Opus Dei
CHARACTERISTICS AND MISSION
Opus Dei is a personal Prelature of the Catholic Church. "Opus Dei" means "Work of God." The complete name is Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei. It is also more briefly called Prelature of Opus Dei or simply Opus Dei.
Opus Dei was founded in Madrid on October 2, 1928, by Blessed Josemaria Escriva. Nearly 84,000 people from around the world belong to the Prelature (Cf. Annuario Pontificio, 2000). Its headquarters, together with the church of the Prelature, is in Rome.
The mission of Opus Dei is to promote among Christians of all social classes a life in the middle of the world fully consistent with their faith and to contribute to the evangelization of every sphere of society. In short, it is to spread the message that all the baptized are called to seek holiness and to make the Gospel known. This same message was at the core of the Second Vatican Council (cf. Constitution on the Church, 32, 33).
In order to achieve this aim, the Prelature provides for the spiritual, educational (formational), and pastoral care of its faithful, and offers this help to many other persons, "each one in his or her own state in life, profession, and situation in the world" (Statutes of Opus Dei, art. 2.1). With the help of this pastoral attention they are encouraged to put into practice the teachings of the Gospel through the exercise of the Christian virtues and the sanctification of work (Statutes, art. 2).
The sanctification of work for the faithful of the Prelature means:
Working with the greatest possible competence;
Carrying out their work with the fullest respect for the law and in conformity with the demands of ethics;
Seeking union with God in that work;
Working with the desire of serving one's fellow citizens and of making a contribution to the progress of society (Statutes, art. 86.1).
A result of numerous men and women committing themselves to an authentic Christian life will be the sanctification of the world, the permeation of all activities and temporal realities with the spirit of the Gospel (cf. The Canonical Path, Scepter Publishers, Princeton, NJ, 1994, pgs. 34-41).
The faithful of the Prelature carry out the work of evangelization in every sector of society, since they work in all areas. Their apostolic work is not limited to specific fields, such as education, care for the sick, or help for the handicapped. The mission of the Prelature is to remind all Christians that in whatever secular activity they dedicate themselves to they must cooperate in solving the problems of society in a Christian way, and bear constant witness to their faith
PERSONAL PRELATURES
Origin
Personal Prelatures are a juridical configuration foreseen by the Second Vatican Council and are still recent in Church law.
The Council stipulated that to carry out special pastoral tasks in different regions or among any race in any part of the world ... special dioceses or personal prelatures can be established (cf. Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests , Dec. 7, 1965, no. 10).
It was the intent of the Council to outline a new juridical figure, flexible in nature, aimed at contributing to the effective spread of the Christian message and life. In this way the Church could more aptly respond to the demands of its mission, which is inserted into and forms part of history.
Canon Law of the Catholic Church stipulates that each personal prelature must be regulated by general Church law and by its own statutes.
Concept
Personal prelatures are institutions that belong to the pastoral and hierarchical structure of the Church. They are composed of priests who form part of the secular clergy and lay faithful who may be incorporated into the prelature by means of an agreement. A prelature is headed by a prelate, its own ordinary, who is named by the Roman Pontiff. He may or may not be a bishop. He governs with ecclesiastical power of governance or jurisdiction.
Most jurisdictions in the Church are territorial, as in the case of a diocese, because they are established according to a defined circumscription. Jurisdiction may not always be linked to territorial location, however, but to some other criteria, such as particular type of work, religious rite, status as immigrants, or by an agreement made between two entities. This latter is the case for military ordinariates and personal prelatures. The jurisdiction of a prelature is not over territories, but over persons.
Personal prelatures are analogous to dioceses, but the two entities are not the same. Like a diocese, a prelature is composed of a prelate, a presbyterate composed of secular priests, and lay faithful. But unlike a diocese, the jurisdiction of a prelature, as has been stated, is not bound to a particular territory. What's more, the faithful of a prelature continue to belong to the local church or diocese where they live just as they did before they made an agreement with the prelature.
Personal prelatures are clearly differentiated from dioceses, religious institutes and the consecrated life in general, as well as from associations and movements of the faithful.
Historical development
In 1966 Pope Paul VI opened the way for the creation of personal prelatures (Motu Proprio, Ecclesiae sanctae, I, 4) as foreseen by the Second Vatican Council. This document specified that the lay faithful could attach themselves to personal prelatures by means of a bilateral agreement or contract.
Paul VI stipulated in 1967 that personal prelatures were to be dependent on the Congregation for Bishops and that they would be erected by the Roman Pontiff after having heard the opinion of the appropriate Episcopal Conferences (Apostolic Constitution Regimini Ecclesiae universae, 49.1).
The Prelature of Opus Dei
Opus Dei already enjoyed a unity made up of laity and priests who cooperate in a specific pastoral and apostolic mission of an international nature. From its beginnings its mission has been to spread the ideal of holiness in the middle of the world-in the ordinary circumstances of life, especially through work.
Beginning with Pope Paul VI the Roman Pontiffs wanted a study to be undertaken of whether or not Opus Dei could be made a personal prelature. In 1969 a joint task force of the Holy See and Opus Dei began to investigate this possibility. This work was completed in 1981. The Vatican then sent a report to more than 2,000 bishops of the dioceses where Opus Dei was present so that they could add their observations.
After this step, Opus Dei was erected by John Paul II as a personal prelature of international scope in the apostolic constitution Ut sit, of November 28, 1982. With this document the Pope promulgated the Statutes which make up the particular pontifical law of Opus Dei. These Statutes were prepared by the founder years before, and the necessary changes were made to adapt them to the new legislation.
BISHOP JAVIER ECHEVARRIA
The present Prelate of Opus Dei was born in Madrid on June 14, 1932.
He has been a member of Opus Dei since 1948 and holds doctorates in both Civil and Canon Law. Ordained a priest on August 7, 1955, Fr. Echevarria worked closely with Blessed Josemaria as his personal secretary from 1953 until his death in 1975. From 1966 onward he formed part of the general council, or advisory board, of Opus Dei.
In 1975 when Alvaro del Portillo succeeded Blessed Josemaria as head of Opus Dei, Bishop Echevarria was named Secretary General. In 1982, with the erection of Opus Dei as a personal Prelature, he became Vicar General.
Bishop Echevarria has been a consultor of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints since 1981 and for the Congregation for the Clergy since 1995.
After his election and appointment by John Paul II as Prelate of Opus Dei on April 20, 1994, the Pope ordained him bishop on January 6, 1995, in St. Peter's Basilica.
Blessed Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, opened a new path of holiness in the Catholic Church, teaching that men and women can achieve holiness by performing their work and daily duties with a Christian spirit. Pope John Paul II has called him one of "Christianity's great witnesses" and a precursor of the Second Vatican Council.
Early life
Josemaria Escriva was born in Barbastro, Spain, on January 9, 1902. He had five siblings: Carmen (1899-1957) and Santiago (1919-1994), plus three other younger sisters who died when they were small children. His parents, Jose and Dolores, gave their children a profound Christian education.
In 1915 Josemaria's father's business failed, so the family relocated to Logrono, where he found other work. It was in Logrono that Josemaria perceived his vocation for the first time. After seeing the bare footprints left in the snow by a monk, he felt that God wanted something of him, even though he did not know exactly what it was. He thought that he would more easily discover it if he became a priest, so he began to prepare for the priesthood, first in Logrono and later in Saragossa.
THE FOUNDING OF OPUS DEI
His father died in 1924 and he was left as head of the family. Ordained in 1925, he began his ministry in a rural parish, and afterward in Saragossa. In 1927, with the permission of his bishop, Fr. Josemaria moved to Madrid to obtain his doctorate in law. There, on October 2, 1928, during a retreat, he saw what it was that God was asking of him: he founded Opus Dei. From that time on he began to work on the development of Opus Dei while he continued his priestly ministry, particularly to the poor and sick. In addition, he studied at the University of Madrid and gave classes to support his family.
When the Civil War broke out in Madrid religious persecution forced him to take refuge in several places. He exercised his priestly ministry clandestinely until he finally was able to leave the Spanish capital. After a harrowing escape across the Pyrenees, he took up residence in Burgos. At the end of the war in 1939 he returned to Madrid where he finally obtained his doctorate in law. In the years that followed he gave many retreats to laity, priests, and religious.
GUIDING THE GROWTH OF OPUS DEI
In 1946 Blessed Josemaria took up residence in Rome. There he obtained a doctorate in Theology from the Lateran University and was named consultor to two Vatican Congregations, as well as honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, and prelate of honor by Pope Pius XII. From Rome he frequently went to different countries in Europe, and to Mexico in 1970, to spur the growth of Opus Dei in those places. Similarly in 1974 and 1975 the founder made two long trips to Central and South America, where he held gatherings with large groups of people.
