A structure which recruited at least 44 poor women, most of them when they were children and adolescents, to subject them to “living conditions comparable to servitude”. This is how the Argentine federal justice defines the actions carried out by the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei in this country for more than four decades, between 1972 and 2015, in an accusation of human trafficking directed against six religious leaders from Argentina. the highest hierarchy of the organization. Never before have the leaders of a region of Opus Dei been summoned to investigate such serious crimes.
The investigation began in September 2022 at the Argentine Attorney General’s Office against Human Trafficking (PROTEX). In June 2023, this specialized organization filed a complaint with the federal justice system, which was entrusted to the Federal National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office No. 3, headed by Eduardo Taiano, and which now results in the joint request for summons for investigation against five accused: former regional vicars Carlos Nannei (1991-2000), Patricio Olmos (2000-2010), Víctor Urrestarazu (2014-2022) and the permanent priest who led the women’s branch of the organization for almost all these decades, Gabriel Dondo.
There is a fifth former regional vicar, Mariano Fazio, who is not included in the accusation, but whose complaint requested to be included as well, since he led the institution between 2010 and 2014. Currently, Fazio is part of the world government of Opus Dei and lives in Rome. Some have suggested that he would be a possible candidate to succeed the highest authority in the organization, the Prelate. Also outside the country is Urrestarazu, the last of the accused former vicars, who was removed from his post when the scandal erupted following the denunciation of the former auxiliaries to the Vatican, in 2021. He has been in Paraguay ever since .
The investigation handed over to judge Daniel Rafecas, who is the one who files the requests for investigation, speaks of 44 cases of exploitation, but assesses that only four could be framed under the law on trafficking, which came into force in May 2008, because the vast majority of plaintiffs left the organization before that date. Of the four cases that the Prosecutor’s Office and PROTEX accuse Opus Dei of, there are three whose limitation period could be at stake, because they are at the limit or exceed 12 years since the reported events, which is the deadline established by law. . This way, only one woman would remain. It’s about the MER
The case of MIE, 31 years old, submitted to Opus Dei
MIE “met” Opus Dei on a bus. She was 17, it was 1984, and she was traveling with an older sister from her native Bolivia to Buenos Aires. In the Argentine capital, an aunt and the opportunity to study were waiting for them. None of them had completed more than primary school and their wish was to be able to attend secondary school there. This is what they told the woman who approached them during the trip and immediately told them she knew a place where they could go to live and study. They said the same thing to the teenagers’ aunt when she accompanied them to visit the place, a large house in the Belgrano neighborhood called “Los Aleros.” And with that promise they entered, but it never happened.
Instead, they were assigned to domestic chores while forced to attend mass, go to confession, and speak to the principals. They insisted they wanted to “study, study and study,” the MIE said in its statement. The first attempt to leave took place a year after arriving there. They managed to get out, but came back to pick them up and took them to another residence, called “La Ciudadela,” in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires. The same thing happened again, while the spiritual persecution intensified: they were told that their vocation was to be auxiliary numeraries – the lowest category of the organization, which is that of domestic service –, that God wanted them for the Work. They said no, but their will constituted no argument. At the same time, both came to assume commitments of chastity, poverty and obedience. From there, they were sent to Laya, a residence attached to Opus Dei headquarters in Argentina, where the organization’s religious hierarchy and laity live.
Among the evidence available to justice, the information collected by the Federal Unit for Investigation of the Crime of Human Trafficking of the Argentine Federal Police, which it observed for a year in different houses of the Opus Dei, are essential.
In the following years, the sisters followed different paths. They each moved to different residences across the country. The two men tried to leave several times, but they came for them again and again. On one occasion, MIE was allowed to visit her family in Bolivia and, once there, she decided to stay and not return. But they went to this country to look for her. In 1993, she was taken to Rome, where she served the international hierarchy of the Prelature in the same precarious conditions, without salary or medical insurance, without communication with her family. He returned in 2000, already trying to deal with a serious mental health crisis. The following year, his sister managed to leave permanently, but she did not do so. He only achieved this in 2015, when he was already 47 years old and suffering from a decade of depression that Opus Dei treated with its own psychiatrist and a mountain of pills.
The MIE case could be the first in the world to meet the conditions for Opus Dei to face justice in a country accused of trafficking in human beings for the purposes of slavery. With this story, progress could be made in the investigation into what dozens of women from Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia denounced in 2021, first in the Argentine press and then in a presentation before the Vatican Tribunal for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is he still had no answer.
The “modus operandi”
PROTEX and the prosecution describe the existence of a deceptive, planned and deliberate recruitment system aimed at providing male members with domestic service comparable to that of servitude, as it provided no remuneration for the task or any rights fundamental work. He modus operandi of Opus Dei to enslave women, according to the accusation, consisted of a plan in several stages: recruitment of girls and adolescents between 12 and 16 years old through a deceptive selection, which “consisted of presenting a false proposition linked to the possibility of continuing and completing their primary and secondary education, as well as receiving professional training to obtain employment opportunities, all within a context of religious education.
In addition to the dynamics of entry into Opus Dei, the investigation identifies and describes the situation of victims within the “centers” of the organization, the practices of psychological manipulation, the belief system, the “disciplinary control through elements of punishment and”. a series of “rules of life” that women had to follow and which involved a system of interviews, confessions and prayers, in addition to the obligation of chastity, isolation from family ties, restriction of their communications and all contact with the outside world, psychological control and behavioral conditioning, as well as control of physical and mental health through supervised medical visits and the provision of psychiatric pills. The 44 women affected by the complaint have experienced all of this. All this could be proven in the four cases analyzed. All this could be proven in the case of the MIE
Among the evidence available to justice, the information collected by the Federal Unit for Investigation of the Crime of Human Trafficking of the Argentine Federal Police, which it observed for a year in different houses of the Opus Dei in Buenos Aires and other provinces, are essential. and they were able to certify that there are women there who still fulfill the role of auxiliaries. In addition, justice worked with the intervention of the National Rescue and Support Program for people harmed by the crime of trafficking of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of the Nation. In addition, the data contained in a series of journalistic articles published by the author who signs this information, who also provided testimony in the case, and which are added to the internal documents of the organization were taken into account provided by the plaintiffs. lawyer and the story of relatives of the victims and several former members of Opus Dei – women belonging to the highest hierarchy – who knew and lived with most of them.
Good schools in more than 50 countries
Since the complaint by 43 Argentine women exploded in the media, the organization has repeatedly denied the accusations and attempted to reduce the complainants’ experience to “bad experiences.” Opus Dei has even put online a website in which it tells the story of the Institute of Integral Training in Domestic Studies (ICIED), the so-called “school of servants” through which – according to official information – more than 1,000 teenagers passed between 1972. and 2017 and where most of this army of servants came from.
“Opus Dei has done this systematically in the countries where it is present. “This is just the first in a long series of complaints that are starting to emerge around the world,” a source close to the investigation told eldiario.es. Based on the pioneering complaint filed by Argentina, legal action has already been initiated in Ireland and complaints are expected in different countries in Europe and Latin America.
In 2023, the story of a former assistant in Spain became known for the first time, in the podcast One topic per day from elDiario.es. The reality of women reduced to slavery in the country can be endorsed by Agustina López de los Mozos, journalist, exnumerator and creator of OpusLibros.org, where for more than two decades she has collected testimonies from former members of the Work from all over the world. .
