NEW YORK \u2014 At the height of Da Vinci Code mania there was sign at the door of the Murray Hill Conference Center asking visitors if they wanted to learn the truth about the \u201creal Opus Dei.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Visitors received a cheery information pamphlet. Staffers also had answers ready for those asking edgier questions that usually sounded something like this: \u201cIs this the world headquarters of Opus Dei, the place where that albino monk Silas lived who murdered all those people in Dan Brown\u2019s book?\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Actually, visitors were told, Opus Dei has no monks and its world headquarters is in Rome. The only local member named Silas is a Nigerian-born stockbroker who lives in Brooklyn \u2014 with his wife.<\/p>\n\n
The siege did include moments of humor, said spokesman Brian Finnerty. One visitor pointed at the 17-story Manhattan tower and asked, \u201cIs it true you have a torture chamber up there?\u201d The doorman quipped, \u201cYou don\u2019t know nothing. The torture chamber\u2019s in the basement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Life goes on at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 34th Street. But for Opus Dei loyalists, life after \u201cThe Da Vinci Code\u201d will never be the same and that is probably a good thing, said Monsignor Thomas Bohlin, the group\u2019s leader in America.<\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s crucial, he said, that Opus Dei members were able to do dozens of media interviews during the uproar surrounding the book and the movie, he said. This gave Opus Dei a chance to open up and respond to its many critics.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThere are people who still say that we are like a fundamentalist sect,\u201d said Bohlin. \u201cFor some people we\u2019re the Masons, we\u2019re crypto-Fascists, we\u2019re who knows what. \u2026 We know that it\u2019s going to take time for people to figure out who we are and what we are and what we can become here in America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The story of Opus Dei (\u201cWork of God\u201d) began in 1928, when a Spanish priest named Josemar<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK \u2014 At the height of Da Vinci Code mania there was sign at the door of the Murray Hill Conference Center asking visitors if they wanted to learn the truth about the \u201creal Opus Dei.\u201d Visitors received a cheery information pamphlet. Staffers also had answers ready for those asking edgier questions that usually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1532,283,286,431,623],"class_list":["post-1430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-catholics","tag-da-vinci-code","tag-dan-brown","tag-hollywood","tag-opus-dei"],"yoast_head":"\n