Talk:Opus Dei

GA Reassessment

Opus Dei

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted (t · c) buidhe 02:56, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

I have started this reassessment proposal not because I have any ill will towards the article as is, but because it has been 13 years since it passed its GA nom and thought it prudent for the community to reassess its state. My rationale for reassessment is as follows:

• It lacks enough depth discussing the highly publicized role it had in Franco's government, especially its war crimes and unique legal procedures
• The history section is quite short.
• The criticism section reads more like a "he-said/she-said" (MOS:WEASEL). While I can understand how this balance of statements would help preserve neutrality, I personally feel that dividing the criticism sections into supporters and opponents rather than topic-by-topic means that the reader will not be able to gain a coherent understanding of the controversies surrounding Opus. By this I mean that the current section just floods the reader with various opinions and perspectives, meaning there is an overall sense of conflict but no actual understanding. For example, if the section was divided into:
  • Secrecy
  • Membership rules
  • Recruitment practices
  • Sexual abuse
  • Collaboration with dictatorships
  • etc.

it would be much better.

• The members proposed for beatification part does not feel very relevant to the main article. I believe it should be linked within the history or spirituality sections.
• Not going to lie I think the organization of the article makes for immensely dense reading.
• The relations with catholic leaders should be in my opinion part of the history section. See point above.

Please do reply with your thoughts on the matter. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 16:26, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

• I have been looking at the past GA history of this article and wanted to add the following text by Geometry guy from Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Archive_33#Opus_Dei:

• Controversy sections are not a great idea at the best of times: when they are of the form "Criticism - Rebuttal" they are particularly unhelpful at achieving NPOV.
• WP:NPOV is, in my opinion, one of the most misunderstood of Wikipedia policies. I have said this here many times before: NPOV is not primarily achieved via a contest between pro- and anti- viewpoints, it is primarily achieved by writing and structuring the entire article from a neutral perspective.

While I dont necessarily agree with the first comment, I think their points are important to consider in this discussion.A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 16:58, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• Another important point I forgot to mention is the COI of major contributors to the article, especially Marax (15% authorship, second biggest), Lafem (7.2% authorship, 3rd biggest), Walter Ching (5.5% authorship, 4th biggest), Arturo Cruz (3.3% authorship, 6th biggest), StatutesMan (2.7%, 9th biggest), and so on. Just these examples alone (definitely not all the COI or possible WP:Sockpuppet edits) account for over a third of all authorship to the article.

In regards to account just for text-added percentage, Thomas S. Major, IP 1, IP 2 plus the users mentioned above account for 62.3% of added text.

This is positively insane. I have never seen such a massive COI situation. I honestly don't even know what to do. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 17:13, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I feel your frustration A.C. Santacruz... If I may paraphrase my thoughts when I first looked into the situation “F*cking hell thats a lot of COI.” Like you my conclusion is I honestly don't even know what to do. I personally don’t have the time to rewrite this clusterf*ck of a page and I’m genuinely concerned that I may have inadvertently killed Lafem by taking them to task so taking the rest to task is not high on my to do list. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:34, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• • Question What is the basis of the conflict if interest? Are these editors known members of Opus Dei? –Zfish118^⋉talk 19:03, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
    • Zfish118 Some are (members of Parents for Education) while others' only editing activity is within Opus Dei-related articles.A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Talk 19:30, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

These COI seem minor at worst, especially if the content is otherwise acceptable. From a GAR perspective, however, I agree the article is not really there as noted below. –Zfish118^⋉talk 14:57, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

@Zfish118: A._C._Santacruz linked the wrong group, its actually Parents for Education Foundation so there is a very real and significant COI issue here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 12:11, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

