Opus Dei found unwelcome fame and undeserved notoriety at the hand of the infamous but hugely successful novelist Dan Brown. It has returned to the public stage this week, not in the form of the imaginative parody the Da Vinci Code presented, but because of the pope’s most recent letter.

Entitled ‘Ad charisma tuendum’ “For the safeguarding of the prelature of the charism of Opus Dei”, the pope has stipulated that whoever leads Opus Dei in future will never be a bishop. Does this papal initiative fall into the category of the sacred or the sinister?

In this the 15th episode of Merely Catholic, Jack Valero, the Head of Communications for Opus Dei in the UK,  joins Dr Gavin Ashenden to reflect on the prevalence of conspiracy theories and give his interpretation of what this really means; whilst also commenting on the prevalence of global and historic apologies as Pope Francis travels to Canada to engage with history, guilt and forgiveness.