Blessed Josemaria Escriva died in Rome on June 26, 1975. Thousands of people, including a third of the bishops from around the world, requested that the Holy See open his cause of beatification and canonization. His cause was opened in 1981 and was conducted fully in accord with Church law.
BEATIFICATION
After his death thousands of letters were sent to Rome asking the Pope to open his cause of beatification and canonization. Among them were letters from 69 Cardinals and nearly 1,300 Bishops -- more than a third of the world episcopate. Many miracles have been attributed to Blessed Josemaria's intercession, including some inexplicable medical cures. In 1976 Carmelite sister Concepcion Boullon Rubio was at the point of death when she was suddenly and completely cured of a rare disease called lipomatosis after members of her family prayed to God for a cure through the intercession of Blessed Josemaria. The miracle was unanimously approved for Msgr. Escriva's beatification by the Board of Physicians for the Congregation of the Causes of Saints, a meeting of the Theological Consultors, the Congregation of Cardinals and Bishops, and, finally, by Pope John Paul II.
After an exhaustive examination of Msgr. Escriva's life and work -- a process lasting nearly 10 years -- the Pope beatified him on May 17, 1992, in St. Peter's Square. The beatification of Msgr. Escriva, along with that of Josephine Bakhita, took place before one of the biggest crowds in St. Peter's this century, some 300,000 people, including 46 cardinals and almost 300 bishops. In his homily, Pope John Paul II told the faithful, "With supernatural intuition, Blessed Josemaria untiringly preached the universal call to holiness and apostolate.
Christ calls everyone to become holy in the realities of everyday life. Hence work too is a means of personal holiness and apostolate, when it is done in union with Jesus Christ."
BASIC FEATURES OF OPUS DEI'S APOSTOLATE IN THE WORLD
"The main activity of Opus Dei is offering its members, and other people, the spiritual means they need to live as good Christians in the midst of the world," the founder of Opus Dei explained. With this formation as a foundation, each one carries out his or her apostolic activity, bearing witness to Jesus Christ in their own surroundings. This personal apostolate is always the most important one in Opus Dei.
The Prelature can also establish agreements with those who are in charge of specific activities in order to provide them with a Christian orientation. These activities will always be in the public interest (educational, charitable, etc.) with a clear apostolic character: grade schools, high schools, universities, schools for professional formation, medical centers, etc. The Prelature does not undertake profit-making enterprises, commercial undertakings, political activities, and so forth.
Opus Dei solely provides activities consistent with its own nature as a Prelature of the Catholic Church. It is concerned only with a Christian leavening of these undertakings, offering doctrinal orientation and pastoral care. All of these activities fully respect the freedom of consciences and are open to people of all creeds, races, and social conditions.
The Prelature of Opus Dei can enter into various types of agreements with apostolic activities:
a) In so-called "corporate works" of apostolate, Opus Dei morally guarantees the Christian orientation of the activities they provide.
b) In other cases, Opus Dei provides spiritual help to one degree or another, without officially assuming any moral guarantee for the formational work carried on there. This spiritual assistance can take a variety of forms, such as priestly ministry, responsibility for religion classes, etc.
Such agreements with the Prelature do not modify the civil nature of these entities in any way. The responsibility for their function and direction always rests with its own directors, who are civil persons or entities, and not with the Prelature of Opus Dei.
CORPORATE WORKS OF APOSTOLATE
Corporate works of apostolate are those that are promoted by members of Opus Dei along with others and bear the moral guarantee of the Prelature. Opus Dei is only responsible for the Christian orientation.
These apostolic initiatives are established in each country in accord with the legal and financial requirements for civil institutions of their type. It is worth repeating that the persons and entities who undertake these activities are responsible for them, not Opus Dei. The sponsoring entities (the owners of the property and assets) are responsible for all organizational, legal and financial aspects.
Each undertaking is financed as any other entity of the same type: through fees paid by participants, grants, financial contributions, etc. The corporate works of apostolate frequently operate at a deficit, given the social nature of their activity and because they are not run with a profit-making aim. They ordinarily seek government subsidies and grants from private foundations and businesses. Another source of financing is the donations made by the faithful of Opus Dei, cooperators, and many other people.
Among the corporate works are high schools, universities, vocational training centers, medical clinics in underdeveloped areas, schools for farmers, institutes for professional education, student residences, etc. Some examples are:
The University of Navarra, founded in Pamplona, Spain in 1952, has 20 departments. The Pamplona campus includes the university hospital. A business school, the Institute for Higher Business Studies (IESE), is located in Barcelona. Similar initiatives exist elsewhere: the University of Piura (Peru), the University of La Sabana (Colombia), and the University of Asia and the Pacific (Philippines).
Kianda College in Nairobi, Kenya, began in 1961 and was the only interracial educational center for women in the country. In circumstances that traditionally offered women fewer opportunities for pursuing a profession, Kianda offers training for the practice of administrative professions to students coming principally from rural areas. In 1993 it became the secretarial school of Strathmore College, an educational institution that is made up of Kianda and other branches, as well as an accounting school and an institute of information technologies.
ELIS Center, a vocational training school, located in an industrial section of Rome, prepares specialists in a number of trades. Its programs are financed by the local government as well as by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since the center offers programs for students from underdeveloped countries such as Albania, Somalia, etc.
Midtown Center in Chicago, situated in a multiracial neighborhood, offers programs of academic, human, athletic, and spiritual formation. The programs compensate for the deficiencies in the local social environment. Of Midtown's students, 95% finish high school and 60% go on to college, more than double the averages of their peers.
Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, an institution for higher ecclesiastical studies located in Rome, was erected by the Holy See. It is a response to a desire of Blessed Josemaria who wanted the prelature to provide a university in Rome dedicated to research and formation in ecclesiastical sciences. Its faculties of Theology, Canon Law, Philosophy, and Institutional (Corporate) Communications accommodate over 1300 students from around the world.
Toshi, west of Mexico City, is an educational institute for women in a rural area populated by ethnic groups. Among other activities, it offers administrative education, which helps women find positions in business and public life in surrounding cities.
Father C. John McCloskey III, STD
The Pope and Opus Dei
People who know that I spent years working on Park Avenue and Wall Street with Citibank and Merrill Lynch often assume that I had a "late vocation" to the priesthood and that I was fleeing the evil world of the masters of the universe for godly clerical work. After the usual jocular reply that I was seeking a better return on my investment (after all, even George Soros or Peter Lynch can't provide "a hundred-fold in this life and life everlasting"), I hasten to assure them that I had already completely dedicated myself to God many years before as a layman and that it was possible, indeed imperative, for everyone to seek holiness in the midst of everyday life whatever their professional or familial situation.
That is the core message of the prelature Opus Dei, to whose presbyterate I belong. Indeed that message also lies at the heart of the Second Vatican Council. Contrary to many distorted interpretations the council was not principally about the role of the layperson in the Church but rather about the role of the lay Catholic in the world, an essential distinction and one with many profound consequences for both society and culture.
All of this might serve as an introduction to the phenomenon of the growth of Opus Dei throughout the world and how it may be an aspect of the world-wide strategy of the pontificate of John Paul II as the oft-heralded millennium rapidly approaches. It is no secret that while all the Roman Pontiffs whose reigns have coincided with the growth and development of Opus Dei since l928 have highly approved of its message and mission, John Paul II -- perhaps as a result of his varied work and educational background -- has grasped its importance in a deeper fashion and has played an essential role in encouraging its development through the granting of its definitive juridical status, the establishment of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, and finally the beatification of its founder Bl. Josemaria Escriva.
Bl. Josemaria's teachings are rooted in the concept of divine filiation, the reality that all men are children of God. Hence their rights and responsibilities before God, the Church, and society. They possess an inalienable right to life (from conception to natural death as John Paul II has so often put it) and through God's grace the privilege of living a life here on earth directed towards an eternal destiny through membership in the Church. This of course fits in perfectly with the Pope's emphasis on the "dignity of the human person" as the yardstick by which the health of any society can be measured.
Work, which the Pope has defined in the encyclical Laborem Exercens as anything useful to man, is the hinge upon which hangs the spirituality of Opus Dei. For centuries the worth of human work as an essential means for the ordinary Christian to grow in God's grace was largely ignored in Catholic spirituality. To be a member of the Catholic spiritual elite, one was called to the priesthood or religious life. This view had the effect of relegating the laity to second-class citizenship in the church; "to hunt, shoot, and entertain" in the words of a famous letter on the role of the laity written by a Roman prelate to Cardinal Newman in the nineteenth century. Escriva conceived of human work of any sort as ennobling both as a means of service to family and society and as a way to give glory to God that is available to all. Thus his message, as he expressed it, "opened up the divine pathways of the earth".
