In
favor under Pius XII
Out of
favor under John XXIII and
Paul VI
However, the movement and its founder
were at arm's length (at best) with Popes John XXIII (1958-1963) and
Paul VI (1963-1978). As an Italian newspaper notes, “Between 1967
and 1973, when Opus Dei already numbered 40,000 Catholics, Pope Paul VI
refused even to meet Escriva, wanting to draw a clear line between
himself and the regime of General Franco in Spain.”[5] A Catholic
journalist, Michael Walsh, has said, “Popes before the present one
[John Paul II, at the time Walsh wrote] can hardly be said to have been
enthusiastic in their endorsement of Opus, and for every bishop who
welcomes Opus into his diocese it is clear that there are many who
either will not accept them, or are unhappy at finding them installed
in their jurisdiction when they take up their appointments.”[6]
During his lifetime, Escrivá never became a bishop; the four
Popes who reigned from 1928 to 1975 (from the establishment of Opus Dei
until the founder’s death) did not grant this promotion to him.
Escrivá repaid these popes with public obeisance and private
derision. He said of Pius XII, “Let’s see if he leaves us in
peace once and for all, and the Lord God in his infinite mercy takes
him to heaven,” and referred to John XXIII as “a hick,” and called Paul
VI “an old Jesuit” – which was not a compliment.[7]
Moving to the center stage under
John Paul II
With the election of Pope John Paul II in October 1978, Opus Dei came
in from the cold.
George
Weigel said, “Cardinal Karol Wojtyla had long been sympathetic to the
Work and had spoken to one of its student centers in Rome during the
1970s. Opus Dei’s stress on sanctifying
the workplace through apostolically committed professional men and
women paralleled his own understanding of one of the key themes of
Vatican II.” Opus Dei returned the favor, and began sending
funds to Wojtyla’s Polish archdiocese before 1978. They
also published a collection of the speeches that the Cardinal had made
when visiting Opus Dei centers. When
Wojtyla went to Rome
for the 1978 conclave that would elect him to the Papacy, he went to
the Opus Dei headquarters and prayed at Escrivá’s tomb. (This
was one of numerous Roman shrines that he visited.)
•
The Pope
granted Opus Dei’s long-stalled request for “personal prelature” status
in 1982, granting global freedom of action to the movement. He was fulfilling a promise that he had made
secretly to the movement on November 15, 1978 – within the first month of
his reign. The
Pope made this decision in the face of negative votes by Italian and
French bishops, and opposition by 55 of the 64 Spanish bishops.
•
That same year, John Paul II made Álvaro del Portillo,
Escrivá’s successor as head of Opus Dei, a bishop.
(Portillo was head of the movement from 1975 until 1994, and had
been Escrivá’s closest collaborator for 40 years.) Portillo’s
successor, Javier Echevarría, was raised to the episcopate in 1995, the year
after he became the head of Opus Dei.
•
As noted above, John Paul II
hastened Escrivá’s canonization. By
recognizing him as a saint, John Paul II stated that Escrivá is
in Heaven, and that his life is a worthy example to the faithful, and
that people have gained miraculous results from his intercession on
their behalf. At the least, the
beatification and canonization of Escrivá blunts criticism of
Opus Dei within the Catholic Church.
•
In 1984, John Paul II selected
Joaquín Navarro-Valls (a lay Opus Dei numerary since 1960) as
his press secretary. He was part of the
Papal inner circle, and (along with Papal secretary Dziwisz) had
day-to-day, direct access to the Pontiff. In
April 2005, the press secretary said, “I have been fortunate to be next
to him day after day, in his apartment as well as traveling with him –
including during his vacations. Many of the photographs that are in
circulation where he can be seen in the country, in the latter part of
his life, were taken by me.” Navarro-Valls
has been an actor, a psychiatrist and a journalist.
His first non-medical publication was a book, Manipulation
in Advertising; this was followed by “two essays in evolutionary
psychology.”
