Opus Dei tries to play the victim card in ongoing human trafficking case

By Gareth Gore | 22 August 2025
Substack: Gareth Gore

(Image by Ahmet Yüksek from Pixabay)

Opus Dei has hit out against ongoing criminal proceedings in Argentina, where the group is accused of operating a “deceptive” system of recruitment aimed at luring underprivileged girls – some as young as twelve – into a life of servitude, accusing prosecutors in the case of “exploiting” the judicial system in order to generate “media hype”.

The extraordinary twist comes after Sebastián Sal, the lawyer for forty-three women who claim they were lured into joining Opus Dei as children before being trafficked and exploited by the organisation over a period spanning five decades, called for Fernando Ocáriz, its most senior official and the man with ultimate responsibility for the group, to be called as a witness.

“The requests from the investigators are far-reaching – the plaintiff has even requested that the leader of Opus Dei, Fernando Ocáriz, be investigated because it’s believed that he knew what was going on,” Sal said in a recent interview about the forty-three women. “They even worked in Rome, at the Opus Dei headquarters – because Opus Dei transferred them there.”

Federal prosecutors have already formally requested that Opus Dei’s second-most senior official be summoned for questioning about his role in the alleged enslavement and trafficking. Mariano Fazio, auxiliary vicar and likely heir to the current leader, is the most senior Opus Dei figure to be drawn into the case. The June 11 request by prosecutors to question Fazio is pending before an Argentinian judge.

Opus Dei reacted angrily to that request, issuing a statement saying that it “categorically denies” any accusations of human trafficking or labor exploitation. But the implication of the group’s leader in the case seems to have hit a particular nerve. Opus Dei responded to Sal’s latest comments by going much further, alleging that the judicial process itself was being abused.

“The Prelature considers that this request lacks any factual or legal basis and denounces it as part of an ongoing communications campaign aimed at manipulating criminal legal proceedings to generate media hype,” Opus Dei said in its statement. It said the request was “based on unfounded assertions” that sought “to include individuals entirely unconnected to the events described”.

“It is regrettable that such tactics – distorting legal proceedings to influence media coverage and apply undue pressure on the judicial system – have been used repeatedly,” it said. “A similar pattern was evident in the recent request to summon Msgr. Mariano Fazio, which was accompanied by a coordinated media campaign.”

Talk of a “coordinated media campaign” echoes Opus Dei’s response to the publication of my own book Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church last October. I was accused of being a “journalist for hire” in online videos, while an Opus Dei spokesman pushed the narrative that my book was part of an orchestrated plot against the group. “I don’t know who has funded this book,” he wrote.

The organisation’s latest attempts to pull the victim card in a case where it is accused of serious crimes been widely condemned by former members. “Opus Dei playing the victim here in such a public and explicit way has me seeing all kinds of red,” said one former member who spent 22 years inside the group. “I just can’t get my head around it, it’s so plainly evil and self-serving.”

“As far as media manipulation, I guess I missed the part where journalists helped them go door to door in poor neighborhoods hoodwinking people into sending their daughters away to serve as slaves for OD,” said another former “numerary” member of Opus Dei. “If they don’t like that the story is coming out now, perhaps they should have considered that when they started this racket.”

As well as criticising the ongoing investigation, which is being conducted independently by qualified federal prosecutors, Opus Dei also used its statement to diminish the claims of the forty-three women. It dismissed the charges against it as “a complaint filed by a former member concerning her time in Opus Dei” – an attempt to portray this as a single, one-off case.

Prosecutors have focussed their case on one woman who most recently suffered alleged abuse because the Argentinian penal code was only updated to specifically recognize human trafficking as a crime in 2008. But they have made it clear that “all” the forty-three women had been reduced to a situation “analogous to servitude” during their years inside Opus Dei.

Federal prosecutors are scathing in their assessment. They accuse Opus Dei leaders of overseeing a “deceptive” system of recruitment specifically aimed at girls from poor backgrounds, with the aim of luring them into joining with “false promises” of a better education and lucrative work opportunities. Once in, the girls were subjected to “gruelling workdays without pay” – and deprived of “basic labour rights”.

You can read the conclusions of their two-year investigation below (in Spanish):

The girls were known in Opus Dei as “numerary assistants”, a female-only category previously known as “numerary servants” until they were rebranded in the 1960s. Such members are expected to cook and clean for the elite “numerary” members and priests — for up to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, according to the women’s testimonies.

Prosecutors found the women were moved around according to the whims and requirements of the organization, often without being consulted at all. “The role given to these women was explained using dogma that sought to justify their situation,” they concluded. “It was enforced through various forms of violence, including psychological, economic, and even physical violence.”

Similar allegations have also surfaced in Mexico and in Europe.

“There are similar cases in Spain, Italy, England – in Ireland a criminal complaint has also been filed,” added Sal. “In Mexico, a case similar to the one initiated by these 43 women is beginning to develop. And the same is true in the United States. Opus Dei didn’t only do this in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay – it did this in an organised way in every part of the world.”

I write about the scandal extensively in my book.

Opus Dei maintains that the girls joined the organisation freely.

“The case seeks deliberately to distort and apply the criminal charge of human trafficking — an accusation entirely unrelated to the facts presented by the complainant,” it said. “Rather than fulfilling its proper role of investigating wrongdoing and delivering justice, the criminal justice system is being exploited to advance a financial claim, thereby distorting its institutional purpose.”

But former members have criticised that stance.

“Do they not know that in most countries, economic repayment is the best the justice system can do for victims?” said one. “And let’s be real, they’re getting off easy. Opus Dei’s victims will never get back the years of their lives that they were coerced into handing over for servitude, so the money is frankly the least OD can do for them.”

“But if they would prefer the charges be aimed at prison time for the perpetrators, I have no objection to Sebastian Sal and others asking for that, too.”

The investigation by federal prosecutors, which was conducted in conjunction with Argentina’s Public Prosector for the Trafficking and Exploitation of Persons, came after the 43 women lodged a complaint with Opus Dei in 2020 about missing social security contributions dating back decades. The women were members of Opus Dei between 1974 and 2015.

When that went nowhere, the women filed a complaint with the Vatican — specifically to the abuse section of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith — in September 2021. The complaint detailed the alleged systematic abuse of women at Opus Dei residences in Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, Italy and Kazakhstan.

The document sent to the Vatican named both Ocáriz and Fazio as being ultimately responsible for the alleged abuse because of their lead roles in Opus Dei. They were accused along with at least 24 Opus Dei priests. A few months later, Pope Francis issued an order for Opus Dei to reform and rewrite its statutes.

Gareth Gore is a financial journalist and podcaster with more than 15 years of experience and has reported from 25 different countries around the world. For the past decade, he has been an associate editor at IFR and Thomson Reuters, a role that has seen him sent on various on assignments across the globe to spearhead coverage and write on some of the biggest financial stories. He is the author of OPUS – “vividly told and excellently researched” (Financial Times), “a well-told, gripping story” (Washington Post).

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