Believe it or not – Time’s cover story this week.

It’s okay, but isn’t it odd that a group with 85,000 members merits a cover story? Well, good thing, I suppose. All Catholic All The Time!

There won’t be much new to most of you, and some of you could probably toss in some corrections or clarifications. The comment that Benedict, rather than being interested in Opus Dei is "more interested in strengthening the hierarchy…" is odd. As a whole, it’s very much of the "answering suspicions" genre – how much money does OD have? Why do they practice self-mortification? Along those lines, I thought this was an interesting passage:

San Antonio Archbishop Jose Gomez, an Opus member, notes self-mortification’s tie to Opus’ roots: "In the Hispanic culture," he says, "you look at the crucifixes, and they have a lot of blood. We are more used to sacrifice in the sense of physical suffering."

The last two paragraphs:

If that is the case–if much of the negative feeling regarding Opus at this point is displaced anger over the direction of the church–then The Da Vinci Code may be the best fate that could befall it. The movie will not deter Opus’ usual constituency–conservative Catholics do not look to Ron Howard for guidance. But by forcing Opus into greater transparency, the film could aid it: if the organization is as harmless and "mature" as Bohlin contends, then such exposure could bring in a bumper crop of devotees–with perhaps even more to come if, as seems likely, American Catholicism becomes both more Hispanic and more conservative.

That is the kind of outcome Julian Cardinal Herranz, Opus’ ranking Vatican official, expects. Long ago, he says, when he was editing a university newspaper, someone submitted a story claiming that Opus Dei was part of a worldwide conspiracy. Fascinated, Herranz began talking to Opus members, eventually becoming one himself. "That article I read was fiction," he says. "And now I’m here. I became a priest, I came to Rome, I became a bishop, and now a Cardinal. All because I read a fictional story about Opus Dei."

So, in the end, the story tells us that there is much ado about nothing, but it does leave one question unasked and unanswered: Is it ethical for Dan Brown and Ron Howard to mischaracterize and malign a group as they do in The Da Vinci Code? It’s all treated as a kind of joke and an opportunity, which is fine, but I fail to see why the author, publisher and filmmaker should get a pass on this.