By Jeff Diamant in New Jersey News
The thought never occurred to John Coverdale, back in the 1960s, that the priest he revered and worked for in Rome, Josemaria Escriva, would someday be made a saint.
Coverdale, now a tax professor at Seton Hall University Law School, was working for Opus Dei, the lay Catholic organization founded by Escriva. From 1961 to 1968, Coverdale saw Escriva -- who was canonized in 2002 -- at the office most days.
"He was such a warm, vibrant human being that I don't think personally the thought "saint,' the word "saint', occurred to me," Coverdale said. "We tend to think of saints as kind of distant. "And he was not that at all. He was funny, he was warm, he could lose his temper, he was human in every way."
Coverdale, 69, shared this perspective for a 13-part weekly series on Escriva that began airing Aug. 30 on the EWTN Global Catholic Network. It was filmed entirely in Opus Dei's center in South Orange, a Georgian-style mansion on Montrose Avenue where the group holds regular meetings. Another New Jersey man, Damon Owens of West Orange, is his co-host.
The series on EWTN, an Alabama-based station with 24-hour Catholic programming available in 150 million households worldwide, is the latest burst of attention for the 81-year-old Opus Dei.
Granted favored status by Pope John Paul II, Opus Dei received unwanted publicity earlier this decade from "The Da Vinci Code," the controversial novel and film that presented it as highly secretive and involved in murderous activity to cover up alleged church secrets.
Coverdale, who joined in 1957, has become a leading expert on Opus Dei, having written two scholarly works on the group: "Uncommon Faith: The Early Years of Opus Dei, 1928-1943," and "Putting Down Roots: Father Joseph Muzquiz and the Growth of Opus Dei."
Owens, who runs an organization devoted to Catholic family planning and works for the National Organization for Marriage, joined Opus Dei in 2003.
The idea for the series came from Coverdale when he contributed to a previous EWTN show on Opus Dei.
"I've done a number of book-review programs for them," he said. "A few years ago, I said to them, "How about a series about Opus Dei?' And they said fine."
Much of the series focuses on the idea, propagated by Opus Dei, that lay people can find holiness in daily life through work, without joining the priesthood or living in a monastery. Coverdale said he hopes the series changes viewers' lives.
"I hope that people will come away primarily with the sense that "It seems to be a good group of people, I'd like to know them a little better,' and -- at least for some people -- "It makes sense to me that my work can be a path that leads to God,'" he said.
Worldwide, Opus Dei has 89,000 members, with about 3,000 in the United States. Eighty percent, including Owens, are "supernumeraries," typically married men and women who live and work in the secular world while following Opus Dei's spiritual guidelines. The other 20 percent are "numeraries," like Coverdale, celibate members who live in Opus Dei centers -- there are centers in 19 U.S. cities -- but who typically work in the secular world, giving most of their earnings to the group.
Critics have said Opus Dei is too secretive and elitist, that it has gone to extremes in separating male members from female members, and that Escriva had a nasty streak. The series has not dealt head-on with "The Da Vinci Code," but the men do address what they say are public misconceptions about Opus Dei.
"Some people have said Opus Dei is secretive," Coverdale said. "But I think anybody who watches his way through the 13 half-hour episodes will say, "Gosh, they seem to have told me everything I could care to know about Opus Dei, and then some.'"
On camera, he said of Escriva, who died in 1975: "He certainly wasn't a fanatic, he was a man who really knew how to love. "He had a very, very full plate, and yet he was completely focused on the people around him, I recall."
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