This point has not been lost on John Paul. As he put it in addressing members of Opus Dei in l979 soon after his election, "Opus Dei anticipated the theology of the laity of the Second Vatican Council." Bl. Josemaria insisted that this elevation of the worth of work be integrated with one's family and spiritual life in what he called a "unity of life," a phrase also later integrated into the teachings of the church in its synodal document on the role of the laity. "We cannot lead a double life. We cannot be like schizophrenics. If we want to be Christians, there is just one life, made of flesh and spirit. And it is this life that has to become, in both body and soul, holy and filled with God. We discover the invisible God in the most visible and material things."
Bl. Josemaria also placed a strong emphasis on the worth of human freedom as a God-given gift, abhorring both totalitarian regimes in government and any and all efforts to coerce the conscience of individual people. John Paul II has also insisted on the importance of freedom and responsibility, always in the context of prudential action, respecting both the natural law and divine revelation. True freedom consists in a furthering of the dignity of the human person inside of the family. They would both agree with Lord Acton who said "No country can be free without religion. It creates and strengthens the notion of duty. If men are not kept straight by duty, they must be by fear. The more they are kept by fear, the less they are free. The greater the strength of duty, the greater the liberty."
Escriva's greatest work is the reality of the prelature Opus Dei itself, which reaches millions of people in all five continents through its program of personal formation. It instills in them the perennial teachings of the Church along with the particular insights of Bl. Josemaria regarding the centrality of piety, work, and Christian witness. In addition, there have arisen hundreds of initiatives undertaken by members of Opus Dei and their friends to remedy glaring social needs according to particular situations: universities, inner city developmental programs, rural farm schools etc., all done professionally but with a spirit of selfless service.
Bl. Josemaria's emphasis on work, piety, freedom, and initiative all in total union with the teaching of the church are in the words of the historian Paul Johnson (speaking of John Paul II's opinion) a formula that works, "Escriva had the right combination, a robust adherence to the traditional dogmas and moral standards of Catholicism together with the missionary zeal to apply them to the modern world."
Blessed Josemaria's emphasis on a true spirituality of work and ordinary life can provide an energizing purpose in evangelization efforts in both east and west. William Bennett has written convincingly and depressingly of "Quantifying America's Decline". He says that only civic virtue and the development of character through education can stem the tide of rapid societal disintegration. However, it can be shown convincingly, as did the historian Christopher Dawson, that "it is the religious impulse which supplies the cohesive force which unifies a society and a culture...A society which has lost its religion becomes sooner or later a society which has lost its culture." Only a nation that is firmly rooted in a strong religious belief that plays an important role in influencing behavior can flourish or even survive.
Pope John Paul II played a crucial, if not preeminent, role in the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe. He now views his final struggle as to rescue the formerly Christian West from a hedonistic materialism that threatens civilization as surely as Godless Marxism. The ideology of the Bolshevik Revolution having collapsed, the ideological excesses of the French Revolution must be the next to go. It is quite fitting that Alexander Solzhhenitsyn, the great anti-liberal of our time, met with the Holy Father on the l5th anniversary of the Pope's election for over an hour. What a conversation it must have been. Solzehenitsyn was coming directly from France where he had commemorated the 200th anniversary of the massacres of the Vendee Catholics by the French revolutionaries. Some years back we witnessed the Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa going head to head with the Clintons and the Gores over abortion and adoption at the congressional prayer breakfast in Washington, the sacred and the secular at loggerheads when they should be at each other's service.
It is said that Pope Leo XIII, the first "modern" Pope and the most eloquent exponent of the social teachings of the Church had a premonition in the late l880's where he saw that God would allow the forces of evil free rein for a century. We have seen the result and perhaps the collapse of communism in l989 was the end of that century of unparalleled warfare and mass murder. John Paul II believes that the message of Blessed Josemaria is a means to assure in God's providence that as we pass beyond the millennium the future will be more reflective of the goodness of God and the dignity of man. This and only this can prevent a slide into a high-tech barbarism.
The great French sociologist De Tocqueville speaking of our own country said that " the men of our days are little disposed to believe but as soon as they have any religion, they immediately find in themselves a latent instinct which urges them unconsciously towards Catholicism. Many of the doctrines and practices of the Roman Church astonish them; but they feel a secret admiration for its discipline and its great unity attracts them." If the Catholic moment is indeed present in the West, Pope John Paul evidently sees in Bl. Josemaria Escriva and his Work an effective means to seize it.
First appeared in Crisis in the March, 1995, issue.
Cardinal joins in honoring founder of Opus Dei
Five American archbishops, including Cardinal Bernardin, recently
joined thousands of Catholics in honoring and praying for Msgr.
Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, Opus Dei's founder, at memorial Masses
throughout the country. The occasion was the 10th anniversary of Msgr.
Escriva's death.
The other prelates were Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, Archbishop
James A. Hickey of Washington, Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco,
and Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee. Other church leaders
around the world issued statements on the anniversary.
Cardinal Bernardin, addressing a packed Holy Name Cathedral in
Chicago, referred to Msgr. Escriva's message and commented: "It is
essential to the vocation of Christians in the world that they carry on
Christ's mission in and through their involvement in the secular order,
contributing to its sanctification, to the restoration of all things in
Christ."
"Msgr. Escriva was an innovator, but he also stood firmly and
squarely with the Christian tradition. His message was a call to return
daily to the roots of the Christian way of life and to live it
creatively and courageously in our contemporary world."
"It is an honor for me to be present today with the members,
friends and benefactors of Opus Dei in the Chicago metropolitan area as
you honor the memory of your founder and pray for him..."
"I wish to take this opportunity to thank you for your dedicated
service to the Church, especially to the people of this vast city and
its suburbs. I wish to affirm your efforts to bear witness to the
message of the Gospel in the ordinary circumstances of your daily
lives," he said.
Cardinal Law, who first became acquainted with Opus Dei during his
student days at Harvard University, said: "How do we engage in that
work of God (Opus Dei)? We engage in that work of God in prayer, as
you so well know, and the highest expression of prayer is what we are
engaged in now in the celebration of the Eucharist. Here is the heart
of the Church's life.
"This is the work of God. But this work of God is not to be
contained within the walls of the church, and surely that was the
overriding concern of Msgr. Escriva," he said.
"His deep-felt conviction was that the work of God belongs to the
whole Church, is the responsibility of the whole Church. And he
understood the Church well. He reveled in the mystery of the Church."
In Washington, at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception,
Archbishop Hickey thanked the approximately 2000 people present for
being there, "all of you who aspire to be `contemplatives on Main
Street.'"
He quoted Msgr. Escriva's thought that "we discover the invisible
God in the most visible of material things. There is no other way...
Either you find Christ in ordinary, everyday life or you will never
find him."
Archbishop Weakland spoke to Opus Dei members about the central
role of prayer in their work: "That work which you must do out there
for the Church in the Church, in the world, that work has to be also
inspired by, and anointed by, and nourished by and fed by, that life of
prayer, so that the Opus Dei is the totality of it... It's the
deacon's role now to send you into that world that must be sanctified
through your loving action."
Opus Dei's vicar for the United States, Father Raphael Caamano
celebrated the anniversary Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York,
urging a crowd of 1,000 not only to pray for, but also turn to, Msgr.
Escriva for help and inspiration in their daily lives and in serving
the Church in New York. Msgr. Escriva's cause of beatification was
formally introduced in 1981 with Vatican approval.
Reprinted from "THE CHICAGO CATHOLIC", July 12 and July 19, 1985.
*****
ROMERO LAUDS ESCRIVA
On May 17 of this year, Spain's ABC newspaper reprinted the
following letter from El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero to the
pope, originally written in Santiago de Mara on July 12, 1975: "Most
Blessed Father, I regard the still-recent day of the death of Monsignor
Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer as contributing to the greater glory of
God and to the well-being of souls, and I am requesting of Your
Holiness the quick opening of the cause for beatification and
canonization of such an eminent priest.
"I had the good fortune of knowing Monsignor Escriva de Balaguer
personally and of receiving from him support and fortitude to be
faithful to the inalterable doctrine of Christ and to serve with
apostolic zeal the Holy Roman Church and this land of Santiago de
Maria, which Your Holiness has entrusted to me.