Sandro
Magister – an experienced, orthodox Catholic reporter – wrote, “As an
editorial promoter, Navarro thought up and in 1994 launched the most
widely read and translated book by John Paul II: the interview
conducted by Vittorio Messori entitled Crossing the
threshold of hope.” The book
was published simultaneously in the major world languages. In 1997, Massimo D’Alema, the leader of the
Italian Democratic Party of the Left (the current “moderate”
incarnation of the Italian Communist Party) said that Crossing
the Threshold of Hope was the one book on his bedside table. D’Alema – who would go on to become Prime
Minister of Italy in 1998-2000 – said that he had been impressed by the
Pope’s analysis of the fall of Communism and his insistence that “the
society of the future” had to be built around a “quest for values.” (In the book, John Paul said, “it would be
simplistic to say that Divine Providence caused the fall of Communism.
In a certain sense Communism as a system fell by itself. It fell as a
consequence of its own mistakes and abuses. It proved to
be a medicine more dangerous than the disease itself. It did not
bring about true social reform, yet it did become a powerful threat and
challenge to the entire world. But it fell by itself,
because of its own inherent weakness.”)
The
Papal press secretary has used his skills to manage the news from the Vatican. Journalist Stefania Rossini says that
Navarro-Valls “relies upon his proficiency in conversation, his
artfully crafted allure, and the mastery of communication that has
allowed him to transform the murky, homespun Vatican
press office into a smooth media machine.” Anglican
journalist Ruth Gledhill said of this office, “It is all about spin and
control. ... It
works very much like any political press office. Access is very much
given to people who can be trusted to toe the line.” Navarro-Valls
gave preferential treatment to TV reporters; journalists Bernstein and
Politi say, “On the TV screen, as the pope and Navarro-Valls well
understood, glory would invariably overshadow problems, emotion would
overwhelm insight. And uncomfortable
questions from print reporters would be drowned out.”
•
During the Pope’s final year, Cardinal
Herranz, an Opus Dei member, “emerged as one of the five or six
prelates closest to John Paul.”
Continued power under Benedict XVI
It’s a given that Benedict XVI will continue the prior
Pope’s strong support for “The Way.”
•
A post-Conclave report indicates that
Opus Dei support was critical to Ratzinger’s election this spring:
“According to aides to two non-American cardinals, Ratzinger entered
the conclave with significant backing: Julian Herranz of Spain, head of
the Vatican’s department for interpreting legislative texts; Dario
Castrillon Hoyos of Colombia, head of the department in charge of the
clergy; and Alfonso Lopez Trujillo of Colombia, president of the
Pontifical Council for the Family. All three have ties to the
conservative renewal movement Opus Dei.” Two
months before the Conclave, an orthodox Catholic reporter on Vatican affairs had predicted this outcome: “the
Opus Dei cardinal most active in view of the conclave is Julián
Herranz ... Ratzinger’s
leap to the top of the list of candidates for the papacy is also due to
him; it took shape at the suppers for cardinals that Herranz organized
at Opus Dei’s heavily guarded villa in the Roman countryside.”
•
Opus Dei remains prominent in the
Pope’s inner circle. Ratzinger’s personal
secretary is a Bavarian priest and expert on canon law, Georg
Gänswein. He
has been on Ratzinger’s staff since 1996, and has been his personal
secretary since 2003. (Gänswein
also had been “a trusted confidant of the last Pope, who made him a
chaplain in 2000.”) Until
2005, Gänswein “taught at the Pontifical University
of the Holy Cross, the Rome
university
of Opus Dei,” although he is not a member of the
movement. The
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith includes three Opus Dei
advisors, one of whom (Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz) is the movement’s
vicar-general, its second in command.
•
Benedict XVI has retained
Navarro-Valls as his press secretary, even though he does not have “the
direct and osmotic relationship that he had with John Paul II. He can
no longer permit himself to model and amplify the pope’s gestures,
statements, and performance.” (Note, however, that since
this article was written in the fall of 2005, Navarro-Valls has stepped
down from this post; he resigned on July 11, 2006. Valls' replacement
is Father Federico Lombardi, SJ. ]
•
On September 14 – the Feast of the
Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a solemn Catholic remembrance of the
Cross as the sign of Christ’s victory – Benedict XVI blessed a 16-foot
statue of Escrivá that has been placed in a niche on the outside
wall of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The
statue bears coats of arms for John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and joins
the 400 saints’ statues that are already at the Basilica.
CONCLUSION
Without the support of John Paul II and Benedict XVI,
Opus Dei would not have risen to its present influence in the Catholic
Church and in the world. [37]
