Opus Dei members tried in court on abuse charges

Two members of the powerful Roman Catholic organisation Opus Dei went on trial in a Paris court yesterday accused of subjecting a disciple to years of abusive working practices.

The case comes after a nine-year probe and centres on Catherine Tissier, who says that as a teenager she was forced to work 14-hour days, resulting in charges of inadequate remuneration and illegal employment.

Claire Bardon de Segonzac, the head of the Dosnon School attended by Ms Tissier, and Agnes Duhail, head of the Couvrelles International Meeting Centre connected to the college in northern France, are defendants at the trial.

The University and Technical Culture Association (ACUT), which runs the school, is also a defendant, but has said it has no more than a “cultural link” with the conservative Opus Dei group.

Ms Tissier joined the school in 1985, aged only 14, and says she only later discovered it was run by associates of Opus Dei, which in Latin means Work of God and so is often referred to simply as The Work. She said she was forced to take vows and made to work as a domestic servant for virtually no pay. Opus Dei has insisted it was “not involved in the charges being brought” and had “nothing to be guilty about.”

The accused are charged with having “obtained from young students of the Dosnon School or those in an obvious state of psychological fragility... unpaid services or those paid with no respect for the work done.”

Ms Tissier 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. She said she was made to work 14-hour days, seven days a week, cleaning and serving. Staff paid her a salary and then reclaimed money from her by making her sign blank cheques, supposedly to pay her room and board, she alleged.

The salary “went into my bank account, but left of its own accord,” Mrs Tissier told the court. “I never saw the money. The management took the money back. After 15 years, I had €10 in my account,” she said.

Defendant Duhail said: “She was paid, all the social security payments were made... She always did what she wanted.”

“Everyone was paid and did what they wanted with the money. She’s the only one saying these things,” said Bardon de Segonzac.

The organisation, which is branded a secretive sect by some critics, came to wide attention after being portrayed as a secretive and violent cult in the blockbuster novel and film The Da Vinci Code. Opus Dei strongly objected to its portrayal in the film.

The group – which has a chiefly lay membership estimated at 80,000 – was founded in 1928 by Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer, who was canonised in 2002 with support from the late Pope John Paul II.