The Sordid World of Opus Dei

 

 https://substack.com/home/post/p-190525289

Pope Francis Stabs Opus Dei in the Back

Pope Francis with Prelate Fernando Ocáriz (far left) and Auxiliary Vicar Mariano Fazio, both from Opus Dei, in November 2021

(Rome) Pope Francis has published a new motu proprio that not only has a direct impact on Opus Dei, but is directly aimed at it. It also dismantles an option that was recently offered to the SSPX.

With the motu proprio, Pope Francis transformed personal prelatures into "public clerical associations of pontifical right with the power to incardinate clergy", so that the laity are excluded from the work, although "the laity can devote themselves to the apostolic works of the personal prelature".

The intervention is of a fundamental nature. The only personal prelature of the Church is Opus Dei. In 2017, Rome offered the Society of St. Pius X (FSSPX) the canonical legal personality of a personal prelature, but this did not happen. Two central points that were supposed to be attractive to the SSPX at the time were now, only six years later, abolished or redesigned by Francis.

Church Militant's Star Witness Was in Prison

Edit: while Opus Dei's own Thug Gordon prepares to sue the Catholic Church for accusing him of being bad according to the wisdom of the day, another Opus Dei by product is being trapped and exposed in the vortex of its own lies and malice.

It's no suprise we don't have a lot of respect for CM, while they love to showcase and endorse apologists for pederasty and have their thug buddies, they've spent no time exploring numerous problems with Opus Dei, or my own personal concern, the evil Modernist Monastery with numerous past and present cases of sexual abuse and heresy, all in perfect Communion with the Holy See, and there's even an Opus Dei Numerary on the board at Saint John's University.

 The Gonzalez family has a lot of problems, these problems go a long way toward undermining CM's star witness. Expect another fit of gay rage from Voris any time now as their campaign against the SSPX continues to stall out. Thanks to Dominic Carter.   Carter also posts this interesting piece.

AMDG

Voris Lies About His Opus Dei Backing

Edit: Michael Voris doesn't like it very much when the Spotlight is aimed in his direction as he's caught in a lie by OTSOTA on Twitter.

AMDG

It Is Completely Unethical To Accuse The SSPX of Being Pederasts When No ONE Has Been Indicted!

Edit: Christine Niles has a habit of engaging in shoddy reporting especially when she wants to let loose her hostility to the SSPX, as was the case with Father McLucas whom she accused of being a sexual predator.  It's not just unethical to do what CM is doing, it's legally perilous and deeply imprudent.  Is this the best Opus Dei can do?

Even Holy Skojec isn't on board with this. AMDG

Who’s Worse? Mirus Attacks Taylor Marshall — Thinks Denying Communion to Adulterers is Extreme

Edit: Jeff Mirus has been a horrible, but not very talented opponent of Catholic tradition for years. He’s been presiding over this really low energy website and he ranges from really flat-footed CUF [Catholics United for the Faith] apologetics and analysis. Now he’s taking shots at Taylor Marshall’s ironically named new book “Infiltration” by the Opus Dei publishing house, Scepter.  ( I used to love reading Father Diogenes on Mirus’ site.)

In short, it looks like Mirus thinks Opus Marshall is kooky and extreme for saying adulterers can’t receive Communion.  

Since Opus Marshall has discovered the Masonic conspiracy, he’s talking about it like no one else has heard of it before. You’d think an Opus guy would have been to a Lodge meeting already....

Would the real Catholics please stand up?

Catholic Monitor has this take. He doesn’t seem to perceive the dance between two who are really on the same side. Mirus is absolutely “idiotic”.

[Catholic Monitor] It just makes you want to laugh when Dr. Jeff Mirus shrieks that Dr. Taylor Marshall's new book "Infiltration" and it's publisher Sophia Institute Press are not "sound" in their "Catholic editorial judgment."
(CatholicCulture.org, "Infiltration: An idiot's guide to the problems of the Church, May 31, 2019)

Mirus in his review of the book reviles Marshall and apparently the pre-Vatican II eleven Popes since 1738 for calling out "the secret machinations of the Masons" with his really funny attempt at trying to sound reasonable with his accusations in what appears to be a attempt to smear their reputations.