"I have known, for several years now, the work of Opus Dei here in
El Salvador, and I can testify to the supernatural sense that
animates it and to the fidelity to the ecclesiastical magisterium that
characterizes the work.
"Personally, I owe deep gratitude to the priests involved with
the work, to whom I have trusted with much satisfaction the spiritual
direction of my life and that of other priests.
"People from all social classes find in Opus Dei a secure
orientation for living as sons of God in the midst of their daily
family and social obligations. And this is doubtless due to the life
and doctrine of its founder.
"In this stormy world overrun by insecurity and doubt, the superb
doctrinal fidelity that characterizes Opus Dei is a sign of special
grace from God.
"Monsignor Escriva de Balaguer was able to unite in his life a
continuous dialogue with Our Lord and a great humanity; one could tell
he was a man of God, and his manner was full of sensitivity, kindness,
and good humor.
"There are many people who since the moment of his death are
privately entrusting him with their needs.
"Most Blessed Father, I humbly repeat my petition for a quick
opening of the cause for the beatification and canonization of
Monsignor Escriva de Balaguer, for the greater glory of God and for the
edification of the Church.
"With filial affection and submission, I kiss Your Ring."
Reprinted from CRISIS magazine - SEPTEMBER 1992, p 3.
*****
A BENEFIT FOR THE WHOLE CHURCH
By Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio
Solicitude for the whole Church: it was from this standpoint, which
serves as a cornerstone for the entire section 10 of the Decree
Presbyterorum Ordinis, that the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council
deliberated on the apostolic usefulness of personal prelatures, which
were to be established by the Holy See to meet particular pastoral
objectives at a regional or national level, or indeed worldwide.
The apostolic and pastoral impetus which thus moved the Episcopal
College gathered together cum Petro et sub Petro (with Peter and under
Peter) in the assembly of the Council, to introduce into Church law
this new jurisdictional structure which has a distinctly personal and
secular character, led the same Council Fathers to give two further
directives which are full of prudence and legal insight. First the
setting up of such personal prelatures was to be "in accordance with
norms to be established for each individual institution" - this hints
at the possibility of a variety of purposes and structures and second,
"the rights of the local ordinaries must always be respected", as is also
the case with military vicariates and religious orders which, though
they are a different kind of institution, also represent forms of
personal jurisdiction harmoniously integrated with the territorial
jurisdictions.
All these principles were taken up and developed later by Pope Paul
Vl when he authentically interpreted and applied the above-mentioned
conciliar decision in the more detailed norms regarding personal
prelatures "ad peculiaria opera pastoralia vel missionaria perficienda"
(to carry out particular pastoral or missionary works), which are
contained in Part 1, Article 4 of the Motu Proprio "Ecclesiae Sanctae",
of 6 August 1966.
Decision described as historic
These brief remarks can help to explain the purpose of the
Declaration of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops. In it are
illustrated the significance and the juridical and pastoral scope of
the establishment of Opus Dei as a personal prelature, together with a
summary of the "chief characteristics" of the prelature (as is pointed
out in the preamble). This also explains why there was such a long
period of study and consultation before this decision of the Holy
Father, who already on 17 October 1978 had said, in the first
allocution of his pontificate: "We wish to draw attention to the
perennial importance of the Second Vatican Council, and we accept that
it is our inescapable duty to put it carefully into practice". We can
therefore describe as historic this decision which transforms into
concrete reality a new, fertile and promising possibility envisaged in
the pastoral legislation of the Second Vatican Council.
Three and a half years of painstaking work have been needed since 3
March 1979, when John Paul II entrusted the S. Congregation for Bishops
(to whom it belongs to erect personal prelatures, in accordance with n.
49, 1 of the Apostolic Constitution "Regimini Ecclesiae Universae")
with the task of examining whether it was possible and, if so, how to
erect the first personal prelature, indicating further that in such a
task it was necessary to take into careful account "all the data of law
and of fact". Data "of law", because since the above-mentioned Motu
Proprio contains norms which make up a real general law or fundamental
statute for personal prelatures, what was being requested was not the
concession of privilege (which, moreover, Opus Dei had not asked for),
but an attentive evaluation of those general norms to see whether it
would be correct to apply them in the specific case we were studying.
Data "of fact", because the setting up of the prelature was to be the
result not of an abstract doctrinal speculation, but rather, and above
all, of a careful consideration of an already existing apostolic and
pastoral entity, Opus Dei, the legitimacy and soundness of whose
foundational charism had been recognized on numerous occasions by
ecclesiastical authority. In fact the institute already had, from as
far back as 1947, the juridical powers proper to clerical institutions
of pontifical right, including the faculty of forming and incardinating
its own priests, but it had not yet found its appropriate ecclesial
configuration within the organizational structures of the People of
God.
Such a task inevitably took some time to complete. The study
carried out in these years went through four stages: 1) a general
examination of the matter by an Ordinary Assembly of the Sacred Con-
gregation for Bishops, which took place on 28 June 1979; 2) a technical
committee was appointed to fulfil the directives of the Fathers and the
mind of the Holy Father, this committee evaluated all the aspects of
the matter, historical, juridical, pastoral, institutional and
procedural, in twenty-five working sessions between February 1980 and
February 1981; 3) a special committee of cardinals, appointed by the
Holy Father, examined the conclusions of the technical committee and
the statutes of the prelature to be erected, taking into consideration
the purpose, composition and diffusion of Opus Dei; this committee
submitted its views on 26 September 1981, 4) the bishops in all the
countries of the different continents where Opus Dei had erected
centres were sent a note outlining the essential characteristics of the
prelature, to inform them and allow them to make observations which
were then carefully studied by the appropriate body.
Finally, there was the announcement of the Holy Father's decision,
on 23 August 1982.
An operative reality
The Council has reminded us, paraphrasing the words of St Paul to
the Ephesians (4:16), that "the social structure of the Church serves
the spirit of Christ who vivifies it, in the building up of the body"
(Lumen Gentium, n. 8). One can indeed say that we have now seen this
happening once again just as it was an eminently pastoral and apostolic
reason, a need of development and growth, which led to the
establishment in law of the personal prelatures, so too the primary
purpose of the pontifical act by which the Prelature of the Holy Cross
and Opus Dei is formally erected is that of turning into a living and
operative reality a new ecclesiastical structure, foreseen by the
Council but which had hitherto remained simply a theoretical
possibility.
This act of the Pope also perfects further the harmonious insertion
of Opus Dei in the organizational structures of the universal Church
and in the organic pastoral activity of the local Churches ensuring
a most careful respect for all the legitimate rights of the diocesan
bishops (as the previously mentioned Declaration amply shows). At the
same time a suitable ecclesial framework is provided, with norms of
public and pontifical law (that text of which will in due course be
placed at the disposal of all interested local ordinaries), for an
institution of sound doctrine and praiseworthy apostolic vigour.
Two other reasons
This measure has been taken for the good of the whole Church, and
this not only as a matter of principle, but also for two other very
specific reasons which are worth stressing. The first is that among the
thousands of priests and laity of the prelature there are faithful of
87 nationalities and of all races, cultures and social conditions,
who now see their unity of vocation and government and their foun-
dational identity as secular priests and ordinary lay faithful fully
approved, without in any way implying a lack of appreciation for the
validity and worth of the consecrated secularity proper to the secular
institutes and approved by solemn papal documents. The other
consequence of benefit to the entire community of the Church is that
this clear recognition of the foundational charism and the genuine
characteristics of the spirit, organization and apostolic methods of
Opus Dei cannot but further facilitate and strengthen the specific
pastoral service which this well-deserving institution has now been
providing for over half a century in hundreds of dioceses all over the
world.
A common good which will be ensured by the specifically pastoral
purpose of the prelature: that is, the work of the prelate and his
clergy in assisting and sustaining the laity incorporated in the
prelature to fulfill the particular commitments they have undertaken,
and the apostolic activity which the clergy and laity of the prelature
together carry out to help the Church communicate to all circles of
society the practical demands of the universal call to holiness and
more specifically the supernatural, sanctifying and apostolic value of
ordinary professional work. In the exercise of their responsibility
towards the People of God entrusted to them, the pastors of the local
Churches know full well that they can count here on a resource which
the new statute makes even better qualified and effective.
St. Paul includes joy among the fruits of the Spirit (cf. Gal 5:22).
And Jesus himself, with a beautiful and tender literary image, which
is at once deeply human and supernatural, speaks of the joy of giving
birth (cf. Jn 16:21).
The members of Opus Dei will be bubbling over with joy and praise
for God at this happy ecclesial event; but they are not alone, because
the reasons for their happiness are a motive of joy for all men of good
will all over the Church.
