This article was originally published in June 2023 for Revista Anfibia in a creative non-fiction workshop and tells the story of Claudia Carrero, who escaped the Catholic organization Opus Dei (Work of God) — a secretive and highly influential network of mostly laypeople seeking to spread conservative Christian ideals. Cover photo courtesy of Anfibia. *** “What.
..you can’t do more!?” “Maybe, it’s just that.
..you cannot do less?” Camino .
Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer Claudia Carrero walked into the kitchen, the biggest kitchen she had ever seen. A joyful girl wearing a uniform with tiny pink and white squares, she had to look up from her height of 4 ft 20” to see the dishwasher, which was twice as tall as her. She thought it was a modern, strange, and huge thing, just like everything she had seen after crossing the entrance gate holding her parents’ hands, an hour earlier.
Behind an insurmountable wall, this was a small paradise with trees that grew high up to the sky, scented blossoms, and little birds. It looked like a forest from a fairy tale. A nice, well-dressed woman showed them the rooms she would live in for the next three years.
Her bedroom accommodated three people, but other rooms had up to six beds. She didn’t mind the fact that it was smaller than her bedroom at home in Villa Ramallo, a small town halfway between Buenos Aires and Rosario. She left her bag on the bunk bed.
The well-dressed woman took them to a room she called “the ironing.