Reprinted with permission from National Catholic Register.
The hikers could just barely hear Val Creus’ cries of distress over the roar of Rattlesnake Falls.
Moments before, the 59-year-old had jumped off a ledge near the scenic cascade in the northern California wilderness for a refreshing plunge.
Now, somewhere in the frigid water 20 feet below them, he was in trouble.
Matt Schoenecker didn’t hesitate. An avid biker and climber who also was a skilled high-platform diver, the 50-year-old leader of the outdoor excursion raced to the same ledge and dove in after Creus. Then another member of the group, Matt Anthony, 44, did the same.
Tragically, all three men — who were well-known members of the Opus Dei organization — lost their lives that afternoon.
The triple-drowning on June 18 made national news. But friends of the much-loved men are seeing more than just a worldly tragedy. Some are calling their deaths a life-changing event for them with a deeply religious dimension.
“All of them were like my brothers,” JL Marti, a chemical engineer and fellow member of Opus Dei, told the Register. Each of them had dedicated their lives to loving God and serving others, he said.
“Our Lord has taken three of the best guys in Opus Dei,” Marti said. “I don’t know why, but that has happened.”
Now, reflecting on their lives, he added, “We all want to be like they were.”
Who they were
The three men were numeraries — celibate laypeople who typically live in centers of Opus Dei, many of which are near well-known college campuses. Numeraries usually work a regular job or for Opus Dei. In their spare time, in addition to praying, they are expected to mentor students or perform charitable works.
Opus Dei, which means “Work of God” in Latin, was founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest, St. Josemaría Escrivá (1902-1975), to try to help laypeople — people who aren’t priests, deacons, religious brothers or nuns — become holy through their ordinary work.
All three men who died at the falls were accomplished.
Matt Anthony, a Notre Dame alumnus originally from St. Louis, studied classics in graduate school and served in senior leadership in Opus Dei, holding the No. 2 position overseeing men’s apostolic activities in the United States and Canada.
Matt Schoenecker, originally from Milwaukee, had a doctorate in biomedical engineering and helped make improvements in cochlear implants for the hard of hearing before joining Opus Dei leadership.
Valentino Creus, born and raised in the Philippines, was a partner at an accounting firm in Los Angeles.
But instead of their achievements, friends and admirers who spoke with the Register recently emphasized their personalities, their faith in God, and the ways they served others.
Father Joseph Keefe, a priest of Opus Dei who first met Anthony 25 years ago and lived with him in New York, said Anthony was a hard worker, but he also liked to hang out with the guys and smoke cigars while talking about sports and history.
“He was one of the smartest people I knew, but also very down-to-earth and friendly,” Father Keefe said by email.
“He had special leadership qualities: He knew how to inspire people, and for this reason, he was given a lot of responsibility within Opus Dei,” Father Keefe said.
While Anthony usually had a lot going on, he locked in on whoever was in front of him.
“You could tell when you were with him, at that moment you were the most important person in the world,” said Father Luke Mata, a priest of Opus Dei in Los Angeles.
Schoenecker ran a mentoring program for high-school students and a summer boys camp while directing an Opus Dei center in Los Angeles for 14 years before moving to New York last year. Marti told the Register that a high-school student recalled recently that Schoenecker always kept calm, no matter how the boys misbehaved.
“He had a soft and simple demeanor — very approachable with his perennial smile and winning sense of humor,” Father Keefe said.
“He had this explosive laughter. And always had a joke. Seemed to always be on the verge of telling one,” he said.
Val Creus was outgoing, full of jokes, and always cheerful. He liked to connect people, and he always had time to help.
His younger sister, Lourdes Creus, 49, described him as a life coach. Among the many bits of wisdom he offered: Go to confession once a week, and take your two daughters with you. “You never know when God’s going to call you,” he would say.
Fellow basketball players called Creus, who stood about 5 feet 4 inches, “The Flying Squirrel.”
“He was like a beast on the basketball court — very fast,” said George Cassar, 60, who lived with him at Opus Dei centers most of the past 38 years.
For everything he did — which included mentoring college students and providing spiritual direction for married men in Opus Dei — he was all in.
“When he decides to love, he loves furiously,” Lourdes said.
Matt Meeks, 42, who lives in southern Minnesota and met Creus in Los Angeles about 15 years ago, said he relied on Creus, speaking with him often by telephone.
“He was a deep spiritual man, but he’d always keep things on the surface, and then out of nowhere he’d come in with profound wisdom,” said Meeks, who runs Catholic Ventures, which makes Tiny Saints. “He was just a fun guy, and then right when you needed it, he’d give the best advice.”
What happened
Numeraries participate in a three-week course each year, for which they travel to an Opus Dei center. This summer, Schoenecker, Anthony, Creus, and their fellow hikers were taking their annual course at Trumbull Manor, an Opus Dei retreat center in Novato, California, about 24 miles north of San Francisco.
The following description of what happened is based on an account written by one of the hikers who survived and an interview with another hiker, both of whom asked not to be identified. Some details of what transpired remained unclear at the time of publication.
On Wednesday, June 18, seven male numeraries set out on an excursion. A three-hour drive led to a nearly-four-hour hike to Rattlesnake Falls, a waterfall in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Tahoe National Forest.
