Would you accept the statement that Opus Dei actually 'controls' certain banks, business enterprises, newspapers etc.? If so, what does 'control' mean in this context?

There are members of Opus Dei (considerably fewer than some rumours would have it) who work at an executive level in businesses of various kinds. Some manage family concerns they have inherited. Others conduct businesses they themselves started or helped to start. Still others have been placed at the head of companies by the owners, who were convinced of their ability. They have reached the positions they hold by any of the honest ways in which people usually reach them. That is to say it has nothing to do with their membership in Opus Dei.

Just as with all the other members of the Work, the business executives who belong to Opus Dei seek to live the spirit of the Gospel in the exercise of their profession. This means, in the first place, that they have to be scrupulously just and honest. They endeavour to be honest in their business affairs, paying a just salary to their employees, respecting the rights of the shareholders or owners, fulfilling all the laws. They avoid any type of favouritism with respect to other persons, whether they belong to Opus Dei or not. I feel that favouritism would be contrary not only to the search for holiness, which is the reason for their belonging to Opus Dei, but to the most elementary morality.

I already mentioned the absolute freedom enjoyed by the members of Opus Dei in their professional work. This implies that the business executives who belong to the Work manage their companies as they see fit, without receiving any instructions from the directors of Opus Dei as to how they should carry out their work. The economic and financial policies that they adopt and the ideological orientation, in the case of a newspaper, or other publication, is their own responsibility entirely.

Any attempt to picture Opus Dei as a source of temporal or economic directives is completely unfounded.