Here are some of his never ending name calling ravings which are so left-wing "crazy relative"-like you want to laugh:

- "idiot's"
- "absurdity of a crazy relative"
- "McCarthyism"
- "conspiratorial"
- "Catholic far-right"
- "Marian apparitions"
- "papal visions"
- "loss of sanity"
- "Satan's human tools"
- And on and on he goes in crazy left-wing relative-like shrieks...

Read further:

https://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2019/05/communion-for-adulterers-mirus-shrieks.html?showComment=1559402104521&m=1#c1351768896962313987

AMDG

Sassy Pants Hamburg Archbishop Wishes His Flock, “Could Have Done This Shit Alone” as Catholic Education Collapses

Planned school closings in the Archdiocese continue to cause fierce debate among Catholics and beyond. Archdiocese does not want to transfer schools threatened with closure to Fundación Arenales, which is supposed to be close to Opus Dei

Hamburg (kath.net/rn) In the archdiocese of Hamburg, the planned school closings among the Catholics and beyond continue to cause heated debate. This is reported by FAZ. After the diocese had determined that its own school association barely formed pension provisions and the schools were not operating while covering costs, the emergency brake was pulled and eight school closures decided upon. Because of the over-indebtedness of the budget in the amount of 83 million euros in 2017, the debt would rise in the next five years, according to the diocese to 350 million euros. The nerves in the archdiocese of Hamburg are likely to have been pushed to the edge by the diocesan administration. The FAZ quotes the Hamburg Archbishop Heße as follows: If he had known what to expect in Hamburg, "then they could have done the shit alone.”

It is also interesting that the Archdiocese of Hamburg offered schools that were to be closed to establish new sponsorship associations. A director then founded an Edith Stein School, which since January 1, 2019, a daughter of Diakoniewerk New Bank Ramp, a non-profit Christian carrier from the region. Another school has already taken similar steps.

According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, however, six out of a total of 21 archdiocesan schools are still to be closed, and two more are subject to a moratorium of one year.

An explicitly Catholic school would like to avoid the Archdiocese of Hamburg, however. An offer of school takeover by a Spanish foundation called Fundación Arenales, which according to the FAZ is close to Opus Dei and the Neocatechumenate, was rejected. The Fundacion already runs a kindergarten in Munich. The Archdiocese said that the Foundation does not want to transfer any schools.

Incidentally, the number of students at the Catholic schools in Hamburg has fallen from more than 10,000, and since 2013 it is presently around 8,500.

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Sexual Assault of a Child is a Crime! Don’t You bastards Understand That!

Guest Contributor October 17, 2018

By Randy Engel

Introduction

On October 8, 2018, CRUX news service ran a story on the late Father John Harvey, founder of Courage, written by Opus Dei writer Christopher White. CRUX, as readers who have been following my byline for years know, doesn’t identify its large stable of Opus Dei writers, so until they do, I’ll have to do it for them.

The title of White’s article is “Courage founder pushed bishops to resist zero tolerance on abuse”

In his introduction, White notes that Father Harvey was opposed to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ zero tolerance sex abuse policy for priests and provides some background on the Courage founder’s views on the subject.

According to White, “In the 1970s, Harvey founded a new ministry called ‘Renew, Rest, and Recreation,’ with the aim of providing support for priests with ‘sexual difficulties,’ primarily homosexuality. In 1980, that ministry led to an invitation from Cardinal Terrance (sic) Cooke of New York to form a ministry for lay Catholics called ‘Courage.’”

It might have been timely for White to have mentioned that “Cookie” was a second-generation homosexual himself in the Cardinal Francis Spellman line and his secretary was the ever popular 

“Uncle Teddy” McCarrick, aka “Blanche,” but White either didn’t know that or didn’t think it appropriate to include it in the Harvey article.

White goes on to explain that Father Harvey stood in good steed with the American bishops and many dioceses opened their doors to him and to Courage chapters.