L'Osservatore Romano - Weekly Edition in English, 17 January 1983
*****
ADDRESS OF POPE JOHN PAUL II AFTER THE MASS OF THANKSGIVING FOR BLESSED JOSEMARIA ESCRIVA
On Monday, May 18, 1992, the Prelate of Opus Dei, Bishop Alvaro del
Portillo, concelebrated with his regional vicars from around the world a
Mass of Thanksgiving in St. Peter 's Square. After the Mass, the Holy
Father made the following remarks about the newly Blessed Josemaria
Escriva, founder of opus Dei, as reported in L'Osservatore Romano:
I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for the filial devotion
expressed to me by Bishop Alvaro del Portillo in the name of all those
who fill St. Peter's Square and the many faithful, cooperators and
friends of Opus Dei. To him I express special, affectionate greeting,
which I extend to the other members of The Episcopate and all those
present.
You are filled with joy over the beatification of Josemaria Escriva
de Balaguer because you trust that his elevation to the altars, as the
Prelate of Opus Dei mentioned just now, will be of great benefit to the
Church. I too share this confidence. In fact, I am convinced, as I
wrote in the Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles laici, that "the
entire People of God, and the lay faithful in particular, can find at
this moment new models of holiness and new witnesses of heroic virtue
lived in the ordinary everyday circumstances of human existence."
(Christifideles laici, n.17). How could one fail to see in the
example, teaching and work of Blessed Josemaria Escriva an eminent
witness of Christian heroism in the exercise of ordinary human
activity?
The universal call to holiness and the apostolate is, as you know,
one of the points on which the Magisterium of the Second Vatican
Council insisted more strongly (cf. Lumen gentium, nn. 442; Apostolicam
actuositatem, nn. 1-4). Like others before him, Blessed Josemaria,
thanks to God's light, understood this universal call not only as a
doctrine to teach and spread particularly among the lay faithful, but
also, and above all, as the very center of an active commitment in his
pastoral ministry. The young priest Josemaria Escriva found himself
working with a generous response to divine grace in a field fraught
with difficulty. His fidelity allowed the Holy Spirit to lead him to
the heights of personal union with God, which resulted in an
extraordinarily fruitful apostolate. Indeed, the Lord allowed him,
already in his earthly life, to see the comforting fruit of his
apostolate, which Josemaria attributed entirely to the divine goodness,
always considering himself an "inept and deaf instrument", giving proof
of an extraordinary humility, so much so that, at the end of his life,
he saw himself "as a stammering child".
The beatification of Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer affords me the
occasion of this joyous meeting with all of you, dear priests and laity
who, in such large numbers, have come on pilgrimage to Rome to
participate in this heartfelt manifestation of faith and ecclesial
communion... The figure of a Blessed represents a new call to
holiness, which is not a privilege, nor is it addressed only to a few
people; rather, it must be the common goal of all Christians. Indeed,
in Baptism, by which we become God's children, we receive grace, that
seed of holiness which grows and matures with the help of the other
sacraments and the practice of piety; it must be manifested in the
fruits and witness of life which the Spirit fosters in those who love
him. Thus one can reach that fullness which the Apostle Paul speaks of:
"This is the will of God, your sanctification" (I Thes. 4:3).
This call to holiness was set forth and repeated many times by
Blessed Josemaria. Present here today are many people who, on more
than one occasion, have heard from his own lips this same exhortation
of St. Paul; others have received it through his writings or from
eyewitnesses. Now, each one, immersed in the concrete activity of
his own life and profession, can count on the help of the Holy Spirit
in following this path towards Christian perfection. This is what the
same Blessed reminds us of in one of his Conversations: "Christians,
working in the midst of the world, must reconcile all things with God,
speaking with Christ in the midst of all human activity" (n. 5).
In this regard the Second Vatican Council urges all Christians,
each according to his personal calling, "to perform their duties
faithfully in the spirit of the Gospel" (Gaudium et spes, n. 43). When
people fail in this obligation, they cease to fulfill the will of Cod
who expects each person to cooperate in the work of creation; however,
they also offend their neighbor, with whom we are united by an
unbreakable bond of solidarity. Therefore, the Council notes that "one
of the gravest errors of our time is the dichotomy between the faith
which many profess and the practice of their daily lives" (ibid.).
Particularly in our day, Christians are called to cooperate in a
new evangelization which imbues the home, professional life, centers of
culture and work, mass media, and public and private life with those
Gospel values which are the source of peace, beauty, understanding and
harmony among all people.
To those of you who are from English-speaking countries I extend a
warm greeting. This visit to Rome, where the founder of Opus Dei chose
to spend a large part of his life, must strengthen even further your
faith and your commitment to the life and mission of the Church. Rome
is the place of the witness of the Princes of the Apostles, Peter and
Paul. It is the place from which the Successor of Saint Peter calls
the entire Church to respond to the urgent need for a "new
evangelization" at the approach of the Third Christian Millennium. In
many documents and on many occasion I have exhorted the laity to take a
decisive part in bringing the word of God to the millions and millions
of men and women who as yet do not know Christ the Redeemer of humanity
(cf. Christifideles laici, n. 35; Redemptoris missio, n. 71). Sustained
by the holy zeal which you have learned from the newly Blessed founder,
may you he fully committed to the cause of evangelism through your
faithful witness to the Church's faith and doctrine in the vast world
of human affairs and through your generous participation in the
Church's mission. As a leaven in society, bring your talents to bear on
public and private life at every level, proclaiming in word and deed
the truth about man's transcendent destiny. Following the teaching
of your founder, respond generously to the universal call to the
fullness of the Christian life and the perfection of charity, thus
laying the foundation for a more human way of life and a more just and
equitable earthly society (cf. Lumen gentium, n. 40). May God
abundantly fortify you for this task.
WORKING FOR GOD THE WORLD OVER
What is Opus Dei? by Russell Shaw
INSIDE FRONT COVER:
"...God is calling you to serve Him in and from the ordinary,
material, and secular activities of human life. He waits for
us every day in the laboratory, in the operating theater, in the
army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the
workshop, in the fields, in the home and in the immense
panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something
holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations,
and it is up to each one of you to discover it"
- Msgr. Escriva at a homily
given at the University of Navarre,
October 8, 1967
PHOTO CAPTION: In 1967, Opus Dei's founder, Msgr. Escriva, preached the
homily "Passionately Loving the World" at this open-air
Mass at the University of Navarre in Pamplona, Spain.
It began with a man, a call, and bells.
The man was a young Spanish priest named Josemaria Escriva de
Balaguer. As early as 1917, when he was a teenager, he'd come to
understand that God wanted something special of him. In fact, he later
explained, it was that which led him into the priesthood.
But what did God want? On October 2,1928, he was pondering that
question, as he'd often done, while making a retreat in Madrid.
Suddenly, while bells pealed in a nearby church, it became clear: God
made him see Opus Dei.
An institution which, as he put it, was to "tell men and women of
every country and of every condition, race, language, milieu, and state
of life...that they can love and serve God without giving up their
ordinary work, their family life, and their normal social relations"
Opus Dei - the Work of God.
Today it numbers well over 70,000 members representing more than 80
nationalities. It has been praised by popes, prelates, ordinary
Christian - and thousands of non-Christians as well. It has brought new
insight and encouragement to countless men and women striving to live
their Christian vocations in the world.
But none of that was so at the start.
The Beginnings
At the start, Monsignor Escriva was fond of recalling, he had "my 26
years, God's grace, a good sense of humor, and nothing else"
"But just as men write with a pen" he would add, "Our Lord writes
with the leg of a table to make it clear that it is He who is doing the
writing"
Gradually the youthful priest gathered a few young men with whom he
shared his vision. In 1930 he saw that God wanted Opus Dei to extend to
women as well. Thus its women's branch was founded. But growth came
slowly, and both the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) and the Second World
War (1939-1945) made expansion difficult.
Still, efforts continued. By 1940 Opus Dei had between 300 and 400
members. During the Second World War it spread to Italy, then to
Portugal, Ireland and England. It received its first recognition by the
Holy See in 1943, and in 1946 Monsignor Escriva moved to Rome.
(International headquarters are now located there at 73 Viale Bruno
Buozzi.)
In the late 1940s and early 1950s the Work was introduced into
Mexico, West Germany, France and most of Latin America. It came to the
United States in 1949 and to Canada in 1958. Meanwhile it has continued
to grow in Latin America and Western Europe, while spreading also to
Kenya, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Zaire, the Philippines, Japan,
Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
PHOTO CAPTION: A young man is baptized into the Catholic Church in an
Opus Dei center in Japan. The apostolates of members of
the Opus Dei Prelature reach out to people of all creeds,
races and social conditions.