One of the hikers got a call about a family matter and had to leave the group early on, but the other six made the 7-mile trek over rough terrain to the 50-foot falls, which was beyond normal cellphone service.
When they arrived in the early afternoon, they ate lunch on a ledge near the plunging water, which fills a natural pool below.
At one point, Schoenecker and another hiker jumped off a ledge into the pool — something Schoenecker had done many times before.
After they splashed down into the chilly, 50-degree-Fahrenheit water, Schoenecker was surprised by the current — something he mentioned to the other hiker as the two were exiting the water on a riverbank around the corner.
Initially, Val Creus had hesitated to jump because of the height, but eventually he did, shortly after Schoenecker and the other hiker had already gone out of view down below.
Something went wrong, but it’s not clear what.
When Schoenecker heard Creus’ voice, he immediately returned to the ledge and jumped in. A moment later, Matt Anthony took off his shoes and also jumped in.
The three remaining hikers lost sight of the three men in the water. At first, they surmised that the men may have found a resting place downstream, so they walked along the river to look for them. They decided not to jump into the pool, determining that it wasn’t safe.
When they didn’t find them, they weren’t sure what to do. In time, one of them found that his cellphone had an SOS feature, which allowed him to connect to a satellite and get a distress call to authorities, who sent a helicopter, which eventually, after several trips, flew the hikers to safety.
The diver
The Placer County Sheriff’s Office decided not to initiate a dive right away, citing weather conditions, including high winds.
A volunteer diver heard about the situation and responded.
Juan Heredia, 53, of Stockton, California, about 60 miles east of San Francisco, a Catholic father of two, runs Angels Recovery Dive Team. He came to the United States from Argentina about 25 years ago and now sells loan mortgages and works as a general contractor.
On Saturday, June 21, three days after the drownings, Heredia, with two assistants, hiked to the waterfall on an injured ankle, which he had twisted a couple of weeks before during another recovery.
When they reached the pool, Heredia jumped down in a wetsuit with a mask, fins and a seven-pound weight belt to help him sink, but no oxygen tank.
He told the Register he found the men on the bottom, right underneath the waterfall. His dive watch said Creus and Schoenecker were 47 feet down, while Anthony was 45 feet below.
Creus and Schoenecker were together, touching.
“It wasn’t a hug, but they were head-to-head. And Big Matt’s hand was on top of Valentino’s arm,” Heredia said.
Heredia said he thinks Schoenecker grabbed hold of his friend Val under the water, but that it was too deep to bring him up.
“My guess is Big Matt, he didn’t let go [of] Valentino,” Heredia said. “That way he drowned.”
Heredia theorizes that cold water diminished the mobility of the three men and that the downward force of the water coming from the falls made it difficult to get back to the surface once they went under.
Heredia timed his dives. Each took about three minutes. He was asked how long he could hold his breath underwater.
“Three minutes,” he replied. “I found that day I couldn’t hold any longer.”
Why does he do it?
“Because I’m coming from the family’s side. I really want to bring closure to the family as soon as possible,” Heredia said.
He made a request regarding this story. “Don’t write ‘bodies’ in your report,” Heredia said. “For me, they’re not bodies — they’re sons.”
Why?
Several friends of the men told the Register they don’t understand why God allowed the drownings to happen.
Father Mata, who knew all three and considers them “canonizable” — meaning, in his view, they lived heroic virtue to the point where the Church could declare them saints in heaven — said he put the question to God directly during an intense period of praying before the Blessed Sacrament.
Many who knew the men have struggled to cope with their deaths.
One of those is Bobby Boone, 62, who has worked since 2000 as a doorman at Murray Hill, the 16-story Opus Dei center in Manhattan. He credits Schoenecker and Anthony with helping bring him to the Catholic faith, partly through instruction and advice, but largely through kindness. He was raised Pentecostal, had atheistic thoughts when he started working for Opus Dei, and then tried, in order, Hare Krishna, Islam, Seventh-day Adventism, and Scientology before becoming a Catholic at Easter in 2011.
“I’ve been through a journey with these guys,” Boone said. “It wasn’t just a working relationship. They were friends. They were real good friends. I cried like a baby when I heard the news.”
But Boone sees a purpose. He said that after he heard they had died, he immediately gave up bad habits that were keeping him away from God.
Father Mata told the Register he got a clear, unspoken answer during prayer to trust in God. He also hit upon a possible explanation for why the drownings occurred, related to the difficulties Opus Dei has in getting out its message.
The Work, as members often call it, has taken a beating in recent decades in literature, film, and investigative reports that portray it as secretive, rich, controlling, and corrupt.
Members of The Work often shake their heads at such portrayals, but they persist. Father Mata said Opus Dei can be hard to explain to someone who doesn’t get it.
“The whole point of Opus Dei and all the formation is to serve the Church and to help people get into heaven. But it’s all through an ordinary life. Nothing is very flashy,” Father Mata said.
“What it needs is examples,” he said. “Once you put it in a person, everything clicks.”
Matt Schoenecker, Matt Anthony, and Val Creus personify the institution, he said.
“They were the most normal people in the world. And yet, the way they died was [that] two of them tried to save the life of the other one. It was heroic. And yet for them, that was normal,” Father Mata said. “I think it’s a gift that God is giving to their families and to the Church.”
“Holiness is very ordinary,” he said. “And yet sometimes God puts a spotlight on it so you can see it.”
