It will be the first time ever, when trial targeting the organisation of Opus Dei, branded a sect by some, which came to wide attention after featuring in the blockbuster novels. If we´ve seen the film (La Femme Nikita) Nikita, 1997, by Luc Besson, about a young criminal who is recruited to work for one kind of French intelligence service, we can find some contrast.Two Opus Dei leaders are now summoned to appear in a Paris criminal court on September 22 and 23 on labour law charges of undignified punishment and not declaring her as an employee.
According to AFP one French woman claiming to have been brainwashed by the secretive Catholic society Opus Dei is suing it for allegedly keeping her illegally as a domestic servant.
Catherine T., who asked not to be identified by her family name, said she joined a hoteliers' school in northeastern France in 1985, aged 14, which she later discovered was run by associates of Opus Dei.
She said she was forced to take vows and made to work as a domestic servant for virtually no pay.
Opus Dei responded in a statement that it was `not involved in the charges being brought´ and had `nothing to be guilty about´, she told AFP.
They assigned me a 'tutor' who was actually a kind of conscience instructor. I entered into the system.... You were forbidden to talk about it to your parents.She said the group compelled her to take vows of obedience, poverty and chastity and for the following 13 years gave her jobs with organisations that her lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut said were linked to Opus Dei.
The lawsuit also targets the University and Technical Culture Association (ACUT) said it had nothing more than a `cultural link´ with Opus Dei.
Catherine T. said she was made to work as a slave 14-hour days, seven days a week, cleaning and serving. So typical for cults.
Staff paid her a salary and then reclaimed money from her by making her sign blank cheques, supposedly to pay her room and board. Perhaps more typical of cults.
Young woman added that staff accompanied her wherever she went, even including on visits to the doctor. On these occasions she was taken to see an Opus Dei´s own doctor who prescribed tranquilisers that left her senseless.
Catherine weighed only 39 kilogrammes, 86 pounds in 2001 when her parents rescued her from the group. Lawyers first took legal action that year alleging "mental manipulation" among other charges. A nine-year investigation followed.
`There is nothing to this case´, said the ACUT's lawyer Thierry Laugier to AFP, nsisting that Catherine T. `was paid according to the work she did.´
What she did? And why?
Is more than sarcastic know that The Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei (Latin: Prelatura Sanctae Crucis et Operis Dei), is an classified organisation of the Catholic Church that teaches that everyone is called to holiness and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity.
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