Focus on the Family, Opus Dei, Santa Muerte
"Growing up as a child of a Focus on the Family executive in the 1990s, Amber Cantorna-Wylde belonged to a seemingly idyllic family at the epicenter of American evangelicalism.
Her household was infused with the teachings of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, who endorsed strong marriages, clear family hierarchy, and strict discipline for children as antidotes to rising divorce rates, second-wave feminism, and the sexual revolution. At age 13, Cantorna-Wylde was surrounded by family and friends as her father placed a silver purity ring on her finger, symbolizing her commitment to virginity until marriage.
"There was an expectation that was put on us, because of who my father was and the reputation that we had in the community, that we were supposed to behave a certain way," said Cantorna-Wylde, whose father, Dave Arnold, was the executive producer of the smash hit children's Christian radio program "Adventures in Odyssey."
Cantorna-Wylde, now 40, claims it was Dobson's teachings on family that tore her own apart. After she came out as gay, her parents stopped speaking with her — a decision she says resulted from Dobson-approved parenting advice.
When Dobson died last month at age 89, Cantorna-Wylde was among hundreds of evangelicals raised on Dobson's precepts who took to social media to question his legacy. Many of these former "Focus on the Family kids" say their families were ruptured by parents who closely followed Dobson's teaching. For them, the parenting methods that promised stability instead fragmented the very relationships they were intended to uplift.
A University of Southern California child psychologist, Dobson burst onto the parenting advice scene in 1970 with the publication of "Dare to Discipline." An answer to the popular Dr. Benjamin Spock, whom Dobson called too permissive, "Dare to Discipline" framed parent-child interactions as a power struggle and instructed parents to discipline children decisively and early. Dobson argued that physical discipline as young as 15 months would stave off teenage rebellion and the threat to the American family posed by the upheavals of the 1960s."
Opus Dei – the secretive, scandal-ridden organisation made famous by The Da Vinci Code – appears to be back in favour with the Vatican."It was about 20 years ago that Jack Valero, who runs the communications office of the Catholic organisation Opus Dei, started to notice that he was getting more people contacting him about it. Some were journalists, some were documentary filmmakers, and plenty were ordinary members of the public. What they had in common was that they had read – and later watched – The Da Vinci Code, the blockbuster novel by Dan Brown, which was later made into a movie starring Tom Hanks. It depicted Opus Dei as a secretive religious organisation, wielding power within the Roman Catholic Church, and whose members apparently liked to indulge in mortification of the flesh, usually with a bit of flagellation.
But, as Valero says, "All publicity is good publicity", for The Da Vinci Code meant that millions around the world heard about Opus Dei for the first time. Valero admits that, before Brown's novel, Opus had been loath to talk much about what went on inside it: "The publicity forced us to be more open," he says. The Opus Dei organisation began to speak more about itself; members more readily said they belonged to it and that it shaped their lives.But the controversies didn't completely go away, with the word "cult" often attached to it, and many Catholics still think it is too powerful and secretive. Then, three years ago, Pope Francis intervened, ordering Opus to rewrite its statutes, demanding that its prelate (or superior) no longer be a bishop, stripping it of the power to operate separately from local dioceses while giving the Vatican the power to intervene.
Now, with another pope at the helm – Pope Leo XIV, elected in May – there seems to be a shift in the Catholic Church, not least regarding the future of Opus Dei. Leo has been spending his first months as Pope meeting people from across the Church, among them the prelate (leader) of Opus Dei. Now, it looks as if the organisation's revised statutes are on the brink of being finalised, with revisions to how its authority is exercised.
As the first American pope and a former bishop in Peru, Leo (formerly Robert Prevost) will be well aware of the power and influence of Opus Dei. Austen Ivereigh, a Vatican expert and biographer of Pope Francis, says: "When Pope Francis chose Robert Prevost as bishop of Chiclayo [in Peru], it had previously been run for 30 years by bishops who were members of Opus Dei. It had many priests formed by Opus Dei. He was on the front line of Opus influence". It later turned out that these years of dealing with Opus Dei on the ground as Bishop Prevost of Chiclayo – encouraging members to be less exclusive and more involved in the life of the whole Catholic community – would be helpful to the future Pope Leo's understanding of the organisation."
"In the predawn hours of September 13, yet another assault was carried out against the Centro Encanto de Keme in Cantel, Quetzaltenango. Unknown assailants forced their way into the sanctuary and torched religious images, reducing the temple to ashes and leaving its owners reeling. "They knocked everything down and burned it—absolutely everything," one of them told the local press. This was not random vandalism. It was deliberate, premeditated, and aimed at extinguishing the heart of Guatemala's first Santa Muerte temple.
As I've documented in my reporting for Skeleton Saint and Patheos, this temple has been a lightning rod for controversy since construction began in 2024. At its center looms a massive effigy of Santa Muerte, measuring between 33 and 36 feet tall. When I first saw images of her skeletal frame towering over Llanos de Urbina, I knew this temple marked a watershed moment in the spread of Santa Muerte devotion beyond Mexico. No longer relegated to hidden household altars or tucked-away street shrines, here was a monumental temple proclaiming devotion to Holy Death in the heartland of Guatemala's western highlands.From the beginning, municipal authorities seized on the lack of proper building permits to sanction the project. The owners were slapped with a Q500,000 fine, and the council approved a neighborhood petition calling for the temple's demolition within 20 days. The site's proximity to the Cantel Penal Farm only deepened fears, with critics linking Santa Muerte devotion to prisoners, gangs, and organized crime.
But in March 2025, a civil court in Quetzaltenango issued a powerful injunction: halting construction would violate the constitutional right to freedom of worship. That ruling set up a classic clash between local authorities eager to tear down the temple and a judiciary affirming the rights of devotees to practice their faith."
