Not true: Madonna abandoning Kabbalah for Opus Dei

Well this one certainly shot at the speed of light today through the Catholic blogosphere: The [U.K.] Mirror has reported that Madonna is backing away from the Jewish mysticism branch Kaballah -- and flirting with the idea of joining the Personal Prelature of Opus Dei.


Seriously.


From the article:

“She has started exploring different religions [a source told the Mirror.] Madonna has always been intrigued by Opus Dei. As yet, she’s not a fully paid-up member – she’s just had informal chats.”
...
On Friday she spent 90 minutes at the Opus Dei center in Orme Court before returning to her North West London home. Last night her spokesman declined to comment.

Fantastic yarn. Unfortunately, it appears lacking in factual basis. Brian Finnerty, the U.S. communications director for Opus Dei, told me this afternoon that the story is not true.

He adds: "We are doing our own checking into this story and it appears to be simply untrue. We are trying to reach the journalist to find out how this got started."

Updated at 2:49 p.m. with longer attribution to Finnerty.