“In a 1992 article in Crisis, a conservative magazine,” White explains, “Harvey described the arguments he had offered at the Ninth Bishops’ Workshop in Dallas in 1990. Harvey argued that priests who sexually abused minors often did so because of sexual addiction, and therefore guilt could not be imputed. On that basis, he claimed bishops could not impose canonical penalties.”

“Instead, he (Harvey) argued, most should be rehabilitated and returned to ministry,” White continues.

White provides some insights into Harvey’s thinking from Father Philip Bochanski, the Executive Director of Courage,  as to the exceptions that Father Harvey believed in. “While Bochanski told CRUX that in the article, ‘[Harvey] stated clearly that those whose sexual attractions are completely oriented toward children or youth “should not be restored to any pastoral ministry,” the article  also makes clear that Harvey believed ‘relatively few’ priests who sexually abused minors fit in that category.’”

The reader should realize that thus far in the CRUX article, no mention has been made of the fact that the sexual abuse of minors (and of vulnerable and unwilling adults) is a CRIME!

Red Flag #1.

Enter Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons  

At this point, White introduces the reader to Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a close friend and confidant of Father Harvey. White does not identify Fitzgibbons as a member of Opus Dei, but the doctor is a member, a supernumerary, I believe.

In typical Opus Dei fashion, Fitzgibbons is credited with coining and/or popularizing the term “same-sex relationships,” as opposed to the tacky words –homosexual or sodomite.

As reported by White, Fitzgibbons, who worked with Harvey and is a popular speaker at Courage conferences, “evidences a preference for rehabilitation of priests who commit sexual abuse, similar to [Father Harvey’s and his] approach to homosexual individuals whom they sought to aid in changing orientation.”

Up goes Red Flag #2

A priest or layperson who sexually abuses a minor (or vulnerable or unwilling adult) is a CRIMINAL and needs to be REPORTED to the POLICE! On the other hand, homosexuals who entertain and act out their perversion are NOT criminals under the current secular laws. Homosexual priests and religious, however, are guilty of grave delicts and deserving of laicization and/or other forms of canonical punishment.

White notes that Harvey and Fitzgibbons were co-authors of the 1999 pamphlet, Homosexuality and Hope, published by the Catholic Medical Association, “which maintains that individuals are not born with a same-sex attraction, and that such individuals are at greater  risk for psychiatric disorders.” This writer can vouch for the soundness of both these premises. However, the pamphlet deals primarily with medical and therapeutic issues and not with criminal activities by homosexuals including pederasty.

According to White, “As a moral theologian by training rather than a clinical psychologist, Harvey relied heavily on Fitzgibbons along with other like-minded individual such as Dr. John Money and Dr. John Kinane, who shaped both his thought and practice on how to handle priests with a history of abuse.”

John William Money, Ph.D. !!!! Tell me that’s a misprint!

The late Dr. John W. Money lived out his sexology career at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital. He created the myth of  “affectional pedophilia” (about love) versus “sadistic pedophilia” (about sex).  Money led a loveless sex life with casual partners of both sexes; he was an advocate for pedophilia and played a leading role in the so-called sexual revolution.

Money wrote the introduction to Theo Sandfort’s apologia for pederasty, Boys on their Contacts with Men – A Study of Sexually Expressed Friendships. According to Money, “It might very well be that deprivation of playful sexual rehearsal is the origin of a high proportion of sexual syndromes of human adolescence and adulthood.”

One wonders what Father Harvey was thinking when he turned to Money for guidance on anything, especially homosexuality. And one wonders about White and the CRUX staff that let this monumental blunder pass without comment.

CRUX Conclusions on Father Harvey

In his concluding remarks, under the heading “Zero Tolerance,” White notes that during the 1980s and 1990s, Harvey and his associates including Fitzgibbons were influential in encouraging bishops to give clerical sexual abusers a second chance – a second chance that the victims never got.

The article ends with a commentary by Father Bochanski in which the priest notes that Harvey’s disapproval of the bishops’ new policy of zero tolerance reflected Harvey’s belief that “seemed to see a policy of permanent restriction as limiting the power of God’s grace to restore these priests to a chaste life and a meaningful ministry.” Again, Harvey’s concern seems to be focused on the perpetrator of sexual abuse rather than on the victims of the abuse and their families who have to deal with the all too familiar fallout of the sexual abuse, mainly of young adolescent boys.

