Josemaría Escrivá

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Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás, founder of Opus Dei
Coat of arms of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás

Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás (born January 9, 1902 as José María Escriba Albás in Barbastro , Spain ; † June 26, 1975 in Rome ) is the founder of Opus Dei (work of God or God's work) and a saint of the Roman Catholic Church . Liturgical feast: “26. June. St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, priest ”.

Life

José María was born as the second of six children to the married couple José Escriba y Corzán (1867-1924) and María de los Dolores Albás y Blanc (1878-1941) in Barbastro in the Aragonese Pre-Pyrenees in Spain, his mother's hometown. His three younger sisters died in childhood. In 1915, after the economic ruin of their father's business in Barbastro, the family had to move to Logroño .

At the age of sixteen, José María made the decision to become a priest . Since 1918 he attended the seminary in Logroño as an external student and in 1920 completed his first year of Catholic theology studies , which also includes philosophy . He then moved to Saragossa , lived in the Real Seminario de San Carlos Borromeo seminary and attended the Pontifical University of San Valero y San Braulio . One reason for the change of location was his wish to study law as well as theology . In the seminary in 1922 the Archbishop of Saragossa, Cardinal Juan Soldevila y Romero , appointed him to be one of the two " superiors" whose task it was to look after the fellow students as superiors. From 1923 to 1927 he also studied law at the University of Saragossa . On March 28, 1925, he received the sacrament of ordination and then worked alongside his studies as a pastor in Perdiguera and Saragossa.

From 1927 he lived in Madrid to obtain a doctorate in law. At the same time, in agreement with the responsible Archbishop of Saragossa and the Archbishop of Madrid, Leopoldo Eijo y Garay , he became a pastor at the monastery of Damas Apostólicas del Sagrado Corazón , a charitable poor and nursing foundation for women members of the Madrid upper class. In 1931 he gave up this position, was appointed chaplain (from 1934 rector) of the Royal Santa Isabel Monastery and devoted himself to the pastoral care of students. As in Saragossa, in addition to the then modest priestly salary, he earned money by giving private lessons in Roman and canon law . His mother and the two siblings Carmen (* 1899) and Santiago (* 1919) followed him to Madrid.

On October 2, 1928, Escrivá, as he now called himself, founded Opus Dei according to his own understanding . According to his own account, he did this on the basis of a divine revelation . The term "Opus Dei" (translated "work of God"), which he therefore used for his work, he did not use until 1930. What exactly should have happened on the day of the foundation he kept secret throughout his life; there was no formal founding act. At first he was the only member of its founding. On February 14, 1930 - also based on a private revelation , as he later announced -, contrary to his original intention, he expanded the work to include a department for women, who should work strictly separately from men. In reality, from around 1930 onwards, Opus Dei consisted of a small group of friends, students and acquaintances Escrivá with whom he met. It had neither a legal structure nor a legal personality . In 1936 the group had "just under a dozen members". Escrivá entrusted his founding intentions to his confessors and the Archbishop of Madrid, who supported him in his cause.

In 1933 he founded the "Academia DYA" ("Derecho y Arquitectura", interpreted by him as "Dios y Audacia", i.e. "God and boldness"). This facility was the first corporate Opus Dei work in Spain to provide students with the specific teaching and type of instruction. The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) interrupted the realization of his plans. In the Republican Madrid Escrivá practiced his priestly from office in secret. From April 1937 he found refuge in the embassy of Honduras , at the end of 1937 he then fled with some like-minded people via Barcelona and Andorra to the national zone, where he stayed mainly in Burgos until the end of the civil war . There he devoted himself, among other things, to the writing of the study “La Abadesa de las Huelgas”, a theological and canonical study of the extraordinary quasi-episcopal jurisdiction of the abbess of the Abbey of Las Huelgas near Burgos . For the work that he submitted to the law faculty as a dissertation after his return to Madrid, he was able to use the rich holdings of the library and archive of the monastery. During his time in Burgos, Escrivá made many contacts.

Returning to Madrid at the end of March 1939, he and a few collaborators began to resume the work of Opus Dei and to spread its work in Spain. In 1939 the final version of his most famous book, the collection of aphorisms Der Weg ( Camino ), which contains 999 maxims and is regarded as a spiritual and practical guide for fans and friends of Opus Dei, was published. Many of the images, expressions and trains of thought in the work are shaped by the time of the emerging fascism in which it emerged. On March 19, 1941, Opus Dei was ecclesiastically recognized as a pious association ( Pia Unio ) by the Archbishop of Madrid. In the 1940s Escrivá gained fame through retreats and retreats that he held in various dioceses in Spain. At that time he changed his name to Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás, a name form based on the naming conventions of the Spanish nobility . In 1968 he acquired the Spanish nobility title " Marques de Peralta ", which he renounced in 1972 after severe public criticism in favor of his brother.