PHOTO CAPTION: Students learn biology in a lab at Kianda College, Nairobi,
Kenya. Founded in 1961 by members of Opus Dei, it was the
first women's school in East Africa to enroll students
without regard for race, tribe or religion.
PHOTO CAPTION: The Prelate of Opus Dei, Msgr. Alvaro del Portillo
met with over a thousand members and friends during a
June 1983 visit to New York City.
PHOTO CAPTION: Torreciudad, this beautiful new shrine to the Mother of God
was the initiative of Opus Dei's founder. It was built near
the site of an ancient Marian hermitage in the vicinity of
the Spanish Pyrenees.
How does it grow? Certainly not by legislative decree. To be sure,
Opus Dei establishes a corporate presence nowhere without the permission
of local Church authorities, but its actual growth in all cases is due
above all to three things:
* the efforts of individual members and supporters
* the generous response of other individuals
when they hear about Opus Dei
* and - especially - the action of God's grace.
Monsignor Escriva died in Rome on June 26,1975. Since then there
have been innumerable testimonials to his achievement. Pope John Paul II
has called him "an unforgettable figure" One of the most incisive
analyses of his spiritual legacy was written by Cardinal Albino Luciani
of Venice, shortly before he was elected Pope John Paul I. Describing
Monsignor Escriva as "a revolutionary priest... vaulting over
traditional barriers" he compared the founder of Opus Dei to St. Francis
de Sales as a master of the spiritual life.
A Spirituality of Work
"St. Francis," he wrote, "proclaimed sanctity for everyone, but
seems to have taught only a 'spirituality for lay people,' whereas
Monsignor Escriva wants a 'lay spirituality.' Francis, in other words,
nearly always suggests for the laity some practical means used by
religious, but with suitable modifications. Escriva is more radical; he
goes so far as to talk about 'materializing', in the good sense, that
quest for holiness. For him, it is the material work which must be
turned into prayer and sanctity."
Urged by petitions from 69 cardinals and some 1,300 bishops, along
with many other persons, the formal process directed to the possible
beatification of Monsignor Escriva began in 1981. The beatification
processes of two other members of Opus Dei (Isidoro Zorzano, an
Argentinean engineer who died in 1943, and Montserrat Grases, a young
Spanish girl who died in 1959) are also underway.
There is nothing complicated or obscure about the purpose which Opus
Dei has in view - sanctity and apostolate in and through one's ordinary
work, using the traditional practices of the interior life. What is new
is that Opus Dei encourages ordinary lay people living in the world to
aspire to heroic sanctity without changing their state of life or
occupations.
PHOTO CAPTION: This architecture class at a center of Opus Dei in Caracas
Venezuela provides ample opportunities to "put love in
the little things" - so often recommended by the founder.
An Open Book
The very ordinariness of the members of Opus Dei - the fact that they
don't look or act or speak differently from anyone else (because in fact
they aren't different) - has been interpreted by some as reflecting a
penchant for secrecy. But while members of Opus Dei do not advertise
their membership, neither do they conceal it. As one expressed it, "We
never hide what we are or what we do, but we don't carry a sign saying
that we are good Christians or want to be."
In any case, Opus Dei's spirit, purposes and program are, both
literally and figuratively, an open book: they can be seen in the
writings of its founder and the lives of its members.
Perhaps the best-known book by Monsignor Escriva is "The Way". It is
regarded by many as a spiritual classic, with some three million copies
in 35 languages published to date. Several other works by him -
collections of homilies and meditations - are also available in English.
PHOTO CAPTION: College students, young professionals and
others around the world spend some of their
vacations at Opus Dei conference centers like
Arnold Hall in E. Pembroke, Massachusetts,
studying philosophy and theology to
complement their academic studies.
"Don't let your life be sterile," "The Way" begins. That could
serve as a motto for the organization. Opus Dei urges people to be
useful, be of service, carry on an active apostolate in and to the
world. This spirit has been called a "naive success ethic," but it
isn't. Opus Dei does not aim at routine success but at sanctity. Says
The Way: "I'll tell you a secret, an open secret: these world crises are
crises of saints. God wants a handful of people 'of his own' in every
human activity. Then . . . pax Christi in regno Christi - 'the peace of
Christ in the kingdom of Christ'."
While Opus Dei is people far more than it is institutions, there are
a certain number of institutions conducted by members on their own
initiative, which in one way or another embody the spirit and purposes
of the organization.
Although these institutions - universities, schools, study centers,
student residences, conference centers, and professional or vocational
training institutes of various kinds - have an apostolic purpose, they
are not officially "Catholic" since members of Opus Dei conduct them on
their own and in collaboration with others who are not only not
members of Opus Dei but, in many cases, not even Catholics. Opus Dei
itself takes responsibility only for the spiritual and doctrinal aspects
of the programs of these institutions, not for their practical and
professional management.
But institutions aren't the measure of Opus Dei. Nor does it seek to
substitute for anything else - to be a replacement for any other group or
program. It has a unique role to play and a specific focus - on
individual people and their formation and motivation to strive for
sanctity and carry on apostolate wherever they live and work.
PHOTO CAPTION: Children attending Seido school in Nagasaki, Japan, take
time out for recreation.
PHOTO CAPTION: Layton Study Center in Brookfield, Wisconsin, has long
provided a variety of programs for the spiritual, cultural
and academic enrichment of youth, students, and working
people throughout the Milwaukee area.
PHOTO CAPTION: Midtown Center, under Opus Dei's spiritual direction
provides young men of Chicago's heavily ethnic Near West
Side a rare combination of sports activities and personal
attention in math, reading and good study habits.
Members of All Kind
People of all kinds belong to Opus Dei: priests and lay people, men
and women, young and old, married and single, of every occupation and
profession. Most members are married and have families. A relatively
small number of members, both men and women, make a commitment to
celibacy and thus have more time and availability to provide formation
for the other members and staff the various apostolic activities.
Some single members are ordained as priests after years of
professional work and special studies to prepare for the priesthood.
They make up about 2% of the membership and are, properly speaking,
"priests of Opus Dei."
Other secular priests can also have access to the specific
spirituality of Opus Dei by receiving personal spiritual guidance and
participating in such exercises as retreats and days of recollection.
Some in fact join what is called the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross,
which is integrally united to Opus Dei. In doing so, however, they
remain priests of their own dioceses, with their own bishops as their
superiors. Like any other secular priests, they follow all the
indications given by their bishops for the running of the diocese and
for the collective spiritual direction of priests; what they receive
from Opus Dei, not in place of but in addition to this formation, is
help and guidance in seeking holiness in carrying out their ministry.
In addition to the members of Opus Dei and the priests associated
with the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, there are also
"cooperators" who help through their prayers, work and financial
assistance. In return, they benefit from the prayers of members and
other spiritual helps. If they wish, they can participate in various
formational activities. Non-Catholics as well as Catholics can be
cooperators. (Opus Dei was the first Church institution to admit
non-Catholic cooperators.)
PHOTO CAPTION: Pope John Paul II ordains Farrell Peternal
of Kemmerer, Wyoming. A graduate of M.I.T. in
managerial science, he now devotes himself to
priestly activities as one of the more than 1200
priests of the Opus Dei Prelature.
Photo credit: L'Osservatore Romano/Arturo Mari
A Vocation
Why do people join? The answer is that they receive a vocation from
God. Usually, an individual was impressed by someone already a member,
to the point that membership began to seem like an attractive
possibility for him or her, too. The criteria for membership aren't
income, education, social status, race or similar considerations. They
are, instead, the conviction, shared by the directors of Opus Dei, that
one has this vocation and the accompanying determination to live
according to the spirit and program of Opus Dei. That determination is
concretized by means of a contractual commitment which spells out the
rights and obligations which members of Opus Dei assume.
Opus Dei observes canonical and common-sense requirements regarding
commitment and vocation . The earliest age at which an individual can
formally apply for membership is sixteen-and-a-half. But, someone
applying at that age may not make even a temporarily binding commitment
until he or she is 18. Before that, a contract would not be valid, in
accord with the general provision of Canon Law. Moreover, no lifetime
commitment can be made earlier than age 23.
PHOTO CAPTION: This chicken farm at El Penon in Mexico, initiated by
members of the Prelature there, has proven an excellent
training ground for area campesinos interested in
improving their conditions of life.
PHOTO CAPTION: The Prelature of Opus Dei helps provide catechism
instruction all over the world. Here a woman in Guadala-
jara, Mexico, instructs a young group in the basics of
Catholic faith.
