Approaching Opus Dei from the outside often involves grappling with a dense shell of labels, ideological prejudices, and stereotypes that rarely reflect the daily reality of its members. To lift this veil and look squarely at one of the Church’s most analyzed yet least understood institutions, journalist  Mar Dorrio  has an extensive conversation with  Jack Valero  —author of the book  *Opus Dei Unfiltered *—an unvarnished portrait that delves into the inner workings of vocation.

In contrast to the grand offices, the secrecy, and the tales of intrigue that fiction has so often fueled, this talk focuses on the most ordinary ground possible:  the everyday lives of ordinary people . Far from seeking exile from professional or family responsibilities, Valero explains how the divine calling doesn’t arrive to uproot anyone from their place, but to transform them from within.  “God doesn’t ask you to abandon your life, but to live it differently ,” the author succinctly summarizes. This catalyst for conversion is what allows an office, a classroom, a taxi, or even the dynamics of the home to be transformed into a true altar for encountering the sacred.

During the interview, the dialogue flows smoothly through the intricacies of personal freedom, work done well as an offering, and overcoming the historical misgivings that often surround Opus Dei. Valero explains that the driving force behind Opus Dei is not power strategies, monolithic structures, or influence peddling, but rather the human network of diverse souls—from taxi drivers and mothers to scientists and artists—who try to succeed and fail while searching for God in the everyday.

The discussion also addresses the weight of prejudices accumulated over decades.  When society cannot conceive of personal sacrifice for strictly supernatural reasons, it tends to shift its focus to suspicions of power or economic control.  In contrast, this journalistic journey offers an alternative based on listening directly to its protagonists. It is an invitation to shed ideological blinders and glimpse a life where holiness—far from disguises and exceptionalism—simply smells of closeness, normality, and ordinary self-sacrifice in the midst of the world.

Full interview:

Mar Dorrio:  Well, we are in Santiago de Compostela and I am very lucky to be with Jack Valero, who is coming to present his book, his second book,  The Opus Dei without filters, to many cities in Spain .

And whether he’ll be in your city or not, you can find out through social media; we’ll leave you a link so you can see his upcoming shows, and also, if you want him to come to your city, you can leave us a message at the link we’ll leave you.

Opus Dei Unfiltered  is a book that moves from the specific to the general. It contains 20 testimonies that, through real-life cases, presented without embellishment, aim to address the big questions and common misconceptions that arise when people talk about Opus Dei: doubts, questions, myths…

And today we’re going to delve a little deeper; I want to ask him about all those legends and questions that have arisen around me, and have him answer them. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

Jack Valero:  Go ahead.

Mar Dorrio:  If this were an English exam, I want the short answer: What is Opus Dei?

Jack Valero:  Opus Dei is a call from God to put God in all aspects of your life, family, work and so on, and then transmit that to everyone around you, transmit that joy of having found the meaning of your life.

Mar Dorrio:  And is it a legal institution that recognizes its members, who can say whether they want to or not that they are members of Opus Dei? They don’t have to take any kind of oath of silence, they don’t have to hide anything. So, this seems very important to me: defining what Opus Dei is.

Jack Valero:  Yes, it’s also part of the Catholic Church, and it’s a commitment to living out a vocation from God, right? Which is a vocation of dedication, but that dedication isn’t like the dedication of, for example, a nun, right? I mean, it can be just as strong, but it’s in everyday life. Perfect. It’s dedication in everyday life. This is what it is: you’re doing the normal things of each day, working day after day, and one day you realize that God is very interested in that, precisely because it’s you doing it. And because He loves you so much, He loves your work. And it’s a mind-blowing discovery.

Mar Dorrio:  But, in light of those legends, I think it’s fantastic to say that anyone who wants to read the statutes can read them; anyone who wants to know everything—there’s no trickery involved, no seven-locked door or seven-league boots hiding anything. And of course, transparency and sects don’t usually go hand in hand.

So, for all those who associate it with something strange, know that it’s a legal institution perfectly integrated within the Catholic Church, without any tricks or deception. For those watching, whether believers or non-believers, and for whom this is just a passing acquaintance, how can one become a member of Opus Dei? Although it would be more accurate to speak of different types of vocation, for those who aren’t believers, how can one become a member of Opus Dei?

