The founder, Saint Josemaría Escrivá

Saint Josemaría Escrivá was born in Barbastro, Spain, on 9 January 1902. He had four sisters: Carmen (1899-1957), plus three other younger sisters who died very young; and one brother: Santiago (1919-1994). His parents, José and Dolores, gave their children a deeply Christian education.

In 1915, Josemaría’s father’s textile business failed, so the family relocated to Logroño, where José found other work. It was in Logroño that Josemaría sensed his vocation for the first time. After seeing some bare footprints left in the snow by a monk who had walked that way a short time earlier, he felt that God also wanted something from him, though he did not know what. He thought that he could more easily discover what it was if he became a priest, so he began to prepare for the priesthood, first in Logroño and later in Zaragoza. He also studied for a law degree. His father died in 1924 and he was left as head of the family. Ordained on 28 March 1925, he began his ministry in a rural parish, and afterwards in Zaragoza.

In 1927, with the permission of his bishop, Fr. Josemaría moved to Madrid to work on his doctorate in law. There, on 2 October 1928, God showed him clearly the mission he had been hinting to him for several years; and he founded Opus Dei. From that day on he worked with all his energies to develop the foundation that God asked of him, while he continued to fulfil the various priestly responsibilities he had at that time. These brought him into daily contact with sickness and poverty in the hospitals and the poor districts of Madrid. When the civil war broke out in 1936, Josemaría was in Madrid. The religious persecution forced him to take refuge in a variety of places. He exercised his priestly ministry in a clandestine fashion until he was finally able to leave the Spanish capital. After a harrowing escape across the Pyrenees, he took up residence in Burgos.
At the end of the war in 1939 he returned to Madrid. In the years that followed he gave many retreats to lay people, priests, and members of religious orders. In the same year, 1939, he completed his doctorate in law.

In 1946 he took up residence in Rome. There he obtained a doctorate in theology from the Lateran University and was named consultor to two Vatican Congregations, as well as honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, and prelate of honour to His Holiness. He followed closely the preparations for the Second Vatican Council and its various sessions (1962-1965), keeping in touch with many of the council fathers. From Rome he frequently went to different countries in Europe, including Britain and Ireland, to spur on the growth of Opus Dei in those places. It was with the same objective that, between 1970 and 1975, he made long trips throughout Mexico, Spain, Portugal, South America, and Guatemala, holding catechetical gatherings which large numbers of men and women attended. He died in Rome on 26 June 1975. Thousands of people, including one third of all the bishops in the world, requested that the Holy See open his cause of beatification and canonisation.

On 17 May 1992, Pope John Paul II beatified Josemaría Escrivá before a crowd of some 300,000 people in St. Peter’s Square. In his homily, the Pope said that “with supernatural intuition Saint Josemaría untiringly preached the universal call to holiness and apostolate.”

Ten years later, on October 6, 2002, John Paul II canonised the founder of Opus Dei in St. Peter’s Square before a multitude of people from more than 80 countries. In his discourse to those who attended the canonization, the Holy Father said that “St. Josemaría was chosen by the Lord to proclaim the universal call to holiness and to indicate that everyday life, its customary activities, are a path towards holiness. It could be said that he was the saint of the ordinary.”

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Bishop Alvaro del Portillo

Alvaro del Portillo, the first successor to Saint Josemaría Escrivá as head of Opus Dei, was born in Madrid on 11 March 1914.
He became a member of Opus Dei in 1935 and was ordained to the priesthood on 25 June 1944. Alvaro del Portillo was a member of the General Council of Opus Dei from 1940 to 1975, serving as secretary general from 1940 to 1947 and from 1956 to 1975. He had doctorates in civil engineering, history and canon law.

Don Alvaro, as he was known, was a consultor to several congregations and councils of the Holy See, such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for the Clergy, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. He took part in the Second Vatican Council in various capacities, first as head of the ante-preparatory Commission on the Laity and then as secretary to the Commission on the Discipline of the Clergy, and also as a consultor to other commissions. His books Faithful and Laity in the Church (1969) and About Being a Priest (1970) are largely the fruit of that experience. As a member of the Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law, he also helped in the drafting of the current Code, promulgated by John Paul II in 1983.

In 1975 Mgr. del Portillo was elected to succeed Saint Josemaría as head of Opus Dei. When Opus Dei was established as a personal prelature in 1982, he was appointed prelate. Pope John Paul II ordained him as bishop on 6 January 1991.

In 1985 Mgr. del Portillo founded the Roman Academic Centre of the Holy Cross, which would later become the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.
During his nineteen years at the head of Opus Dei, the work of the prelature started in twenty new countries.
Bishop Alvaro del Portillo died in Rome on 23 March 1994. That same day, Pope John Paul II came to pray before his mortal remains.

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Bishop Javier Echevarría

The present prelate of Opus Dei was born in Madrid on June 14, 1932.

He holds doctorates in both civil and canon law. He worked closely with St. Josemaría as his personal secretary from 1953 until the latter’s death in 1975. Bishop Echevarría was ordained as a priest on August 7, 1955, and became part of the General Council of Opus Dei in 1966.

In 1975, when Alvaro del Portillo succeeded St. Josemaría as head of Opus Dei, Bishop Echevarría was named secretary general, a position hitherto occupied by del Portillo. In 1982, when Opus Dei was established as a personal prelature, he became its vicar general.

Bishop Echevarría is a member of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and is a consultor to the Congregation for the Clergy. He participated in the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for America (1997) and Europe (1999) and in the ordinary General Assemblies of 2001 and 2005.

His election and his appointment by John Paul II as prelate of Opus Dei took place on April 20, 1994. The Pope ordained him as a bishop on January 6, 1995, in St. Peter’s Basilica.

He is the author of books of spirituality such as "Memoria del beato Josemaria," "Itinerarios de vida cristiana," "Para servir a la Iglesia," "Getsemani" and "Eucaristia y vida cristiana.

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