When and how parents are consulted depends on individual
circumstances. But parents are, naturally, always aware of their
children's growing interest in Opus Dei, and Opus Dei itself encourages
parental involvement before as well as after a vocational commitment
is made. (In not a few cases, too, mother, father, and one or more
children of the same family are all members of the Work.)
To a great extent, the Opus Dei program can be summed up in four
words: vocation, work, apostolate, and formation.
Despite the different forms of membership and the differences in
function and lifestyle which they entail, members believe they all share
essentially the same vocation. This concept of a calling is central to
Opus Dei, and its idea of vocation focuses especially on work.
"Make no mistake about it," Monsignor Escriva once said, "Man's duty
to work is not a consequence of original sin, nor is it just a discovery
of modern times. It is an indispensable means which God has entrusted to
us here on this earth. It is meant to fill out our days and make us
sharers in God's creative power"
Another time he told a journalist: "In God's service there are no
second-class jobs. All of them are important... Sanctity, for the vast
majority of men, implies sanctifying their work, sanctifying themselves
in it, and sanctifying others through it"
PHOTO CAPTION: Students at the Heights School in Potomac, Maryland,
celebrate a soccer triumph. Founded in 1969 by several
Opus Dei members and others, it has become a fine
boys' school in the Washington, D.C. area.
Apostolate
Work and the round of everyday activities provide the context of
apostolate for the ordinary lay person. As Opus Dei sees it, apostolate
is simply the natural response of a person trying to live as a Christian
and help others around him do the same. Monsignor Escriva expressed it
this way: "Whoever said that to speak about Christ and to spread His
doctrine, you need to do anything unusual or remarkable? Just live your
ordinary life; work at your job, trying to fulfill the duties of your
state in life... be loyal; be understanding with others and demanding
on yourself. Be mortified and cheerful. This will be your apostolate."
In practice, this means helping other people - both by responding to
their ordinary human needs for friendship, encouragement, and support,
and also, where possible and appropriate, urging them to persist or go
deeper in their own struggle to know God's will for them and observe it
more faithfully.
It isn't a sense of superiority which causes members to act in this
way but something quite different. As one expressed it: "It would be
absolutely false to imagine I joined Opus Dei, solved all my problems,
and then set out to help everybody else solve theirs. I want to become a
saint, but I'm not one yet. The difference Opus Dei makes is that I now
have a new source of encouragement in trying to cope with my
weaknesses - including picking myself up and starting over when I blow
it - and for giving others a hand"
PHOTO CAPTION: This medical dispensary at Toshi, a conference center of
Opus Dei near Mexico City, reflects the concern of ordinary
Christians for the bodily, as well as the spiritual health of
their neighbors.
Spiritual Life
Opus Dei's program of formation for this enterprise is demanding but
not remarkable, composed as it is of traditional elements of Catholic
piety and doctrine according to the letter and spirit of Vatican Council
II. The spiritual elements include daily Mass and Communion, frequent
reception of the sacrament of Penance, Scripture and spiritual reading,
mental prayer, the Rosary, etc. Small acts of mortification and penance
are encouraged in line with traditional Christian ascetical practice.
There is an emphasis on devotion to the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph
and on loyalty to the Pope and bishops. Members are urged to deepen
their knowledge of Christian doctrine through courses, lectures, and
systematic study and reading of sound books by orthodox writers.
The program is undoubtedly time-consuming, but members find the time
for it because they recognize it as essential to living out their freely
chosen commitment. As one said, "If there are shortcuts to establishing
and maintaining a relationship with the Lord, I don't know what they
are. Furthermore, Opus Dei puts a lot of stress on order and the good
use of time. When you get the hang of it, you find that you have time
for what the Work asks of you and for a lot else besides, because you
don't waste time as you used to do. The basic purpose of it all is
nothing more and nothing less than to help you live your whole day in
the presence of God"
Freedom in Temporal Matters
Some years ago, at a time when several members held posts in the
Spanish government, some people spread the story that Opus Dei aimed to
manipulate public policy by placing people in key positions. Trite as
that's become, the same thing is still occasionally said today. But it
overlooks two basic realities - the exclusively spiritual and altogether
apolitical purposes of Opus Dei and the unqualified respect which the
organization has for the freedom of its individual members.
The view remains that of Monsignor Escriva, who, congratulated on
one occasion by a well meaning individual over the important position
held by one of those Spanish government ministers, replied, "What does
it matter to me whether he is a minister of state or a street sweeper?
What I am interested in is that he sanctify himself in his work." As
one might expect from that, Opus Dei has no views of its own on
politics, economics, and similar matters, and no concern for the views
of its individual members, as long as they are consistent with Catholic
doctrine.
PHOTO CAPTION: Oakcrest School for girls (Washington, D.C.) is under
Opus Dei's spiritual direction. Students participate in a
broad program of community services: teaching catechism
in inner-city parishes, volunteering at nursing homes, etc.
Ahead of Its Time
Ideas like lay initiative and sanctity in the world were avant-garde
novelties when Opus Dei began, but, especially since Vatican Council II,
they've come to be widely appreciated. The universal call to holiness,
for example, is a major theme of the Council's Constitution on the
Church; the Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People stresses the laity's
role; the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
underscores the importance of the secular order and the Christian's
mission there. Times may be catching up with the vision Josemaria
Escriva had in 1928.
It wasn't always so. "You have come a century too soon" a
ranking Vatican prelate told Monsignor Escriva when he first brought
Opus Dei to Rome in 1946. Church law then lacked a category for Opus
Dei.
PHOTO CAPTION: Swiss college students follow a lecture at Studentenheim
Fluntern, a student residence in Zurich whose spiritual
direction is provided by the Prelature.
PHOTO CAPTION: Msgr. Alvaro del Portillo, shown here with His Holiness
Pope John Paul II, was named the first prelate of Opus Dei
on November 28,1982. He had spent 40 years at the side
of Opus Dei's founder, as his chief aide.
"Your institution has as its aim the sanctification
of one's life, while remaining within the world
at one's place of work and profession: to live
the Gospel in the world, while living immersed
in the world, but in order to transform it....
"This is truly a great ideal, which right from
the beginning has anticipated the theology of
the lay state, which is a characteristic of the
Church of the Council and after the Council....
"What could be more beautiful and exciting than
this ideal? . . . May you always be blessed and
encouraged in this intention of yours"
-Pope John Paul II
to a group of Opus Dei members
August, 1979
The First Personal Prelature
It was left to the Second Vatican Council to find the solution. Lay
spirituality and lay apostolate were not its invention, but something
else was - the personal prelature.
According to Vatican II, a personal prelature is a jurisdictional
structure in the Church which is not territorial, as a diocese is, but
"personal" in the sense that it affects particular persons. Opus Dei
received this status in 1982 by decision of Pope John Paul II, the first
institution in the Church to do so.
Rather than being cut off from their dioceses under the new
arrangement, lay members of the prelature - that is, members of Opus
Dei - remain ordinary faithful in the dioceses in which they live and
work. As a Declaration of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops dated
August 23,1982, explains, the lay members of Opus Dei "are under the
jurisdiction of the prelate [at present, Monsignor Alvaro del Portillo,
who was one of Monsignor Escriva's earliest and closest collaborators
and who succeeded him at the head of Opus Dei upon his death in 1975] in
regard to what has to do with the fulfillment of the specific ascetic,
formative and apostolic commitments, which they have freely undertaken
by means of the contractual bond dedicating them to the service of the
aims of the prelature" It is "an ordinary power of jurisdiction or
government, limited to that which refers to the specific finality of the
prelature, and differs substantially, by reason of the matter involved,
from the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishops in the ordinary care of
the faithful"
Diverse in education, temperament, occupation, politics, and
virtually everything else, members of Opus Dei nevertheless agree on
this: Here they find an exciting vehicle for spiritual growth which
gives a new dimension to work, study, family life, recreation,
friendship, and all they do. Why do people join and why do they stay:
"Because they want to," Monsignor del Portillo explains. "The grace of
God and their freedom are all that keep them in Opus Dei."
Members grasp what Vatican Council II, in developing the Church's
teaching, had in mind in saying lay people should "endeavor to have the
gospel spirit permeate and improve the temporal order." Despite the
weaknesses and limitations they share in abundance with everybody else,
they know that the Council's proclamation of a "universal call to
holiness" is neither theory nor mere rhetoric but a mandate for every
Christian in every walk of life. As Monsignor Escriva once said: "God is
calling you to serve Him in and from the ordinary, material, and secular
activities of human life. He waits for us every day - in the laboratory,
in the operating theater, in the army barracks, in the university chair,
in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home, and in all
the immense panorama of work. Understand this well. There is something
holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it
is up to each of you to discover it."
