Spain hit by 'religious overload' as Opus Dei founder is canonised

Blanket coverage today on Spanish state-controlled radio and TV of the canonisation of the controversial Opus Dei founder, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, has prompted criticisms of religious overload.

Opposition Socialists condemned the decision by Spanish Radio and Television (RTVE) to devote its second channel to the new saint for the entire morning as "absolutely out of proportion". A socialist spokesman for TV's watchdog committee, Maximo Diaz Cano, said the exercise was an abuse of the Popular Party's control of Spain's broadcast media.

"This is a clear example of what the PP understands by public service, which is nothing other than to broadcast a programme encouraging us all to vote PP, attend Mass and join the Opus Dei," Mr Diaz Cano said. It would be better, he added, to broadcast parliament's budget debate "where matters really important to people are decided".

A secretive Catholic organisation which urges the individual to pursue sanctity through their work and daily life, Opus Dei is often accused of focusing its recruitment efforts on business and political leaders. But Pope John Paul II is a supporter, and hundreds of thousands are expected at today's ceremonies in Rome.

Some shoots of dissent pierced the hagiography in the Spanish press last week. A former Opus Dei member, Isabel de Armas, published a book Being a Woman in the Opus Dei which accused Escriva of misogyny and megalomania, and the organisation of marginalising women members and imposing upon them "complete submission".

Another former member, Alberto Moncada, condemned it as "a sect that manipulates its members and seeks power at any price". One group of former members has written to the Pope attacking Escriva for his "arrogance and malevolent temper ... his indifference to the poor, his love of luxury and ostentation". It accuses Opus Dei of causing "moral damage" through its culture of secrecy.

Even Escriva is not what he seems: born Jose Maria Escriba Albas in 1902, the son of an Aragonese shopkeeper, he changed his name on the death of his father to the more Catalan and aristocratic Escriva de Balaguer, and is said to have bought the title of Marquis de Peralta to gain more clout.

Members are reluctant to declare themselves, or their medieval practices of self- mortification. They may wear a spiked chain around the thigh so that it and the wounds it inflicts are unseen, and whip themselves with a lead-tipped five-stranded lash while praying the Salve Regina.

"It's a penance, no more painful than a workout in the gym," says the Pope's spokesman, Joaquin Navarro Valls, a member of Opus Dei. "I know, I've tried both."