Jack Valero:  Well, first you said that it’s something that Popes, bishops, everyone loves very much, and because we are Catholics within the Church, that is, it’s not understood outside the Catholic Church. And then, most of the members are married, they have their families, and they are called supernumeraries. This is the vast majority. Then some are celibate, for example, the numeraries—I am a numerary—and we are responsible for supporting others, giving them formation, accompanying them on their vocational journey, answering their questions, all of that, supporting them. And then there are others who have the gift of celibacy to do that, and then there are others who are also celibate, who are the associates, who do that, but in their own environments, they live with their families, whatever, and then some of the male numeraries or male associates discern a call to the priesthood and can be ordained priests for Opus Dei.

And finally, there are also some priests who call themselves members of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, who are from the dioceses, who also want to be members of Opus Dei and their way of being so is to join this society and from their parish or diocese they can have means of formation and do the same as all the other members, but within their diocese.

These are the ways of being of Opus Dei.

Mar Dorrio:  Perfect. So, supernumeraries are those who own a minivan and Opus Dei dictates the number of children they must have.

Jack Valero:  It’s very curious because here’s a story about a couple who are both supernumeraries, and they’re talking to a mother from the school. The husband says, “Well, my wife is in a cohabiting relationship, so why is it that my wife and I are in Opus Dei? It’s not possible, if you only have two children, how did they let you in?” And then… and then he says, “No, no, we have the ones God gave us, and then one died shortly after birth and all that, and we have two left, we’re very happy.” And then Ángel, who’s the taxi driver, also says, “Well, we would have liked to have many, but God gave us two.”

And some don’t give them any, and in fact, each one, I mean, for me what is most perceived in Opus Dei is freedom. Freedom means, I go to be spiritually accompanied, I talk with someone, with a priest or a layperson, they give me advice and I can say, well, this advice is good, I want to follow it or not, or no, on this occasion it seems not to me, I’m going to do something else and this is, I mean, as a member what is most perceived about the Work is a family spirit and affection and freedom, it’s the two things.

Mar Dorrio:  I can vouch for the fact that no one told me or imposed anything on me regarding my 12 children, not at all. And then funny things happen. When you have 12 children, people say, “It’s because Opus Dei pays you for your children,” and I say, I missed out on that subsidy; I never even joined because they never gave me anything. What’s more, I’ll tell you that my husband, who is a university professor, came to visit with a professor from Japan, and I went with his wife. We went to the beach, to a swimming pool, and I was putting sunscreen on the children, and since they are so formal, she was putting sunscreen on me. And then people said, “It’s because Opus Dei has hired a live-in nanny.”

Mar Dorrio:  That’s not the case, I mean, everyone is self-sufficient, everyone manages themselves and everyone is free to do whatever they want in the privacy of their bedroom and to have as many children as they deem appropriate or not.

Something that sums up this book on every page, and that you mentioned earlier: freedom. And I want to tell you, because I think people don’t quite grasp how free we are. So I want to tell you that in a retreat course—and now, thank God, retreats, like many other spiritual practices, are becoming more common here in Spain—the retreats organized by Opus Dei are for members and for people who aren’t members.

During the last retreat, at lunchtime, they were listening to an audiobook, which is very relaxing, isn’t it, since you don’t have to make conversation and all that, and Saint Josemaría was saying that he would never tell one of his children who to vote for.

So, I had an elderly lady next to me who said, “Well, I don’t know what I’m doing here. Why don’t they tell the Opus Dei members who to vote for?” And I told her, “If they tell me who to vote for, I’m not here.” But isn’t this something—freedom—that I would love to see implemented? Because when you’re involved in the Work, I have Opus Dei friends who are eager to gain more independence in their autonomous communities, people with no real love for regional autonomy, who, in many centers, during difficult times in history, like the worst years of the ETA terrorist group, were asked, please, not to talk about politics in Opus Dei centers.

Jack Valero:  Yes, yes, yes. And from Catalonia, don’t tell me.

Mar Dorrio:  This, this freedom is seen in the book.

Jack Valero:  Yes, and that’s what I say, because I’ve been talking about freedom these 25 years I’ve worked in the information office, I’ve talked a lot about freedom. But there comes a point when I think, “Explaining this isn’t enough. I’m going to say that people should speak from their own experience, because the members have experienced it from the beginning and they know it and understand it.” And I say, “Well, let them explain it.”

Mar Dorrio:  Of course.

Jack Valero:  “Because it’s the only way I see people will accept it, because otherwise I say, ‘No, no, we’re free, we’re free,’ and the guy who listens to me says, ‘No, no, that’s false,’ and that’s why I want to move on to another chapter, which is: let people explain things, their lives, and that way you see it.”

