After a multi-year effort, Opus Dei — the lay apostolate founded by St. Josemaría Escrivá — has finalized revising its statutes and submitted them to the Holy See for approval this month, the prelate of the apostolate announced June 11.
“It has been a three-year journey, accompanied by everyone’s prayers, which I ask you to intensify in this final stage,” Opus Dei Prelate Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz said of the statutes’ revision in the June 11 statement.
In 2022, Pope Francis directed a number of changes for Opus Dei by publishing Ad Charisma Tuendum, a motu proprio in which he wrote that for Opus Dei, “a form of governance based on charism more than on hierarchical authority is needed.” As such, one of the changes was that the prelate of Opus Dei could no longer be a bishop.
Pope Francis also directed that Opus Dei must submit a yearly report on its current state and living out of its apostolic work to the Dicastery for the Clergy. The Pope also moved Opus Dei from being under the authority of the Dicastery for Bishops to the Dicastery for the Clergy, which significantly changes Opus Dei’s canonical status, as CatholicVote previously reported.
Opus Dei states on its website that the Holy See requested the apostolate’s statutes revision as “part of a broader reform of the Roman Curia.”
Opus Dei had a draft of the revisions completed by April 2023, but a second motu proprio titled “On the modification of canons 295–296 concerning personal prelatures,” that came in August 2023 prompted Opus Dei to undertake a second phase of the revisions, according to the apostolate’s website.
Opus Dei is a “personal prelature,” which the apostolate defines as a specific group of faithful overseen by a prelate that functions “to foster Christian life and the Church’s evangelizing mission in a way that complements the dioceses, to which the faithful who form part of a personal prelature continue to belong.”
The apostolate had aimed to complete the work of revising and approving the new statutes during its Tenth Ordinary General Congress, scheduled for April 23 through May 5, 2025, but amid Pope Francis’ health decline in April the apostolate announced it would be reducing the scope of the meeting, as CatholicVote previously reported.
Pope Francis died April 21, leaving the Holy See vacant. Msgr. Ocáriz said in the June 11 statement that the Congress members determined that it would be appropriate to not finalize the revisions during the period of the Holy See’s vacancy.
On May 15, Pope Leo XIV briefly met with Msgr. Ocáriz and his auxiliary vicar Monsignor Mariano Fazio, where the Pope inquired about the study of the Statutes of the Prelature and “expressed his closeness and affection,” according to a statement from Opus Dei.
“In a familiar atmosphere of trust, Pope Leo XIV gave the Prelate and the auxiliary vicar his paternal blessing,” the statement said.
Opus Dei officially presented the revised statutes to the Holy See June 11.
Concluding his statement, Msgr. Ocáriz said, “Naturally, let us continue to accompany the Holy Father Leo XIV with our daily prayer and dedication.”
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