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.

The lay members of a personal prelature were subordinate to it under canon law, no matter where in the world they lived. This peculiarity had this legal form in common with the personal ordinariates that Benedict XVI established for those Anglicans who wanted to return to full unity with Rome. The special position was made possible because the prelate of a personal prelature had the rank of a bishop with all the associated powers for jurisdiction. Francis had already cashed in on this special position for the personal prelatures with the Motu Proprio Ad Charisma Tuendum in the summer of 2022. The episcopal dignity is lost to Opus Dei with the election of the next prelate. Now the laity, thus the people, were also withdrawn from the Work of God. The role of the prelate was redefined yesterday as that of a "moderator". The statutes to be drawn up could bring further surprises in this regard. A first draft is said to be available in the Congregation for the Clergy. Since 2017, Opus Dei has been headed by Fernando Ocáriz Braña, the third Prelate of the Personal Prelature.

The motu proprio published yesterday consists of three articles and provides that the lay members of a personal prelature are again subject to the jurisdiction of their territorial bishop. The motu proprio also came into force with its publication yesterday.

It seems to deal primarily with the clergy, but the drastic intervention took place among the laity. Yesterday's measure is justified by the Constitution Praedicate Evangelium, the new constitution of the Holy See, which came into force on July 1, 2022. Since then, personal prelatures have been subordinate to the Roman Clergy Dicastery (formerly the Congregation for the Clergy). Now this is taken as an opportunity to say that laity could clearly not be subject to the Dicastery for the Clergy, that this would be a contradiction. This is how step by step the restructuring that Francis is pushing forward.

Since there is only one personal prelature in the Church, all new regulations are aimed solely at Opus Dei. The peculiarity of the Work of God by the Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás (1902-1975), who was canonized by John Paul II in 2002, has so far consisted precisely in the fact that the lay members could be particularly closely bound to the community by being removed from the jurisdiction of their bishop and subordinate to the prelate. The new regulations make a canonical bond between Opus Dei and the laity almost impossible.

Pope Francis obviously did not wonder where the young people who welcomed him at World Youth Day in Lisbon came from. Many thousands have been mobilized by Opus Dei, which instructs and forms them in the Christian faith. Francis thanked this "with a stab in the back," according to the Spanish news site InfoVaticana. Francis is thus dismantling another piece of the legacy of his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI. In 1982, the Polish Pope transformed Opus Dei into a personal prelature, giving it a privileged position in the Church.

"The Jesuit Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda, 40 years later, has succeeded in imposing his clerical vision of what personal prelatures should be," says InfoVaticana.

 

The renowned canon lawyer Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a Jesuit like Pope Francis, was created cardinal by him in August 2022. He was not ordained a bishop. Last June 19, Francis appointed him Cardinal Patron of the Order of Malta, a post to which Francis had deported Cardinal Raymond Burke in 2014 when he removed him from the Roman Curia. With the dismissal of the Grand Master of Malta, Fra Mathew Festing, Cardinal Burke was also disempowered in the Order of Malta, but his dignity was retained. Now Francis has also withdrawn this from him.

For years, Cardinal Ghirlanda led the resistance to the special position of the personal prelatures, specifically Opus Dei – and was able to prevail with Francis. Here is the new motu proprio in its own translation:

With the new motu proprio, Francis cut through the previous attachment of the laity to Opus Dei and redefined the prelate as "moderator"

Apostolic Exhortation in the form of a "Motu Proprio" of Pope Francis, by which the can 295-296 are amended with regard to the personal prelatures.

Personal prelatures are mentioned for the first time by the Second Vatican Council in the Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis, No. 10, concerning the distribution of priests within the framework of the care of all Churches.

This spirit is taken up again by the same Council in the Decree Ad gentes, which states: "In order to facilitate certain pastoral works for the various social classes, provision is made for the establishment of personal prelatures, as required for the proper exercise of the apostolate" (note 105).