It was the release of the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s report on clerical sexual abuse in five dioceses in August 2018 that prompted Courage to issue a press release that inferred that if Father Harvey were alive today, his views might have been different from what he had advocated. This writer is not so sure that would have been the case.

But what I find most reprehensible about the CRUX article is that not one person –– neither the writer (White), nor any of the individuals referred to in the article or interviewed for the article be he priest or layman, nor any CRUX staffer ––mentioned the fact that the sexual abuse of minors (or vulnerable or unwilling adults including seminarians and young priests) is a CRIME! And CRIMES should be reported to the proper authorities for investigation. If warranted, a trial would then follow, with any convicted felon, be that felon a cleric or layman , receiving a sentence.

What, in God’s name, is wrong with these people?"

"The Jihadist Couldn't Behead Me and Asked: 'Who Are You?'" -- The Witness of Abuna Nirwan

(Jerusalem) Abuna Nirwan is a Franciscan from Iraq. Before his ordination he had completed a medical examination. When he went to the Holy Land in 2004, the Dominican Women of the Rosary gave him a relic and a rosary from their founder, which Father Nirwan always carries with him.

Maria Alfonsina Ghattas and the Dominican Women of the Rosary

Maria Alfonsina Ghattas

The Dominican Women of the Rosary, a missionary order, were founded by Maria Alfonsina Danil Ghattas, a Palestinian Catholic who was born in 1843 in Jerusalem, which was still part of the Ottoman Empire. At a young age, she joined a French religious order, but in 1880, according to a vision, she founded her own order for Arab girls.The missionary community, now spread in eight countries of the Middle East, is the only order founded by the Latin Patriarchy, which was reestablished in 1847 in Jerusalem.

In 2009 Maria Alfonsina Danil Ghattas was beatified in Nazareth's preaching base. On May 17, 2015,  she was canonized by Pope Francis. Her liturgical commemoration day is the 25th of March, when she died in 1927 in A Karim near Jerusalem (then the British League of Nations Mandate for Palestine).

When Benedict XVI in 2009, had ordered the investigation for a miracle for the Beatification of the religious, as usual, he ordered the Exhumation of the Corpse. The local bishop instructs a doctor. With the exhumation of the body of Maria Alfonsina Danil Ghattas, Father Nirwan was commissioned because of his training, and he also wrote the medical report.

Father Nirwan (center) as head of exhumation

As the Spanish Opus Dei priest Santiago Quemada, who lived in Jerusalem, reported on his blog Un sacerdote en Tierra Santa (A Priest in the Holy Land), two years before, extraordinary events had taken place. The report by Quemada has now been taken up by various media.

What was reported occurred on July 14, 2007. Abuna Nirwan, who had been working in the Holy Land for three years, paid a visit to his family in Iraq. In Jordan, he got in a taxi, as he explained it in spring 2016 in the sermon in the almost completely Christian Palestinian town of Beit Jalla near Bethlehem.

"It was not then possible to visit my family by plane. That was forbidden. As a means of transport, therefore, only the car could be considered. My intention was to get to Baghdad and from there to Mosul where my parents lived. 

The driver was frightened because of the situation that prevailed in Iraq. A family - father and mother with a two-year-old girl - had asked if they could go with me. The taxi driver told me they had asked him to. I had no objection. They were Muslims. The driver was a Christian. He told them that there was room and they could come along. We stopped at a gas station, where another young Muslim asked if he could go to Mossul. Since there was still room, we also took him.

