Pope Francis has once again reduced the privileges enjoyed by Opus Dei in the Catholic Church, relegating it to the category of a public spiritual association with the power to incardinate clergy, that is, incorporate them into his organization along with lay people. The Pope this Tuesday announced a new motu proprio, a sort of papal decree that modifies the legal framework governing personal prelatures (formerly Opus Dei), directly affecting this institution of Spanish origin, based in dozens of countries. He does not mention them in his text as it is the only organization that has had this status so far.
Personal prelatures are ecclesiastical institutions (they disappear with opus, as they were previously called) that carry out pastoral or missionary work in favor of different regions or different social groups, and are therefore not defined by a geographical area, like dioceses, but by the figure that responsible for it. Currently, that person is Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz, the prelate of the organization. Nor were they under the authority of a bishop. No other canonical institution had this privilege, which many bishops refused in 1982 when the very conservative Pope John Paul II granted it to the Opus, then directed by Álvaro del Portillo.
Opus Dei is one of the most conservative institutions of the Church, which can now be compared to other public spiritual associations, such as the Community of Emmanuele, dedicated to charity work and evangelization among young people and migrants. This will cause you to lose your exclusive status.
As for the participation of the faithful in the institution, the opus is more controlled, since the Pope establishes that the lay faithful belonging to these units “may devote themselves to the apostolic works of the personal prelature” but “the path of these organics.” The Collaboration and the essential duties and rights associated therewith are conveniently regulated in the statute.” In addition, Francisco recalls that the lay faithful have their own parish priest and ordinary according to their residential address.
The Holy See has yet to approve the new statutes of the work – as Opus Dei is also known – on which the institution has been working on the Pope’s instructions for the past year.
Now, in the Apostolic Letter signed on August 8, in which he also mentions the origin of the prelatures of the Second Vatican Council, Francis recalls that the aim is to put into practice the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Gospel published in 2022 that responsibility for personal prelatures be transferred to the Dicastery for the Clergy, the Vatican body that oversees priests around the world and on which public clergy associations also depend.
These changes come as Opus Dei is in the process of adapting to the first changes proposed by Francis the previous year, contained in the Constitution Praedicate evagelium and the motu proprio of Ad charisma tuendum. From the institution they limited themselves to examining “what consequences these changes could have for the legal formation of Opus Dei (…) in a climate of communion with the Holy Father”.
Francisco had already limited the power and independence of the work within the church last year. At this point, Bergoglio already decreed that the work would no longer be dependent on the Department for Bishops and would be subordinate to the Department for Clergy, a body that will be in charge of evaluating, and not, as hitherto, Opus Dei itself that each corresponds to the face”, such as the education of his priests or “possible controversies”. The institution must also submit an annual report to this department on its situation and the “development of its apostolic work”. Previously, the work of the Congregation for Bishops only had to submit a similar document every five years. The papal document also demoted the figure of the head of the institution, who cannot “distinguish himself” with the position of bishop and cannot display the ring or episcopal robes.
Currently they are part of the Prelature, present in more than 60 countries, about 92,900 people, including about 2,095 priests. The institution states that of the total number of believers, “about half” are women.
The role of the work has been more important than that of any other religious institution in recent Spanish history, and its power extends to areas far removed from the walls of the churches.
There are currently six public Spiritual Associations in the Church with the power to incardinate clergy: the Spiritual Community of the Emanuele Community, the Confraternity of Diocesan Worker-Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Missionary Confraternity of Santo Egidio, the Confraternity of Saint Martin, the Society Jean-Marie Vianney and the Opera di Gesù Sommo Sacerdote to which the work is added.