard Law during the 1952-53 school year, when he was a junior.

Clearly by this account, Law had become a big wheel in the Catholic Club and is portrayed as being the center of the group that was attracted to Opus Dei via the club. In fact, one might reasonably conclude that the Harvard Catholic Club, moribund following the St Benedict Center fiasco, had been taken over by Opus Dei and was from this period effectively functioning as an Opus Dei front. And Law was at its center.

However, although the Trimount House Opus Dei residence was complete by the summer of 1953, Law graduated from Harvard in June of that year and moved on to seminary, so his direct involvement ends there. However, this site lists Law, at the time Archpriest of St Mary Major in Rome, among "Cardinals who promote or are linked to Opus Dei, not necessarily members".

My informant, who was acquainted with Law during his time as Bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, said that William Stetson during this period had some type of traveling assignment with Opus Dei, which would have preceded his time as vicar in Chicago, and he met frequently with Law on his various itineraries. He also reported that Law had "a bookshelf about ten feet long with books on Opus Dei" in his personal library at the time -- but that could be attributed simply to Law's general interest in new developments in the Church.

There can be little question that Law was very familiar with Opus Dei, he was generally sympathetic to it, and he found it very useful at various times in advancing his own career. However, Opus Dei by itself is not a sole explanation for Law's advancement, and his agenda was not driven exclusively by Opus Dei.