The border between Jordan and Iraq was closed until the morning. As the sun rose, the roadblock opened and the 50 or 60 vehicles were slowly moving in succession.
We continued our journey. After more than an hour we came to a checkpoint. We made our passports ready and stopped. The driver said, 'I am afraid of this group'. It was a military control post. However, as it turned out, an Islamic terrorist organization had killed the soldiers and taken control of the position.
When we were at the checkpoint, our passports were checked while we stayed in the car. Then they left with the passports. A person came back and said to me: 'Father, we need to continue to review. You can come to the office.'  "Well," I said, "if we are to come, we'll come." We then walked a quarter of an hour, until we came to a barrack, which had been directed to us.
Once there, two men with hooded faces came out. One had a video camera in one hand and a knife in the other. The other held a Koran in his hand. They came to us, and one of them asked me, 'Father, where are you from?' I said, from Jordan. Then he repeated the question to the driver. Finally, he turned to the young man who traveled with us, grabbed him from behind and killed him with a knife. We were frozen. They tied my hands behind me and said to me, 'Father, we are recording everything for Al Jazeera . Do you want to say something? But no more than a minute.' I said, "No, I just want to pray." They let me pray for a minute.
Then a man pushed me down to my knees and said, 'You are a priest. It is forbidden for your blood to fall to the ground, that would be a sacrilege.' He fetched a bucket and came to cut my throat. I no longer know what prayers I prayed at this moment. I was very afraid. Then I said to Maria Alfonsina: 'If it is so, that the Lord takes me away, I am ready. But if that is not so, I ask you that no one else will die."
The man grabbed my head and guided his knife with the other hand. Then nothing happened. After a moment of silence, he said, 'Who are you?' I replied, 'A religious brother.' Then he said, 'Why can I not manage to set the knife? Who are you?'
Without answering, he left me and said, 'Father, you and all the others, return to the car.'
We did that and were able to continue the journey.
Since that moment, I have ceased to be afraid of death. I know I will die one day, but now I am really aware that this will be when God wants it. Since then, I am no longer afraid of anything and nobody. What happens to me will be done according to God's will. He will give me the strength to take His cross. What counts is faith. God accepts those who believe in Him."

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Vatican.va/Franziskanerkustodie (Screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

Pope Confirms Fernando Ocariz Braña as the New Prelate of Opus Dei

(Rome) Pope Francis confirmed the election of Msgr. Fernando Ocariz Braña the new prelate of Opus Dei .

Ocariz, who had served as a vicar general of the Personal Prelature for many years, had been appointed deputy by his predecessor, Javier Echevarria, in 2014. With the death of Echevarria last December, Ocariz took over the leadership of the prelacy until the election of a new prelate.

The election of Ocariz aA the third successor of the Opus Dei founder, Saint Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer y Albas, and the third prelate of the personal prelature, had been expected.

The Pope is granted the right of appointment of the prelate by confirming the election. The 1982 Prelacy, established by Pope John Paul II. as Praelatura Sanctae Crucis et Operis Dei is so far the only personal prelature of the Catholic Church. For several years this has been discussed formally about the Society of St. Pius X to grant it canonical status, but a corresponding agreement has not been previously concluded. Ocariz is a member of the three-member Vatican delegation, who leads doctrinal talks with the Society of St. Pius X. He is regarded as a key author of the important Declaration Dominus Iesus in 2000.

About 95,000 members, including 2,100 priests

According to the latest information, Opus Dei numbers around 95,000 members throughout the world, who, in ecclesiastical matters and in their religious life, are not subject to their respective diocesan bishops, but to the prelate. About 2,100 priests are incardinated in the personal prelature. There are also an additional 2,000 diocesan priests, who are the priestly members of the Holy Cross Community, but are not incardinated.

Prelate Fernando Ocariz was born in Paris in 1944 as the son of Spanish exiles, who had left Spain during the Civil War. In 1971 he earned the doctorate of theology and was ordained a priest in the same year. After several years in the youth and student chaplaincy, he was called to Rome in 1986 as a consultor to the Congregation of Doctrine and the Faith. 2003 followed, working in same capacity for the Congregation for the Clergy and  in 2011 for the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization .

Since 1989 he has been a member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology. He was a full professor of dogmatic theology at Opus' Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. Ocariz has published numerous books on theological and philosophical topics, including a comprehensive presentation and criticism of Marxism.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Opusdei.it (Screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...
AMDG

Opus Dei Loyally Serves its Master

Edit: they have a "warm" relationship with a man clearly bent on persecuting the few faithful Catholics in the clergy.

