Five years ago a friend said to me? "How about going with me to confession?" "To what?" I answered, since I had almost forgotten what the word meant, partly because of an inner fear and partly because I had given up the practice. "I'm serious," she told me. "I would like very much to go to a place where there is a priest who everybody says is very pleasant." "Well, the thought scares me to death, but I'll think about it," I replied. And I thought about it. I sat down to write out everything that was "confessable" and "unconfessable." The list got up to 32 items. This man listened without interrupting me once.

At the end he said: "anything else?"

I laughed. "No, no more, Father."

"A lot of defects, my child! Do you want to improve?

"Yes, father."

"But, do you really want to?"

"Yes."

"Do you want me to help you?"

"Yes, of course."

I returned. Not once, not twice. Many times! And still, after all this time, I keep going. I would like to explain that I am an ordinary person, neither the best nor the worst. Sometimes I tell him, "The only struggle I am making is to keep coming back to tell you the same old things."

"How can you say that?" he answers, "Look you have improved in . . . . Before you were . . . ."

This priest belongs to Opus Dei. I have met many people connected with this institution. Since I don't belong to it, I hear criticisms, people tell me stories, some of them credible, others very unlikely. This is why I want to give my own opinion, now that it is celebrating its 70th anniversary. I want to do this because I see it from the outside and I know it.

I met Opus Dei by accident, but like many people, it scared me: "if you go there, they will try to catch you," people told me. I made my confessor promise that he would never pray that I become a member of Opus Dei. His answer was clear and definitive: "I am always going to pray for you, you can count on this. But I will pray that you get close to God and love him a lot. He has a path laid out for every person and this is one of them, but one needs a vocation to follow it. If at any time anyone in the Work tries to pressure you, even slightly, including myself, tell me about it."

I've never had to make this complaint. I attend whatever appeals to me, I go away, and I return, and nobody says to me: "Why have you been away so long?" I have forgotten that I was supposed to be on my guard. Whenever I go there I am received in the most natural way.

I really enjoy the meditations, the mornings of recollection and the annual retreat to air out the soul and think about all those things that I haven't had time for. . . There I find myself with many people like myself, who don't feel a vocation, but who are nourished humanly and spiritually.

On examining the institution and its members from within and from without, at first full of prejudices and even mockery, I can say that I did not find what I expected: I saw simple people and the "elite," those who dress like a fashion plate and those who think it's overdoing it to wear a ring. Each has a different style. I didn't see any trace of fanaticism. I found the basic criteria that the Church professes, neither more nor less. They don't make concessions to be accepted, nor go beyond what the Pope says. This is quite different from those who say what one likes to hear so one can rest easy.

We shouldn't forget that we are all human and the fact of belonging to a particular institution doesn't make us perfect, just as all the members of the Church are not perfect, nor all the players on the national soccer team, nor Red Cross volunteers, but this doesn't cast any aspersion on these institutions. I see that the members of Opus Dei are always under scrutiny. If they take a drink at a party: "Of course, look at him drinking and they say he's a member of the Opus." And if he doesn't take a drink: "Of course, they're all maladjusted." Then, who understands us?

I respect Opus Dei. I let down my guard a long time ago. I don't have a vocation to belong to it, but I can take advantage, like anyone else, of what it has to offer to keep my spiritual life in good shape. I know that I can't do this alone.