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The following is from ( from "The Pope and the New Apocalpse", by Stephen D. Mumford, published in 1986: )
"The Vatican acts in part, often soundlessly and most effectively, through a relatively small number of Americans who give the Church their loyalty for reasons unrelated to religious practice, but rather for advancement, power and privilege. This is accomplished with great skill and subtlety through secret organizations such as Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta.
According to Father Andrew Greeley, "Opus Dei is a devious, antidemocratic, reactionary, semi-fascist institution, desperately hungry for absolute power in the Church and quite possibly very close now to having that power. Calling the group "authoritarian and power-mad:" the American Catholic priest and author said, "Opus Dei is an extremely dangerous organization because it appeals to the love of secrecy and the power lust of certain kinds of religious personalities. It may well be the most powerful group in the Church today. It is capable of doing an enormous amount of harm. It ought to be forced to come out into the open or be suppressed:'
In a recent Church & State, Religious News Service's Rome correspondent Eleni Dimmler estimates that worldwide there are 74,000 in the most devoted membership categories (1300 are priests) and 700,000 Opus Dei "cooperators:" "With this international 'army' of devoted members, Opus Dei has created an impressive network of activities in countries around the world ... According to a 1979 memo, members of the movement work, among other things, at 487 universities and schools, 694 newspapers and periodicals, 52 TV or radio stations, 38 publicity agencies and twelve film companies.-
The March 19, 1984, issue of U.S. News and World Report examined these two secret Catholic elite religious societies: the Knights of Malta with one thousand U.S. members who are prominent in government, business, or professional life and Opus Dei with three thousand U.S. members of widely varied backgrounds. The number of U.S. members in the "cooperator" category has not been revealed but could run more than 100,000.
The central tenet of Opus Dei is to "help shape the world in a Catholic manner" and its American members include "priests, middle and upperclass businessmen, professionals, military personnel and government officials:"
The Knights of Malta dates back to the time of the Crusades; its present members are reported to include some of our nation's most prominent Catholics: CIA Director William Casey; William Wilson; Vernon Walters; Senators Denton and Domenici; Alexander Haig; William Sloan; and William F Buckley, creator and leader of Young Americans for Freedom, from which many of the Reagan administration team have been drawn. According to members, the order serves "as an international defender of the Church * - In June of each year a ceremony is held in Rome for Knights of Malta which includes the "swearing of allegiance to the defense of the Holy Mother Church:" Herein lies the problem for population growth control and its recognition as a national security issue. The Knights are committed to defending the Church. Only the most devout and obedient are invited to join the Knights and Opus Dei (which its detractors have compared to mind-controlling cults). If the Vatican has determined that population growth control threatens the Holy Mother Church, the members of these societies are obliged to counter this threat by thwarting the development of population growth control government policies and their execution.
So it was inevitable, it seems to me, that the interests of the Vatican and those of the United States would clash on the issue of curbing population growth. No one can swear and abide by complete allegiance to both the United States and the Roman Catholic Church. The reported acts and attitudes of the Knights of Malta in the Reagan Administration seem to reflect complete allegiance to the Pope rather than our country. If these reports are true, should the members of these societies be considered traitors to our country?
As long as this conflict of allegiance exists in our midst, the U.S. cannot act with the leadership it exercised until recently to assist other nations in curbing population growth. The real problem is not convincing people that they must have small families, or delivering family planning services to them. This we could most certainly achieve by the end of the century (these words were published in 1986) for most of the world's people at a price we can well afford. The profound problem right now is the conflict between the priorities of the Pope and his Church and his hierarchy and the desperate need of humanity to control its fertility.
All American Catholics are certain to pay a high price for this intrusion of their Church leaders into American sovereignty. In 1969, the so-called Soccer War was fought between El Salvador and Honduras. This was the first war ever directly attributed to overpopulation, a determination made by the Organization of American States. 5 The war was prompted by massive illegal immigration from grossly overpopulated El Salvador into Honduras. Fifteen years later, the overpopulation problem continues to be all but ignored in El Salvador. The population in 1984 is growing at the rate of 2.6 percent per year, giving the country a doubling time of 27 years! The results of this continued growth have been the illegal immigration of more than 500,000 Salvadorans to the United States (1 in 9 of that country's native population) a breakdown in social order and destruction of the economic, social and political structures of the country.
This climate of turmoil is bound to invade the U.S. itself, I'm convinced, if we allow continued illegal immigration of tens of millions of Latin Americans and others into our country. This approach to assuming control over the once most powerful nation on earth appears to be what the Vatican has in mind. Meanwhile, the Catholic hierarchy remains by far the most significant opposition to illegal immigration control. " (pp. 46-47)
