Confessing once a week to an Opus Dei priest is mandatory. Married members are encouraged to send their children to Opus Dei schools. The schools serve as recruitment centres. Opus Dei has been accused of being a church within the Church. It has its own doctrine, which it claims was divinely inspired.
Most sects practice the cult of the founder.
In Opus Dei's case, it is determined to have Escriv , who died in 1975, declared a saint before the millennium. But a number of prominent Catholics have protested, claiming that canonisation would weaken the credibility of the Church. Such weighty protests have not moved John Paul II, whose views on Escriv 's saintliness, and regard for Opus Dei in general, are well known. After the death of the founder's successor, Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, in 1994, John Paul II returned to the prelatic church and knelt before the prelate-general's funeral bier. In spite of opposition from Paul VI's closest adviser, Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, in November 1982 John Paul II elevated Opus Dei to the unique status of personal prelature.