ROME-In a process that can be only defined as “anti-climatic,” on Monday Opus Dei chose its new leader and the third successor  to St. Josemaria Escrivá, the group’s founder. Well before the electoral congress began, it was widely expected the winner would be the group’s number two man, Spanish Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz, and that’s exactly what happened.

One day later, Ocáriz defined the challenges facing the institution over which he now presides as in alignment with those of Christianity generally, and society at large: reaching out to youth, families, the poor, and the infirm, and working towards Christian unity.

Ocáriz, a Spanish priest born in Paris because his father, a military man at odds with the regime of Fernando Franco, had been exiled, began his first encounter with the international press by thanking “God, the 150 electors of 20 nationalities, and Pope Francis” for the trust given him.

https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/01/25/opus-dei-leaders-describe-warm-relationship-pope-francis/

AMDG

Opus Dei Archbishop Makes Big Concession to Gender Ideology

Edit: the age of Mahony, alas, is still very much with us, despite the appointment of a Neoconservative Opus Dei Bishop. As if the liturgy and music weren't ugly enough. Is a Cardinal's hat from Pope Bergoglio really worth the loss of your immortal soul? Here's the video from Joseph Sciambra.
 

Opus Dei Greg Burke Will be New Deputy Vatican Speaker

Greg Burke Will be the New Deputy of Vatican Speaker Father
Lombardi

(Rome) In recent days there have been rumors that Father Federico Lombardi SJ would be replaced as the Vatican spokesman and might be replaced by a layman, was  already the case  under Pope John Paul II.  in Rome. At that time, the Spaniard, Joaquin Navarro-Valls was the Vatican spokesman.

The rumor has not been confirmed, but a change of the Vice Vatican Spokesman has been announced.  So far, the Passionist Father Ciro Benedettini from the tiny country of San Marino is Lombardi's deputy as the Vatican spokesman. Father Benedettini was introduced in 1994 by Navarro-Valls in the press-service, and appointed in 1995 as deputy director. After 20 years there is now a change. Until January 31, 2016 Father Benedettini  will hold this office. From February 1, the American Greg Burke will be  Lombardi's new deputy.

Greg Burke began in the 1980s as Rome correspondent of the weekly National Catholic Register, from 1994 he was in the same function for  Time Magazine and from 2001 for Fox News. In 2012, he was appointed under Benedict XVI.  as Communication Advisor to the Vatican Secretariat of State. The appointment was seen in the context of ongoing criticism about inadequate public relations of the Holy See and a bad media image of the German pope.   Critics then held   the then Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone responsible for this.

Will Greg Burke Really be Vatican Spokesman?

Then came the unexpected resignation of Benedict XVI. and with Pope Francis everything seemed quite different. It was said that Burke was held in disgrace  because of his appointment by Benedict XVI. membership of the Opus Dei by the new Church leadership. Indeed,the American had become silent, even before he could put the expectations placed in him to the test. Senior Communications Adviser Burke got his own office at the Secretary of State but his exact field of responsibility was not defined.

With his appointment as deputy Vatican spokesman, these voices have been proven wrong, while those  who predicted that the Jesuit Lombardi would be replaced by Burke in 2012  have received new confirmation.  Father Lombardi has been Vatican spokesman since 2006.  In August 2017, he will be 75 years of age.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Famiglia Cristiana (Screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...
AMDG

How Has Jorge Mario Bergoglio Changed Since His Election?

(Rome) two years and two months ago  Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope. Has he changed since then? If so, how? This question was recently raised by the daily El Pais in an interview with the new vicar general of Opus Dei.

Msgr. Mariano Fazio is Argentineans as Pope Francis. The former Top of Opus Dei in Argentina since February its vicar general based in Rome (see The Argentine move of Opus Dei ).

El Pais: How Bergoglio has changed?

Monsignor Mariano Fazio:  Now he smiles constantly,  he  didn't do that  before. The  current Cardinal of Buenos Aires: Bergoglio had the mien of gravedigger.