Mar Dorrio:  Absolutely. I have to say this because it seems like if you’re a member of Opus Dei you have to send your children to a specific school, university, or hospital. My children went to public schools because that was the closest option in my city. Some are studying in Navarre because they had scholarships, and the rest are still in public schools and have gotten married, are working, and so on. Freedom is a fact, a reality, and many of us wouldn’t fit in if it weren’t like this, if we didn’t do things because we damn well please.

Jack Valero:  That’s it, that’s it.

Mar Dorrio:  After all this analysis, what does our society need to understand lay vocations? For example, if a girl says she wants to join the Little Sisters of Teresa in Madrid or become a Poor Clare nun and bake pastries for the rest of her life, people understand and understand that she’s doing it freely. They might think she’s crazy or not—how can you dedicate your life to that?—but they understand. When someone wants to be a numerary and dedicate their life to caring, attending to others, giving of themselves, that enters the realm of negative stereotypes, slavery, even though it’s the same kind of dedication, even though the numerary is a layperson. What do we need to mature and understand these lay vocations?

Jack Valero:  Yes, and I think this is the main point, isn’t it? Because Opus Dei preaches that baptism brings you your total vocation as a layperson of holiness—baptism touches us all, and it’s a powerful vocation. So, over time, this is being understood a little more, but we haven’t arrived yet. The Second Vatican Council says it, it proclaims the universal call to holiness, and people say, “Well, that must be very easy, if it’s for everyone, it can’t be complicated.” And I say, “No, no, it’s complicated, but it’s very committed,” absolutely. And so, uh, but that’s it, I think the role, it’s like, uh, I was just at Mass at the Franciscan church and I was thinking, uh, Saint Francis of Assisi, who was born 800 years ago, who died 800 years ago, he preached detachment from earthly things and not having, and he founded the Franciscans so that they would do that. We all have to do that, but the Franciscans are there showing that it has to be done, and 800 years later they are still teaching us that it has to be done, and I see Opus Dei as that, right? We all have to sanctify ourselves through our vocation in the world, but Opus Dei is there to tell you what it is, and it reminds you of it and reminds you of it, and this is our function.

Mar Dorrio:  Well, look, I want to tell you about the moment I said, “I’m going to be a member of Opus Dei,” and it was with this issue of money, because it seems like in Opus Dei, right? I mean, money seems to be everywhere. So I understood Opus Dei when I went with my husband to Piura, where he was going to teach some classes, and they showed me the University of Piura and said, “These blackboards, these desks, are from Navarre.” And then I said, “So, in the end, Opus Dei is like the spiritual children of Robin Hood, taking from one place, but not keeping anything for themselves; they give it to the poor.” And then I said, at that moment, many of my preconceived notions and prejudices about the Work crumbled, and I understood that nobody ever keeps anything for themselves; it opens doors to go further, because they don’t give you fish, they teach you how to fish. And when I saw the Navarrese wax figure in the poorest place in Peru, I said: “This is where I’m staying.”

Jack Valero:  Yes, that’s great, what a great story, I love it, I love it.

Mar Dorrio:  But—and I would also love for people to see this—the hospitals being built in Africa, how that Robin Hood spirit is taking hold, which is not about stealing, but about valuing what you offer, that university that provides good training, that leaves people well-prepared, but with that money nobody can buy shoes.

Jack Valero:  No, and that’s it, right? I mean, the founder used to tell us, “You have to do a lot of things in life.” He had this spirit of magnificence, of doing great things, really great things, but then in your life you have to be detached from what you use and use very little, and use it as much as possible, and so on, right? I mean, he had this combination. For me, the combination of having a lot and using very little, and doing very big things, with a lot of money that costs a lot of money, for the good of people, for formation, and for God, has always appealed to me. And he didn’t say, no, because sometimes people think, “I’m Catholic, they’re going to do small things and so on because we don’t have a small vision,” right? But for him, his idea was enormous, enormous, enormous. Let’s spend, I mean, if Coca-Cola spends a million to advertise something that’s not really worth much, we have the Church, we have God, so, we have to spend all the money we need, but for God.

Mar Dorrio:  Of course, absolutely, let’s see if we can achieve that through this book. I know they’ll understand it a little better. And I want to touch on a curious little legend from the streets that circulated in my city. Someone said, “There are lists,” “There are lists where names are written,” and I wanted to explain that Pope Francis had a great devotion to the sleeping Saint Joseph, and he would place his list, the little slips of paper with what he wanted to entrust to him, under the image of Saint Joseph. And that’s ultimately what happens in the work. I, at least, place my slips of paper with my lists of things, my lists of people, under Saint Joseph’s image, and there’s nothing more to it, no trickery involved. There aren’t any lists sealed with wax that are going to say anything strange or anything like that. But, since we’re going down this path so openly, I don’t know if it’s happened in any other city where word got around, complicating something as simple as entrusting something and just mentioning Saint Joseph.

