Opus Dei (numerary high-control variant)

Opus Dei numeraries are the inner core of a structure most people interact with at the lay (supernumerary) margin. Numeraries take a private commitment to celibacy, live in shared centres, surrender most or all salary to the prelature, follow a heavily structured 'plan of life' (multi-hour daily prayer, weekly confession to a designated priest, weekly 'fraternal correction'), and practice corporal mortification — wearing the cilice (a barbed-wire chain around the thigh) two hours daily and self-flagellation with a small whip (the discipline) weekly. Multiple ex-numerary memoirs and the 2017 Spanish Audiencia Nacional case (which heard testimony from a former assistant numerary alleging unpaid domestic labour) corroborate the residential and financial dimensions. Recruitment is heavily focused on university students and young professionals; the 'whistles' (designated recruiters) are a documented practice. Pope Francis's 2022 Motu Proprio Ad charisma tuendum downgraded the prelate from bishop status, and the 2023 statute revision required external bishop oversight of formation — both responses to ex-member complaints reaching the Holy See. The supernumerary majority — non-residential, married, salary-keeping — is a different population and not what this entry scores.