On February 14, 1943 Escrivá founded the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross (Societas Sacerdotalis Sanctae Crucis) within the male division of Opus Dei , apparently after he had again felt a private revelation . The Society of Priests was canonically established on December 8, 1943 by the Archbishop of Madrid . It made it possible for male numerary members to be ordained as priests on the instructions of the leadership of the association, who were exclusively available to the community and who could later be incardinated directly for Opus Dei . The background was conflicts with outside confessors who did not belong to the work itself and whose advice to the members Escrivá felt as interference in the internal management and control of his organization. He therefore made it very important that Opus Dei members confess only to the priests associated with the work . In this priestly society he was initially the only member until a year and a half later three other Opus Dei members could be ordained priests . It was recognized as an institution under papal law in 1947. Since about 1946 the organization consisted of about 12 clergymen, 250 numerarians and about 400 supernumeraries . The supernumerarians are lay people who have been allowed to marry since around 1950.

In 1945 Escrivá's work began working outside of Spain, in Portugal . In 1946 he moved the headquarters from Madrid to Rome , in the center of the Catholic Church. From there he started the worldwide expansion of his organization, initially in Latin American countries that were dominated by both Catholic and Spanish . In Rome he founded the "Collegium Romanum Sanctae Crucis" in 1948 and the "Collegium Romanum Sanctae Mariae" in 1953 as training centers for the priests and lay people of his movement. In 1950 the Opus Dei of Pope Pius XII. elevated to a secular institute and thus fully recognized by the church. In 1955 Escrivá received his doctorate in theology from the Lateran University . He wrote numerous writings, traveled to many countries and gave catechesis and lectures in which he tried to spread the special spirituality of Opus Dei and to recruit members.

Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer died on June 26, 1975 in Rome in his study. At his death, Opus Dei had over 60,000 members worldwide. After his death it was spread that with him "for the first time in the history of the Church a priest had ordained around a thousand professionals and scientists from the five continents in the course of his life." He was ordained in the underground crypt of the Money of the Opus Dei prelature church of Santa Maria della Pace is buried. His successor Álvaro del Portillo , who died in 1994, rests there today , while Josemaría Escrivá is venerated as a saint in the main altar of the church. Josemaría Escrivá was considered sacred by his followers during his lifetime. His experience, which led to the founding of Opus Dei (the so-called "premonitions of love"), was surrounded by an aura of mystery and wonder, as were other life events and the circumstances of his death. Immediately after his death, immense efforts began in the organization to achieve the beatification and canonization of its founding father. The transfiguration work has contributed to the fact that a large part of the numerous descriptions of life available has a hagiographic character and says little about his personality and the relationship structure between the founder and Opus Dei. His main work Camino was published by Opus Dei in 1957 in a German translation, which systematically removes all echoes of the fascist ideology of the time of its creation.

According to his successor, the founder has been working intensively since 1962 to improve the internal church legal form of Opus Dei. It should enable the work of God to be largely hierarchical and independent from the episcopate in the dioceses. In 1982 Pope John Paul II transformed Opus Dei into a personal prelature within the Catholic Church.

Relationship to Franquism

Opus Dei was considered loyal and reliable to the Franco regime in Spain. That is why Escrivá's relationship with the Spanish military dictator was often the focus of interest. Escrivá met Francisco Franco several times personally, which according to the statement of the American Vatican expert John L. Allen was "not terribly surprising" in the "context and climate" of the Spanish Catholicism of the time, especially since Franco received "a telegram of congratulations from Pope Pius XII " on the day of his victory . "and" was anointed by Cardinal Isidro Gomá y Tomás as a caudillo, 'leader' ". Four meetings became known. As early as the early 1940s, Escrivá held a few days of reflection ("un curso de retiro") for Franco and his wife at the request of the Archbishop of Madrid . In 1946 he gave another multi-day retreat for the Franco couple on behalf of the Spanish Bishops' Conference . Another meeting took place in 1953: Escrivá had asked Franco for an audience with the aim of defending Rafael Calvo Serer , a member of Opus Dei and a critic of Franco, who had been attacked in the Spanish press. Finally, a fourth meeting Escrvás is detected by Franco for 1962, when he with the Spanish government on the state recognition of academic degrees, which was founded by him and as Grand Chancellor led University of Navarra in Pamplona negotiated.

Honors

Pius XII. awarded him the title of Papal House Prelate in 1947 . In 1956 he was made an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology . In 1960 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Law Faculty of the University of Zaragoza. Various cities in Spain gave him honorary citizenship , such as Pamplona (1960), Barcelona (1966) and his birthplace Barbastro (1975).