• Delist: I agree with most of the issues previously stated about the article, particularly that controversy section should be arranged by topic, rather than defenders and detractors. Without substantial revisions to this section, the article cannot stay listed as GAR. Procedure wise, I don't see any substantial edits between the article being delisted in December 2007, and being relisted four months later in March 2008. If nothing improved after delisting, relisting would have been inappropriate. However the December 2007 decision appears to have been closed early before a consensus was reach, making it easy to challenge and reinstate. Other issues of concern I see: the list of members proposed for beatification should be limited to those where a case was formally opened by relevant bishop, and the list should include the date the case was opened and by whom. Otherwise it should be renamed as notable members, as many have an article (whether those articles are appropriate, I have not assessed). A list of canonized and beatified members would be appropriate as well, as it is a Catholic organization. The "Relations with Catholic leaders" section reads like a list of endorsements, with little substance. The history section is also weak, and redundant to the above list of proposed beauti. One notable issue is the claim that members were responsible for "babynapping". Such a serious accusation needs multiple citations and better explanation of relevance. –Zfish118^⋉talk 14:57, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

References

map

Why does the map show the French departement of Jura?? — 2dk (talk) 22:58, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

Pope Leo Set To Break Up Opus Dei

https://www.thelettersfromleo.com/p/new-pope-leo-set-to-break-up-opus

"A report from InfoVaticana — a Spanish outlet with close Opus Dei ties — claims that Pope Leo XIV is on the verge of approving new statutes that would effectively dismantle Opus Dei as it exists today." jwalling (talk) 04:49, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Has information about this been added to this Wikipedia article? ~2026-90336-1 (talk) 15:07, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

To add to article

To add to this article: Pope Leo's recent meeting with a critic of Opus Dei, who wrote a book alleging human trafficking and exploitation of children as young as 10. Source: https://www.osvnews.com/pope-leo-grants-audience-to-opus-dei-critic-as-reform-of-statutes-continues/ ~2026-90336-1 (talk) 15:08, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

The article is ignoring the numerous abuse and exploitation allegations

The organization has for years faced serious allegations of abuse, especially from over 40 women, including many former members, detailing their harrowing experiences.

The article needs to do a better job highlighting this in the controversy section (which btw. feels like it's written to downplay the controversy surrounding this organization). For now, I've included mentions of abuse allegations in the intro. ~2026-21235-95 (talk) 21:56, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

WP:CITE WP:RS. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:40, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

Criticism section discussion

I am replacing the tags that were removed, in hopes to find consensus. I will start with a proposal to rename the section to something other than the vaguely generic, and NPOV incompatible "Critisim" section title. I'm open to suggestions and

Please DO NOT remove the tags again without following steps below.

See Template:POV (when to remove)

"This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. You are allowed (but not required) to remove this template whenever any one of the following is true:

There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved. It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant."

Cheers. DN (talk) 02:06, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

To add to @DN's comments, this article has significant POV problems in general. A few structural issues, before addressing specific content issues:

• Wikipedia:Criticism: "WP:POVFORK: don't split off articles with the purpose of purging a Wikipedia article of its legitimate criticism." "The preferred way to split an article is as a content fork into subarticles, using a "main" template to link to the new subarticles (related guidance: WP:SPINOFF). Generally, new subarticles should not be devoted to criticism, controversies, or other specific viewpoints but should instead focus on topical themes."

• The article at Controversies about Opus Dei is serving as a POV fork.

• WP:LEAD: "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies."

• The current lead says "the organization remains controversial" instead of summarizing the most important points about prominent controversies.

• WP:CSECTION: "Sections or article titles should generally not include the word "controversies". Instead, titles should simply name the event, for example, "2009 boycott" or "Hunting incident". The word "controversy" should not appear in the title."

• This article has a section called "Controversy", which cordons off negative historical material outside of the history section. The sub-section called "Supporting views" is basically a POV fork within a POV fork, and in effect it provides a rebuttal to the previous section, which is not a helpful structure for NPOV.

I'll post a note at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard to encourage more editors to review and discuss, because this is a quite complicated topic. Dreamyshade (talk) 14:36, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

While I think it's important to situate Opus Dei as controversial I do agree it's not best practice to segregate criticisms and apologia into dedicated sections. Simonm223 (talk) 15:18, 9 June 2026 (UTC)