On January 7, the Washington Post reported that in 2005 Opus Dei paid the astonishing sum of $977,000 to a woman who accused Fr John McCloskey (pictured), one of its priests, of groping her.
The revelation was a shocking one, for reasons that go beyond McCloskey’s indefensible behaviour. But it did explain one mystery. Until 15 years ago, the telegenic Fr John McCloskey was the unofficial chaplain to the upper echelons of the Republican Party. He did not just make friends with Washington conservatives: he had a knack for turning them into Catholics. He saw his spiritual networking as “like the brokerage business” – about which he knew plenty, having worked for Citibank and Merrill Lynch before his ordination in 1981.