Relics and memorial in Rome

The baptismal font of the Episcopal Church in Barbastro, which was built in 1635 and where José María Escriba was baptized as well as his mother and sisters, was destroyed by atheist militias at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. The remains, later recovered from the river Vero, were given to the cathedral chapter and diocese of Barbastro in 1957 to the founder of Opus Dei, who had them brought to Rome in 1959 and reconstructed. The basin can be seen today in the church of the Roman world headquarters of Opus Dei ( Prelatura della Santa Croce e Opus Dei , Viale Bruno Buozzi No. 75 in Rome). Escrivá's coffin is placed in a shrine below the altar of this church; the tabernacle is not in the church there, but in the crypt .

Beatification and Canonization

Josemaria Escriva was in May 1992 by Pope John Paul II. Beatified and on October 6, 2002 canonized .

The process of beatification was opened in Madrid and Rome in 1981, completed in 1986 at the diocesan level and ended in 1990 with the decree on the heroic degree of virtue and in 1991 with the miraculous decree of the responsible Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The process attracted attention because of its brevity and met with fierce opposition in some cases. Escrivá's relationship with Franco and his stance on the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende by Augusto Pinochet , which he described as “necessary bloodshed”, was criticized . However, like other processes of this kind from the pontificate of John Paul II, the process of canonization conformed to the new, streamlined procedural rules of the Congregation for Canonization. The two miracles required for canonization were also called into question : the healing of the Carmelite Concepción Boullón Rubio in 1976 and the doctor Manuel Nevado Rey in 1992.

Movies

In his film There Be Dragons , Roland Joffé filmed essential episodes from Escrivá's life, embedded in a fictional civil war story . Charlie Cox plays the role of the Spanish priest in it.

literature

Note: The Adamas publishing house in Cologne is described as being close to Opus Dei, the works published there about the founder are self-portrayals of Opus Dei.

Web links

Commons : Josemaría Escrivá  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Josemaría Escrivá  - Quotes