The Vicar General quoted the acting archbishop of Buenos Aires and Primate of Argentina, Cardinal Mario Aurelio Poli.  Two weeks after his election, Pope Francis named the then Bishop of Santa Rosa as his successor as the head of the Church in Argentina. In February 2014 he raised  him  to the state of Cardinal.

Monsignor Fazio also provided a rationale for why the transformation of the  "permanent smile"  from the "gravedigger face": "I think this is a grace of the Holy Spirit, but essentially it is the same, very spiritual, very close."

The testimony of Msgr. Mariano Fazio for El Pais became   a "softball interview for Francis," said the well-known Spanish blogger Francisco de la Cigoña.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: El Pais (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

AMDG

Opus Dei's Argentine Chess Move

(Rome) For the first time in its history a Spaniard  will not take a top position in Opus Dei. The election of the new Vicar General of the personal prelature fell to the Argentine Msgr. Mariano Fazio, whom Jorge Mario Bergoglio knows personally. "It's a decision that seems carefully considered in order to strengthen and improve the relationship between the Prelature and Pope Francis," said the Vatican expert Sandro Magister.

In these first two years of the pontificate, the relation between the Pope and Opus Dei has been formally excellent.   This was contributed to by the hearings which were granted Msgr. Carlos Maria Nannei, the predecessor Fazio as vicar of Argentina. In reality, the signals indicated in the exact opposite direction.

No dispensation for beatification - No Opus Dei representative to Synod

The Opus Dei would have liked   the beatification of their second superior,  Msgr. Alvaro del Portillo, in Rome. Portillo was the successor of the founder, St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer. However, Pope Francis did not grant a dispensation. Thus, the ceremony was held last September 27  in Madrid, although the new Blessed had spent the last decades of his life in Rome and died there.

It has  also not escaped observers that Pope Francis not summoned on a single  representative of Opus Dei to the synod as experts or auditors for the 2014 Synod of Bishops, although the personal prelature counts many renowned theologians and canonists in its ranks. Since there is no President of a Bishops' Conference and no head of a dicastry  in the Roman Curia which belongs to Opus Dei, the work of God has had no part in the Synod work.

In 2015, the Synod of Bishops things will be different. Among the Synod Fathers elected by the episcopal conferences there are already three representatives of Opus Dei: Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles (USA), Archbishop Antonio Arregui Yarza of Guayaquil in Ecuador and Bishop Jaime Fuentes Martín of Minas, Uruguay.

Dismissal of Opus Dei Bishop Livieres of Ciudad del Este

A few days before the start of the Synod of Bishops in 2014  Pope Francis decreed the dismissal of an Opus Dei bishop.  On September 25, it was announced in Rome and Paraguay that Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano, a most outstanding figure, was relieved of the episcopate of the Latin American country, without giving a reason of why his  office was taken.  Bishop Livieres was summoned to Rome  a few days earlier (in his environment, it means you've lured him from his diocese), where he had learned from the media of his dismissal. The statement by the Vatican Press Office, still had given to understand that the faithful bishop disturbed his brother Bishops in  Paraguay.  Since Liviere promoted priestly vocations in contrast to other dioceses  and built  a private seminary for that reason, free of the influence of liberation theology,  he had three times the number of seminarians in a diocese which includes ten percent of Catholics in the country, which is almost three times as many seminarians as all  of the other dioceses. The bishop also promoted the traditional rite. The seminarians were trained in both forms of the Roman Rite. In almost all of the parishes of his diocese the Immemorial Mass of All Ages was celebrated. It's a situation that was unbearable in other parts of the church.  Despite repeated requests to see Pope Francis, he was refused an audience. Since Bishop Livieres did not let his dismissal by the Vatican without comment, he was immediately dropped from Opus Dei.