The Motu Proprio Ecclesiae Sanctae (August 6, 1966), in its article on the "Distribution of the clergy and the assistance to be given to the dioceses" on the prelatatures, reminds us that "in order to promote special pastoral or missionary initiatives in favour of certain regions or social groups in need of special assistance, the Apostolic See may fruitfully establish prelatures consisting of: priests of the secular clergy who have special formation, are endowed with their own statutes and are under the direction of their own prelate" (I, 4).

In the Code of Canon Law of 1983, in accordance with this view, the personal prelatures are located in Book II, in Title IV of Part I, where the "Christian faithful" are treated, between the "ministers or clergy" (Title III) and "associations of the faithful" (Title V).

Considering that the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate evangelium (19 March 2022), Art. 117, the competence for personal prelatures has been transferred to the Dicastery for the Clergy, on which public associations of clerics with the power to incardinate clergy also depend (Art. 118, 2);

in view of can. 265 and Art. 6 of the M.P. Ad charisma tuendum (14 July 2022)

I determine the following:

Art. 1

To can. 295, § 1, with regard to the Statutes and the Prelate, it is added that the Personal Prelature is "equivalent to public associations of clergy of pontifical right with the power to incardinate clerics" and that its statutes "may be approved or issued by the Apostolic See" and that the Prelate "acts as a moderator, endowed with the powers of an Ordinary", which leads to: that the Canon in question is worded as follows:

Can. 295, § 1. Praelatura personalis, quae consociationibus publicis clericalibus iuris pontificii facultate incardinandi clericos assimilatur, regitur statutis ab Apostolica Sede probatis vel emanatis eique praeficitur Praelatus veluti Moderator, facultatibus Ordinarii praeditus, cui ius est nationale vel internationale seminarium erigere necnon alumnos incardinare, eosque titulo servitii praelaturae ad ordines promovere.

[Can. 295, § 1. The personal prelature, which is equivalent to the public associations of clergy of pontifical right with the power to incardinate clerics, is governed by the statutes approved or promulgated by the Apostolic See and is headed by a prelate as moderator, who has the right to establish and establish national or international seminaries and to incardinate students and to confer them in the rank of prelature. promote.]

Art. 2

Canon 295 § 2, which refers to the responsibility of the prelate in the formation and support of students incardinated in the Prelature, establishes that he acts "as a moderator vested with the powers of an Ordinary", from which the Canon in question formulates as follows:

Can. 295, § 2. Utpote Moderator facultatibus Ordinarii praeditus, Praelatus prospicere debet sive spirituali institutioni illorum, quos titulo praedicto promoverit, sive eorunddem decorae sustentationi.

[Can. 295, § 2. As a moderator with the powers of an Ordinary, the Prelate must provide for the spiritual formation of those whom he has led to ordination by the aforementioned titles, as well as for their proper maintenance.]

Art. 3

The reference to Canon 296 is added to Canon 107 with regard to the participation of the laity in the apostolic activities of the Personal Prelature, which results in the Canon being formulated in its entirety as follows:

Can. 296. Servatis can. 107 praescriptis, conventionibus praelatura initis, laici operibus apostolicis praelaturae personalis sese dedicare possunt; Modus vero huius organicae cooperationis atque praecipua officia et iura illa coniuncta in statutis apte determinentur.

[Can. 107 By virtue of provisions and agreements made with the Prelature, lay people may devote themselves to apostolic works of the Personal Prelature; the nature of this organic collaboration and the principal duties and rights associated with it shall be adequately defined in the Statutes.]

What is decided in this Apostolic Exhortation in the form of a Motu Proprio, I command that, notwithstanding all things to the contrary, it has a firm and stable validity, even if it deserves special mention, and that it be promulgated in L'Osservatore Romano, coming into force on the day of its publication and therefore being included in the official commentary of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the feast day of St. Dominic, August 8, 2023, in the eleventh year of the pontificate.

~Francis

Text/Translation: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: VaticanMedia/Vatican.va (Screenshots)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

[Update: The present text contains a correction, as it was rightly pointed out that Pope Francis had already deprived the future prelates of Opus Dei of the dignity of bishop with the motu proprio Ad charisma tuendum of July 14, 2022, which entered into force on August 4, 2022.]

AMDG