swell

  1. ↑ Archdiocese of Cologne (ed.): Directorium for the Archdiocese of Cologne 2020 . Cologne 2019, p. 69 .
  2. ^ Salvador Bernal: Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. Records of the founder of Opus Dei. Adamas, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-920007-48-4 , p. 15-29 .
  3. ^ Salvador Bernal: Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. Records of the founder of Opus Dei . Adamas, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-920007-48-4 , p. 63-75 .
  4. ↑ a b c Carlos Albás: Opus Dei o chapuza del Diablo. Online publication, 2002 ( Capítulo II. El Fundador del Opus Dei ), accessed July 13, 2016.
  5. ^ Salvador Bernal: Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. Records of the founder of Opus Dei . Adamas, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-920007-48-4 , p. 104-111 and 135-144 .
  6. ^ Andrés Vázquez de Prada: El Fundador del Opus Dei: ¡Señor, que vea! Volume 1. Ediciones Rialp, Madrid 1997; 9th edition ibid 2010, p. 14 and. Note 12.
  7. ^ Salvador Bernal: Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer . Records of the founder of Opus Dei. Adamas, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-920007-48-4 , p. 110
  8. ^ Salvador Bernal: Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer . Records of the founder of Opus Dei. Adamas, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-920007-48-4 . P. 136
  9. ↑ a b c d e Klaus Steigleder: The Opus Dei. An inside view. 4th edition. 1990; Paperback edition: Heyne Verlag, Munich 1996, pp. 23–27; Hans Stephan Puhl: On the self-image and history of Opus Dei. In: Harald Schützeichel (Ed.): Opus Dei. Goals, aspiration and influence. Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 1992, pp. 17–32, here: pp. 29–31 (quotation, p. 30: “In 1936” Opus Dei had “a dozen or so members”); Werner Billing, Michael Sauer: Opus Dei. In: same: Opus Dei and Scientology. The state and socio-political ideas. Conflict or agreement with the Basic Law? Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2000, pp. 13–66, here: pp. 13–17.
  10. ↑ a b Holy Mafia , in: Der Spiegel 20/1992, p. 197 f.
  11. ^ A b Adolf Sawoff: A critical reading of the Camino by Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. In: Klaus-Dieter Ertler u. a. (Ed.): Pensées - Pensieri - Pensamientos: presented worlds of thought in the literatures of Romania. Festschrift for Werner Helmich (= Austria: Research and Science, Literature, Volume 4). Lit Verlag, Vienna 2006, pp. 287-300 (here: 287 and notes 2 and 3).
  12. ^ Adolf Sawoff: A critical reading of the Camino by Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. Vienna 2006, p. 291.
  13. ^ Michael Walsh: Opus Dei: an Investigation into the Powerful Secretive Society Within the Catholic Church. HarperCollins, New York 2004, p. 13.
  14. ↑ Peter Hertel: "I promise you heaven". Spiritual claim, social goals and ecclesiastical significance of Opus Dei. 4th edition. Patmos, Düsseldorf 1990, ISBN 3-491-77804-2 , p. 84 .
  15. ^ Salvador Bernal: Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. Records of the founder of Opus Dei . Adamas, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-920007-48-4 , p. 147 .
  16. ↑ Klaus Steigleder: The Opus Dei. An inside view. 4th ed. (1990), p. 127.
  17. ^ Salvador Bernal: Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer . Records of the founder of Opus Dei. Adamas, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-920007-48-4 , p. 147
  18. ↑ Peter Hertel: Secrets of Opus Dei. Classified information - Background - Strategies . 3. Edition. Spectrum, no. 4386 . Herder, Freiburg 1995, ISBN 3-451-04386-6 , pp. 18 .
  19. ^ A b Salvador Bernal: Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer . Records of the founder of Opus Dei. Adamas, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-920007-48-4 , p. 298
  20. ^ Salvador Bernal: Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer . Records of the founder of Opus Dei. Adamas, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-920007-48-4 , p. 297
  21. ↑ a b Johannes Pohlschneider : God's work in people's everyday lives. For the 50th birthday of Opus Dei. In: Theological . Volume 103, 1978, col. 2960-2965 (citation: col. 2961).
  22. ↑ Werner Billing, Michael Sauer: Opus Dei. Opladen 2000, p. 14.
  23. ↑ Klaus Steigleder: The Opus Dei. An inside view. 4th ed. (1990), p. 29.
  24. ↑ Werner Billing, Michael Sauer: Opus Dei. Opladen 2000, p. 13.
  25. ↑ See online publication on the Opus Dei website.
  26. ^ Adolf Sawoff: A critical reading of the Camino by Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. Vienna 2006, p. 92 u. ö.
  27. ↑ Klaus Steigleder: The Opus Dei. An inside view. 4th edition. 1990, pp. 37-39.
  28. ↑ Werner Billing, Michael Sauer: Opus Dei. Opladen 2000, p. 16.
  29. ↑ John L. Allen , jr: Opus Dei. Myth and Reality - A look behind the scenes. Gütersloh 2006, ISBN 978-3-579-06936-4 , p. 80.
  30. ^ Peter Berglar: Opus Dei. Life and work of the founder Josemaría Escrivá, Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg 1983, ISBN 3-7013-0652-4 , p.296 ..
  31. ↑ a b John L. Allen, jr: Opus Dei. Myth and Reality - A look behind the scenes. Gütersloh 2006, ISBN 978-3-579-06936-4 , p. 81.
  32. ^ Andrés Vázquez de Prada: El Fundador del Opus Dei: ¡Señor, que vea! (Part 1). Ediciones Rialp, 9th edition (first edition 1997), Madrid 2010, p. 12 f.
  33. ^ Theo Dierkes, Wolfgang Meyer: Opus Dei. Networking in the name of God. WDR 5 series Das Feature , broadcast on January 13, 2013.
  34. ^ Decree on the heroic degree of virtue of the founder of Opus Dei of April 9, 1990 (source: Opus Dei).
  35. ↑ a b Decree on the recognition of a miracle ascribed to Josemaría Escrivá of July 6, 1991 (source: Opus Dei).
  36. ↑ Christoph Gunkel: Johannes Paul II. Turbo canonization for the record pope , in: Spiegel Online from April 22, 2014 (accessed on July 14, 2016).
  37. ↑ John Grohe:  Escriva de Balaguer y Albas, Josemaria, Holy, founder of Opus Dei.. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 23, Bautz, Nordhausen 2004, ISBN 3-88309-155-3 , Sp. 325–343.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  38. ^ Vittorio Messori: The miracle that made the founder of Opus Dei a saint , Corriere della Sera , December 19, 2001; here as a German translation on josemariaescriva.info
  39. ↑ Werner Billing, Michael Sauer: Opus Dei. In: dies .: Opus Dei and Scientology. The state and socio-political ideas. Conflict or agreement with the Basic Law? Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2000, pp. 13–66 (here: p. 13 and note 10).
predecessor Office successor
--- Founder and director of Opus Dei
1928–1975 		Alvaro del Portillo
personal data
SURNAME Escrivá, Josemaría
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás, Josemaría (full name); Escriba, José María (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish clergyman, founder of Opus Dei
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Barbastro , Spain
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1975
Place of death Rome