Jack Valero:  I love what you’re saying, because I also have those statues of Saint Joseph that I saw Pope Francis with, and I put the names on them. Because when people know I’m a numerary member, that I’m one of the [unclear], my brothers—none of them are in the Work or anything—or friends, they tell me, “Oh, well, you pray a lot, look, you have to pray for this, this, this, this, this,” and I say, “Okay, okay, okay, but one day I thought, no, no, I have to write it down because otherwise it’s kind of hypocritical, right? I say, okay, okay, okay, but I don’t do it, right? So I have to write it down, and now I put those lists on Saint Joseph, but I also pray, I also pray that many people discover that their vocation is in the Work, because for me, I mean, God called me very young, I have that privilege of God calling me very young, and I am totally happy, I wouldn’t change it for anything, and I want to transmit that, right?” That’s why I pray for my nephews or friends or their children so that they too can discover that joy.

Mar Dorrio:  And I think that members of the Work can sometimes be tiresome if we don’t have particularly good people skills, just like we can be tiresome, you know, like women and men when they have a Thermomix. Of course, you’re so fascinated and you don’t stop talking about it for two weeks straight. And I think that when we say, “This has helped me,” “I’m happier,” well, then of course, we have to be tiresome because you say, “Seriously, your head is drooping, take ibuprofen,” well, we’re very insistent on saying, “Pray, you’ll see, you’ll feel better.” So I don’t know if you’re touching on the topic of the tiresomeness that characterizes us.

Jack Valero:  Yes, I love this example because when my father died, my mother started selling Thermomix, and then all my sisters-in-law, all my friends have Thermomix, and she had a list of things, “Mom, listen, this lady called me, this lady, this lady,” and for her, doing this was a second life, right? And I was thinking, well, this, this enthusiasm she has for selling Thermomix is ​​the same, it’s similar to what, I mean, when you said this example, it reminded me of this, right? And well, I ask people, “Hey, what does apostolate mean to you? Or why do you do this? Why do you talk to people? What do you talk about?” And rather than giving them a template, I’ve let them talk and I’ve said and put down what they’ve told me, and for me, it’s been very moving to see the things I was explaining, but made real in other people.

Mar Dorrio:  Well, to wrap things up, I’d encourage everyone listening to visit the Opus Dei website, because you’ll find everything there, plain and simple: what we pray, what we don’t pray, everything you want to know, you’ll find it all there. And this week there’s an article that I loved, right? It’s about Saint Josemaría saying that we can be “redivided,” that we can turn everything we have in our hands into gold—our sorrows, our joys, our everyday lives. And I think that’s the great treasure of Opus Dei: putting God into every little detail, even cleaning shoes, offering it all up. And that’s when Opus Dei becomes something else entirely; each member of Opus Dei becomes that “redivided” person.

You know what? I start my day saying “Serviam,” which means, “I will serve.” I usually say, “I will serve.” But this past year, I heard some people criticizing that, saying that the life of Opus Dei is a life of service and all that. And since then, this past year, it has given me even more devotion. I mean, now I get out of bed and shout “Serviam!” because, well, because the idea that this day is a day to serve excites me, and that, uh, it has so much meaning.

Mar Dorrio:  And I think that when I decided to join Lo Pusdei, I was clear that it was there that I would receive those private lessons for my soul, that would help me become the woman I wanted to be. So, sometimes we understand because when someone truly cares for you, is loyal, and corrects you, it can be difficult, and it is difficult, but just like you go to a gym to get a tough workout and don’t exercise at home, when your soul needs that support and guidance to get where you want to be, that’s where Lo Pusdei is, right? Yes, and several stories come out of this, I mean, I’ve also been moved by how a numerary talks about how he discovered spiritual direction, a supernumerary, how they helped her even when her marriage wasn’t working and they encouraged her to do this, that, look at this, think this way and then she says, “well, this has been for me, I only talk about these things with the psychologist and with my director, because they are the two people who understand me, who help me, who support me, it’s impressive.

Mar Dorrio:  Well, thank you very much, Jack Valero, and this is the book  The Opus Dei Unfiltered .