Mònica Terribas: "They have considered that the cleanest thing was to put me on a list"

BarcelonaOn WhatsApp, she has a photo with her son Marc, who is planting a kiss on her. "It reminds me that it is he who helps me, to keep on course, and not the other way around," she explains. "Since Marc was born, all the relevant decisions have been marked by him, and he has followed, with patience and understanding, my professional decisions and those of his father. An isometric triangle of life." The journalist has just released El buen espíritu (HBO Max), an investigation into the role of men in Opus Dei, after narrating the female perspective last year in El minuto heroico.

After explaining the role of women in the Work, you are now focusing on men. What is the main difference?

— Let them rule. The celibate numeraries govern the work and become priests; they hold the design and control of the entire structure. They know where the contributions go, who has shares and who does not.

In the documentary a witness mentions the word mafia.

— The question is how everything is organized from the bottom up so that it works in a natural way. Opus Dei is a very intelligent structure: from a young age, the people who are part of it consider it to be of good spirit to give all their salary to the Work and not ask too much about what is done with it.

Since they were little, you say. They are lifelong commitments torn from minors.

— In the documentary there are several symmetrical testimonies. All of them, at 14 or 15 years old, piten, which is what they call asking for admission. One of the cases is a kid born in Versailles, who was sent at fifteen years old to the middle of nowhere in Poland, from where he never returned. That decision by Opus Dei determined his life. He was able to rebuild it, but when he was broken in half, the only thought that came to him was: “I cannot commit suicide, because my mother is still alive”.

Those who rule also cry.

— Of course, because they become perpetrators and that is what makes them feel worse. They are the ones who have maneuvered the money. They are the ones who have pressured those who were not contributing enough. A former member who does not appear in El buen espíritu told me: “I have gone to the notary with a member of Opus Dei who was just on the verge of entering dementia to convince him not to touch the will”.

Now that you have spoken with them, who is more broken?

— They. The auxiliary numeraries go through a lot of hardship and have been exploited at work. But when they manage to leave Opus Dei they have had the guts to file a complaint. They have obeyed, cleaned, pampered... but they did not carry the envelopes, they did not orchestrate.

After El minuto heroico you publicly asked the Vatican for a reparation. Has it arrived?

— It has not reached me directly based on the documentary, but it has reached me that Pope Francis had demanded the reform of the Opus statutes. And that Pope Leo XIV, the first thing he did was to call the prelate and his second-in-command to account, to demand this reform from them. Whoever thought that Prevost would not pursue the issue of spiritual abuse was very wrong.

Did they see him, then?

— I am aware that the documentary reached Rome, to the office of Pope Francis. But he immediately entered the hospital and I did not manage to find out what they thought of it. They did, however, let me know that I should be calm, that the Pope was fully aware of it and that he had received it.

The tentacles of Opus Dei in the institutions of power are proverbial. Do they still have them in Catalonia?

— In Catalonia and in Spain, everywhere. It will be noticed a little bit in the media coverage of this second part. Because covering the abuse of women can be minimized as a matter from another era, or a labor issue. But talking about how money works... Here there is a level of detail about how the architecture of power works that will make it difficult for some media outlets with close ties to the social environments of Opus Dei to talk about El buen espíritu.

You who were the director of TV3, did you feel the embrace of the tentacles of Opus Dei during that period?

— I have to tell you no. Look, I really felt tentacles, eh?

And squeaks!

— And squeaks from everywhere, yes. [Laughs] What is evident is that there are people in our economic and financial environment with Opus influence. The book about La Caixa by Rafa Burgos explains how they have a close relationship with the Work, and it is clear that they do not like these topics. I myself, when I was doing La nit al dia, asked Isidre Fainé directly if he was a member of Opus Dei.

What did he answer?

— “Ask my children,” he answered, valuing his family. And I am not questioning the good faith of Isidre Fainé or anyone else: I am talking about how the system works. I only ask those who have been supernumeraries and those who are supernumeraries from the same family to watch the documentary and sit down to talk about whether they have noticed that some of the things reported by these people who have lived through it for twenty years resonate with them.

You made the documentary at Mediapro, where you arrived with the help of Jaume Roures. He is no longer there, and neither is Tatxo Benet. How does this impact your situation?

— It changes everything because I am no longer at Mediapro due to a decision by Mediapro. The restructuring has affected me, but it does not alter my desire to do journalism. Nor my desire to carry out projects that interest me as long as I find someone willing to help me produce them.

With El minuto heroico you won an Ondas. How do you explain that it is not enough to keep your job?

— Because the company's priorities have changed a lot. The Mediapro that Roures, Benet and Romy founded, and which became one of the most important audiovisual companies in Europe, is now in a complicated economic situation: they would not have carried out a redundancy plan (ERO) if that were not the case. And, above all, it has very different priorities, and a profile like mine might not interest them. I also understand that. One must be humble and assume that perhaps they want younger people or people who are interested in other things.

But the fact that a professional with your background doesn't have an easy fit doesn't say many good things about the country. You only have the Corporation left, as a large company.

— Oh, I don't think about the Corporation anymore. I have directed TV3, I have worked a lot in that house, and I don't believe the Corporation is a space where anyone thinks of me, not even to produce things.

And then?

— I don't know. No matter how many professional and business accidents there may be, we will find a way to connect with people of a creative spirit. Look, being able to help those people who are suffering and speak about Opus Dei openly has been a gift. My departure is a response to people who are not interested in what I do and that's it: they considered that the cleanest thing was to put me on a list. It's fine.

I don't want to leave without asking you about the political moment and the rise of the far right.

— It is worrying how xenophobia, racism, and exclusion are being fueled. I have to think about what is happening to the human brain for there to be political leaders in Catalonia or Spain capable of saying that there are people who are surplus, instead of burning the midnight oil to find solutions. Added to this is an unbridled AI, birthed to be economically efficient as a good daughter of the capitalist system. The general individualistic mentality is pairing up with the machine. And the cocktail is explosive.