The best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code, has brought under scrutiny a powerful and influential movement within the Catholic Church - Opus Dei. This institution, often charged with excessive secrecy, has had many critics. What is Opus Dei? offers a comprehensive profile of Opus Dei, and of its founder, St Josemaria Escriva. In this rigorous and well-documented book, its inspiration, history, sprituality, organisation and activities are all clearly detailed. Here are the answers to so many questions, authoritatively presented. Opus Dei, founded in 1928 by St Josemaria Escriva, proclaims that lay people can and ought to seek holiness in the context of their ordinary life. Through daily work, at home and in the family, men and women can spread the Gospel in the world in which they live. Flourishing both before and since the Second Vatican Council, Opus Dei anticipated what were to be the great pastoral themes of the Church at the beginning of the third millennium.