Weakening of Opus Dei in Peru

In Peru, Opus Dei had suffered bitter defeats. In recent months, two of its prelates were emeritus of age. Neither Archbishop Juan Antonio Ugarte Pérez of Cuzco nor Bishop Jesús Moliné Labarte of Chiclayo were replaced by brothers of the Opus Dei. Although Cardinal Juan Cipriani Thorne  an Opus Dei member is Archbishop of Lima in 1999, he was in contrast to his predecessor never elected President of the Peruvian Bishops' Conference. John Paul II. tried to renew the Peruvian episcopate on Cipriani Thorne and Opus Dei. It was a renewal that got stuck half way and now runs in reverse. With the recent appointment of bishops, the anti-Opus Dei majority was strengthened in the Peruvian episcopate.

Mariano Fazio: El Papa Francisco

Attempts to find favor with Francis

Msgr. Mariano Fazio was appointed to be the new vicar general of the only personal prelature of the Catholic Church, after having been received  last September 30th by Pope Francis. The name of the Argentine prelate was then curiously misspelled  in both the daily bulletin of the Press Office and  in the Osservatore Romano as "Fassio".

Fazio is a Professor of the History of Political Theory at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross of Opus Dei in Rome. He is a long time proven expert in the modern history of ideas. In Argentina it is said that Fazio knows the enemies of the Church and their thinking.

The former Vicar (Upper) of Opus Dei in Argentina wrote right after the choice of the Archbishop of Buenos Aires to be pope, a Francis-book: "El Papa Francisco: Claves de su pensamiento." (Pope Francis The key of his thought). That may have been taken into account in the calculation, that Pope Francis will hopefully be benevolent to the Argentine Fazio. He has not explained, however, the "key" to Bergoglio's thinking  in his book.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: Rialp / Diario Argentino

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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Important Strategic Course in Selecting the Head of Opus Dei

Right of Pope Francis is Prelate Echevarria, Left
Msgr. Ocariz

(Rome) Prelate Javier Echevarría, who has been at the head of the Personal Prelature of Opus Dei since   1994,  has engaged an important personnel decision and thus undertook a strategic course in naming  his successor at the head of a Personal Prelature.

Echevarria, who has the rank of bishop, is the second successor of Opus Dei founder Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albas (1902-1975). Escrivà was canonized  in 2002 by Pope John Paul II, and his first successor, Monsignor Álvaro del Portillo (1914-1994) was beatified by Pope Francis on September 27, 2014.

Monsignor Javier Echevarría has now appointed a deputy.The decision was justified with the proliferating  global tasks and his advanced age. Echevarría, born in 1932 who reached his 82nd birthday last June 14, had appointed the former Vicar General of the Prelature, Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz as his deputy.

Msgr. Fernando Ocariz Coadjutor Prelate 

In Dec. 9 came the appointment came into force transmitting to  Msgr. Ocáriz all that is necessary for the responsibility  the management of the Prelature, including the prelate's reserved decision-making powers. The only exceptions are the responsibilities associated with the episcopal office of the prelate.

The appointment was made ​​in accordance with Article 134, paragraph 1, and Article 125 of the Codex iuris particularis Operis Dei ,   which  John Paul II. approved with the Apostolic Constitution Ut sit on 28 November 1982.

In contrast to countervailing tendencies to  bureaucratize ministries occupied for life in the church and to limit their time, the prelate of Opus Dei continues its life in accordance with statutes. For this reason, the statutes provide for the possibility that the prelate may freely appoint a deputy  in the form of a coadjutor. The General Council of the Prelature can also recommend such an appointment.

Msgr. Ocariz was Co-author of the Declaration Dominus Iesus

Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz was born in 1944 in Paris. He studied physics at the University of Barcelona and then theology at the Lateran University in Rome. At the University of Navarra, he received his doctorate in the New Evangelization. In 1971 he was ordained a priest and later taught Fundamental Theology as Professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. Since 1986 he has been Consultant of the Congregation and since 1989 a member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology . Since 1994, he exercised the office of Vicar General of the Prelature. He is regarded as one of the principal authors of the Declaration Dominus Iesus on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church in 2000.

Opus Dei, canonically erected in 1943,  is the only personal prelature of the Catholic Church. The prelate has the rank of bishop. Already, Msgr. Echevarria held  the Office of the Vicar General in Opus Dei before his appointment as  Prelate.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: Osservatore Romano

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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