Arne Panula was right
— a new “Great Awakening” was coming.

But it wouldn’t rise up from the student population.

Instead, it would emerge out of the dark-money networks.

The recruitment of Leonard Leo would cement ties between Opus Dei and the U.S. Supreme Court that had been developing for decades.

Antonin Scalia had once been at the center of this relationship
— the Justice had given talks at the Catholic Information Center and at the Reston Study Center,
which was the male numerary residence in Washington’s suburbs that hosted regular get-togethers for Opus Dei members.

Only the year before, Scalia had also attended an Opus Dei retreat at the prelature’s $10 million, 844-acre property near the Shenandoah Mountains.

His children and grandchildren attended Opus Dei schools.

He was best friends with Father Malcolm Kennedy, an Opus Dei priest who often came around for dinner at Scalia’s house,
after which the two would often belt out Broadway tunes.

But with Leo and his network of dark money, Opus Dei’s penetration of Washington’s political and judicial worlds would now reach unprecedented levels.

That Christmas, like many Christmases before it, the Supreme Court hosted its annual holiday party.

As always, Father Malcolm was seated at the piano, playing carols for the assembled dignitaries,
having been invited by Scalia.

As he played, the Justices
— the most powerful legal figures in America
— sang along to the tune played by the Opus Dei priest.

It was a dark portent for what was to come.

Leonard Leo's contribution to this reshaping of the Court would soon involve much more than providing a list of amenable conservative justices.

Within weeks of Scalia’s death in February 2016,
he began to mobilize hundreds of millions of dollars to make his dream of reshaping the Court
— and wider society
— a reality.

While his appointment to the board of the CIC was still relatively recent,
in reality Leo had been juggling several side hustles during his more than twenty years at the Federalist Society
— usually at nonprofit organizations linked to Catholic causes close to his heart.

In 2008, he had become the chair of "Students for Life of America", an organization conceived along the same lines as the Federalist Society,
but dedicated to setting up local chapters at high schools and colleges across the country
devoted to #fighting #abortion.

In 2012, he joined the "Catholic Association", a small nonprofit dedicated to promoting the Catholic voice in the public arena that had been set up by the Opus Dei activist Neil Corkery.

Leo’s entrance coincided with a sudden upswing in the finances of the Catholic Association,
which hitherto had raised next to no money
— but which suddenly saw almost $2 million flood in.

The money was used to set up two advocacy groups.

One was called the "Catholic Association Foundation", which soon became a conduit for funding various media initiatives
— including a radio station in Maine, where a referendum on same-sex marriage legislation was on the ballot.

The other was called "Catholic Voices", which had been started by #Jack #Valero, Opus Dei’s spokesperson in London,
as a way to shift media narratives concerning Catholic issues.

Within months of being set up, “volunteers” from the group had given interviews or published comment pieces on a variety of issues,
including abortion and same-sex marriage,
in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

At one conference hosted by the organization, a priest from Opus Dei was on hand to offer the benediction.