Through a resolution of the Holy See, the Pope Francisco took a series of measures tending to reduce the power of the Opus Dei within the Catholic Church. These measures are called “Ad charisma tuendum”, (“To protect the charisma”), and provide for changes in how the powerful church movement must submit their reports, what will be the control of their actions and a new power limit of his highest authority.
According to these changes, the Opus Dei It will have to start presenting a detailed report on its activities every year, when previously it had to be presented every five years. It also ends the obligation that the Prelate (highest authority within Opus) should be appointed bishopand orders that the statutes of this sector of the church should be reviewed and approved by the Vatican.
But that is not all: the new resolution establishes that from now on the Opus Dei becomes dependent on the Congregation for the Clergy, when before it depended on the Congregation of Bishops and it was the Prelate who ruled it as a jurisdiction. These decisions imply that there will be much more control and monitoring over the activities of Opus and reverse much of what Opus had achieved in previous papal mandates.
This decision of Francisco It breaks with a traditional good relationship between the Church and Opus Dei, and upsets the status of said faction within the Catholic Church. Distant seem to be the days when the Pope Juan Pablo II he granted this sector the first Personal Prelature of the Catholic Church. Thanks to this tailwind, Opus acquired considerable growth throughout the world.
Fernando Ocariz, current Prelate of Opus Deiminimized the impact of the measure, saying that the Pope’s decision is “an initiative and decision of the Holy See” to reinforce “the charismatic dimension” instead of the hierarchical one.
But the truth is that it is a decision made by a Pope who has been building a profile charismatic and progressive, and that curtails the power of a faction of the Church traditionally associated with rather conservative ideas. Although there are no elements to prove that there is animosity in this new measure, it is clear that the provision implies that from now on, the power of the actors within the Vatican will be modified.
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