News From The Alternate Universe

Via an IBM Selectric 251 typewriter, I recently received a news digest from the alternate universe -- that is, the one in which Dr Walter Bishop is Secretary of Defense, and the Nixon dollar is US currency.

WASHINGTON: Longtime Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court William H Stetson today announced his retirement. Stetson is best known as the author of the majority opinion in the Green v Burton case, in which the court, citing the impact on birth rates and the particular damage done to minority communities, ruled that the state has a compelling interest in banning abortions except in a limited number of cases.

However, Stetson was the author of numerous opinions that on one hand sought to sustain the best interests of the poor, while promoting overall social cohesion by applying what he frequently cited as "natural law".

Stetson, a Harvard Law graduate in 1957, has long been rumored to be a high-ranking member, called a "numerary", in the Roman Catholic Opus Dei prelature. However, Stetson has kept a low personal profile throughout his time on the bench, and Opus Dei policy discourages members from acknowledging their membership in the secretive organization.

Opus Dei recruits members at the beginning of their professional careers who seem likely to achieve influential positions in their fields, so that they can promote policies that, in the view of the Roman Catholic Church, will work to the good of society and further spiritual goals.

Stetson was first appointed to the Supreme Court by President Nelson Rockefeller.

Now, I have no idea what else is going on in that universe, except I believe Honorius V is now pope over there. But it looks like Opus Dei is working much more as it was meant to. On this side, the situation is more like what we see in this discussion:

Although Opus Dei never discloses the numbers of its members by category and function, my guess is that the majority of the numeraries today are employed in education, ecclesiastical jobs and the internal bureaucracy. . . . Little by little, Opus Dei has become clerical, and nowadays, the majority of its regional and national hierarchy are priests. A kind of social endogamy and fortress mentality is experienced as protection by those inside [the] ghetto [from] those outside. Many of the numeraries come from supernumeraries' homes, attend Opus Dei schools, graduate to its universities, go to Rome, and once trained, are assigned to the internal bureaucracy or the educational network without exercising a secular profession or having worldly experience.