Recruit people with the promise of being saints in the common life to take away their property, their freedom and even their will. One of the most elite and powerful groups in the Catholic Church did just that. In I will serve you. Faith, power and control (Planet), the journalist Paula Bistagnino dispels the plot of expansion of Opus Dei in South America through the story of a Uruguayan family, the Gianoli Gainza, successful mining businessmen in Santiago, Chile, who were discovered by the first numbers and priests sent by Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer from Spain. The matriarch and her five children joined Opus Dei, a Latin phrase meaning “Work of God.” The youngest of the family, Elina Gianoli Gainza, became a number when she was a teenagerliving under vows of chastity, poverty and obedience for more than sixty years and until her death, in 2021, she was the most important woman in the women’s branch in Argentina, and the biggest donor: hundreds of millions of dollars came from companies and personal fortunes to strengthen the civic ties of the questioned groupwhich is against him today case for human trafficking and reduction in service.
Asset management
Part of the heirs of Gianoli Gainzas filed a case in the courts of Montevideo (Uruguay) to handle the assets. Tomás Gatica Gianoli summarizes in the book what happened to the family’s money and assets. “We were poor while we were rich, and the person responsible for this is the Opus Dei, because it is the person who benefited from this theft.”. Bistagnino’s rigorous and documented research huts were built in the Opus Dei, which through a reportdated September 12, for contempt I will serve you. “The text develops a conspiracy theory based on speculation and critical and untextual explanations with the aim of spreading the false idea that Opus Dei influenced Elina and her family for financial gain. In addition to the multiple errors of the publication, the author builds his theory around a completely false premise: that Elina Gianoli’s sister, María Luisa, left her estate to institutions were inspired by Opus Dei, and that this would confirm his opinion.” The statement concludes that in the event that “the publishing company does not take steps on its own” they understand that the Prelature would be authorized to “initiate legal action.”
“It is not true that the book explains a conspiracy theory, but that What is being said is in accordance with the facts recorded in a legal case that has been pending in the Uruguayan justice system for eight years and in which the role played by members and civil societies is being investigated Opus Dei in the handling of María Luisa’s assets. Gianoli”, Bistagnino stands to Page/12. “Among the reported members, the main one is Elina, keeper for many years of her sister (María Luisa), who, according to the file, suffered from mental problems from a very young age and she went through many hospitals in the last decades until she went through many hospitals. her life ended in a psychiatric clinic – recalls the journalist -. Her sister Elina acted as her guardian after she was declared incompetent and was recalled from that role due to serious doubts about the management of her estate. of his sister who, after the death of both, is still under investigation in justice because María Luisa’s assets were reduced through donations to civil societies and Opus Dei centers in Chile, Uruguay and Rome.”
Bistagnino clarifies that what Opus Dei denies is only a small part of the history and information in the 200 pages of I will serve you. “This information, which is classified as a lie, is the information that was in the lawsuit until the book was closed and it was the information that both the justice system and the family knew, the lawyers and Opus Dei itself who, through the lawyer. Pedro Montano, appeared at a court hearing with a will from María Luisa that benefited her Cultural and Technical Association (ACT) to claim the inheritance for herself,” the journalist explained and revealed that after the closing of the book, which comes to an end with The death of María Luisa Gianoli, the succession was opened and revealed a revocation of will that no one knew about, including Opus Dei. “This revocation, dated 2004, caused equal surprise on all parties and this is the information that Opus Dei uses to disqualify the book and my work. However, they do not say anything that the will was reported in the book and that they were considered until María Luisa’s last will. This new information does not change what the book says. “It just adds a new chapter to the story and I am working incorporated into a future version of the book.”
spiritual abuse
Bistagnino’s book contains a legal complaint involving this group of the Catholic Church founded in 1928 by Escrivá de Balaguer and reveals much of what happens behind the scenes of the institution. “Opus Dei does not want its former members to speaksomething they achieved for a long time but is no longer possible. Also They usually do not give interviewssomething that I think could be of great interest to the institution, if it wants to oppose these testimonies or tell about their version of the events, “praises the journalist and confirmation that the dispute over the inheritance of the Gatica Gianoli brothers is not the first known case of how Opus Dei works in terms of money. this pressure to get goods and money for the group, as well the obligation on all celibate members to sign a will for some civil society of the Work‘”, specifies the journalist and announces that there is another legal case in Salta for the estate of a man who on his deathbed gave all his property to the members of Opus Dei.
The procedure mentioned in the book shows how Opus Dei placed several members in companies and associations of the Gianoli Gainza family – who joined the group in the 1950s in Chile – and who also benefited from million dollar grants to their institutions. “If we talk about protests against Opus Dei, apart from the recent prosecution by the Argentine justice system for trafficking in women and labor exploitation, which is the worst in its history, there is another protest that is more widespread: Those who have gone through the stages of the Work speak of psychological manipulation, spiritual abuse and the exercise of their will. — Bistagnino Lists –. The obediencewell, with that name, it is one of the promises what are they duty to accept celibate members, men and women, who must also be committed to poverty and earn or earn what they have to give their work – members of Opus Dei are professional lay people – and signing a will for their property. The treatment story includes the process of separating themselves from the ‘blood family’ from a very young age, even in adolescence, and develops when they start living in homes residence of the group.“.
In these community houses poor women served rich women. As lawyer Sebastián Sal, who was a member of the group in the 90s, says: “Opus Dei needs a domestic service to care for its ordinary members and they found a way to have it without paying for it: by researching poor young girls who were recruited and then manipulated psychologically to turn them into service.”