Thinking Ethically about Technology, by John Haas
It is heard so frequently today that it is taken virtually as a
truism: the development of our moral systems has not been able to keep pace
with technological and medical developments, leaving us prey, individually
and societally, to a host of dangers.
Is this indeed the case? Or is it possible that there is a true, and
hence quite serviceable, moral tradition that is our rightful inheritance
but which has been almost irretrievably lost? A moral tradition that
would serve the post-modern, technological world as effectively as it
did the Greek or Roman or Christian social orders of the past?
In the beginning of his book "After Virtue", Alisdair MacIntyre
expresses an awareness of just such a lost moral tradition. He likens the
contemporary situation of moral thought to a catastrophe in the natural
sciences in which all findings and laboratories and instruments have been
destroyed by latter-day vandals. Later, when individuals try to retrieve
this past, all that remains are unrelated fragments of studies, scientific
terms devoid of their spiritual context, disconnected theories. MacIntyre
writes:
"The hypothesis which I wish to advance is that in the actual world
which we inhabit the language of morality is in the same state of grave
disorder as the language of natural science in the imaginary world which I
described. What we possess... are the fragments of a conceptual scheme,
parts which now lack those contexts from which their significance is
derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many
of the key expressions. But we have... lost our comprehension, both
theoretical and practical, of morality."
Working professionally in the field of morality as I do, and constantly
engaged in the contemporary debates on moral issues ranging from questions
of confidentiality in a day of networked computer systems to the removal of
hydration of nutrition from comatose patients, I am daily convinced that
MacIntyre's observation is correct.
Our current debates use the words of morality with little or no
understanding of their meaning. For example, I serve on the Philadelphia
Public School Board's Task Force on Adolescent Sexuality, Sexually
Transmitted Diseases, and HIV. There are approximately thirty active
members on the task force, all of whom speak out of profound moral
conviction as they formulate policy for our public school children. The
representative of the American Federation of Teachers and the Gay and Les-
bian Task Force uses weighty moral language as he proposes policies for
"gay and lesbian youth." The representative of AIDS-Act Up speaks to the
morality of putting condoms into the hands of every child and condemns, in
scatological and moral terms, anyone who would oppose any AIDS-Act Up
program. The Director of Health Services for the School District insists
that there are only two approaches to sex education: the moral, religious,
parochial approach or the empirical, scientific, secular route. But she
then incongruously argues that the only "moral" approach is the non-
judgmental, value-free, scientific, empirical, secular one.
Responsibility, accountability, respect, human dignity, values,
tolerance, acceptance, love, human rights - these are all words that have
been used to formulate policies which not only condone but encourage such
things as promiscuity, fornication, sodomy, and pornography, all actions
that have demonstrably deleterious effects on the social order. In these
cases, the language of morality remains the same; its meaning, however,
varies widely with everyone who uses it.
What is noteworthy in this chaos is that all of the challenges to
received morality are mounted with an appeal to morality itself! People
persist in wanting to do the right thing - even when they are breaking
established moral norms. In fact, this desire to do the right thing is one
of the characteristics that define us as human beings. All would surely
share Aristotle's conviction expressed in his "Nicomachean Ethics": "We are
not conducting this inquiry in order to know what virtue is, but in order
to become good."
Yet the natural inclination within each person to do good and avoid
evil is no guarantee that the individual will do so. One must first clear
away whatever keeps him from perceiving the good for what it is and
pursuing it, for as Plato points out in "Protagoras": "To prefer evil to
good is not in human nature." One must dispel ignorance so that he knows
what he is doing, and one must do his utmost to assure freedom of action.
The capacity to know the truth, which resides with the intellect, and to
love it, which belongs to the will, are prerequisites for any truly moral
act.
The New "Orthodoxy"
In their pursuit of the good, human beings make radically different
choices. Even when people choose to perform the same act, they often do
so for quite different reasons. Everyone uses a particular method for
arriving at a moral choice, and the chosen method is rarely a matter of
indifference. Yet one hardly is presented with any moral methodology today
other than those which can be reduced to some form of utilitarianism or
deontology, legal duty.
Regrettably, this myopic position is so entrenched that it cannot even
be challenged. And because this "orthodoxy" is so unquestioned, we, as a
society, are left with woefully inadequate tools to deal with the
challenges presented with the recent advances in medicine, biology, and
technology. The moral methodology that has virtually disappeared from the
field is natural law, which has in fact been the most influential in
fashioning the institutions, customs, and beliefs that have served for
centuries to protect the inviolability and unique value of each individual
person within our society. These days, the natural law tradition is often
subject to dismissive rejection and even ridicule.
American culture, which is increasingly becoming world culture, has
lost touch with its deepest roots and has been predominantly influenced by
modern British and German moral philosophies: the British given to utilitar-
ianism, the German to order imposed by law - or deontology.
Utilitarianism: "What Works"
Utilitarianism was, and still is, a philosophy congenial to the
English temper. It emerged in the nineteenth century as the reigning
philosophy of the victors in the Industrial Revolution. Abstract questions
about the nature of man, metaphysical reflections upon the nature of the
good, were judged to be irrelevant. The question simply was: what works? A
principle of social morality was developed which insisted that the moral
was whatever brought about the greatest good for the greatest number. This
principle was further refined along crassly hedonistic lines. The good was
understood to be whatever maximized pleasure and minimized pain.
Morality, then, became a matter of measure and calculation.
William James refashioned utilitarianism into pragmatism to fit the
temper of another highly industrial society, the United States. For the
proponents of this system - as for many Americans - whatever works is true,
whatever works is good. What other criteria for truth and goodness could
any reasonable person hope to find? There is little question that such an
approach has come to dominate American moral reflection! It can be heard in
the indignant voices of those who ask what could possibly be wrong with
using the brain tissue of aborted fetuses to cure Alzheimer's or
Parkinson's disease (or at least to bring some respite from their
debilitating symptoms). In fact, the utilitarian principle has come to be
so callously applied that brain tissue is sometimes suctioned from the
skull of the living child still in its mother's womb, in order that the
tissue will be healthy and alive for transplant!
The utilitarian approach can be heard in the impatient voices of those
arguing for the withdrawal of hydration and nutrition from individuals in
the persistent vegetative state. The moral calculus sets in. These patients
cannot experience pleasure, they cannot contribute to society, they require
considerable amounts of money and time to maintain. The calculations are
run, and the conclusion is inexorable: dispatch them.
The utilitarian approach can also be seen in a Dr. Jack Kevorkian who
works to develop an efficient suicide machine for those who no longer
care to live. Such utilitarian considerations today press hard against all
attempts to maintain the civilized order built over centuries with such
toil, a civilized order that places a supreme value on each individual
life - not because of what that individual can do or have but simply because
of what that individual is: a human being, a creation in the image and
likeness of God Himself, and hence, a sacred reality that may never be
violated.
Deontology: Duty as Deity
The other moral methodology that today appears to be accepted as the
only legitimate alternative to utilitarianism is deontology. Its name is
derived from the Greek deon, meaning obligation. In fact, not infrequently,
the term "deontology" is used synonymously with "ethics," understood as the
science of moral obligation or duty. There is much about this approach that
resembles the natural law approach. Both, for example, will hold that there
are moral absolutes. While utilitarians will tend to deny any moral
absolutes, and, on the basis of their moral calculus, find ways to justify
even such acts as adultery or the direct killing of an innocent human
being, those following the natural law or deontological approaches will
simply insist that some things may never be done.
Additionally, the manner in which deontological and natural law
methodologies arrive at their positions is not insignificant. Plato was
well-aware of the way in which different methodologies could lead to the
same moral conclusions when he wrote in the Euthyphro: "Is what is good
good because the gods approve it or do they approve it because it is good?"
The same question can be reversed: "Is an act wrong because it is forbidden
or is it forbidden because it is wrong?" The deontologists tend to
articulate the proposition in the first manner, the proponents of natural
law in the second.
Immanuel Kant built his moral system upon an innate human awareness of
the necessity of doing one's duty. To Kant, one does not act morally when
one acts out of inclination or a desire for happiness, but only when one
acts out of a sense of duty. In fact, the morality of an individual acting
for happiness could be held suspect because how can it be known whether
he is acting out of self-interest, thus making him a slave to inclination,
or whether he is truly free? The individual moral agent must be completely
autonomous, and this autonomy is actualized only when he is guided solely
by the "categorical imperatives" formulated when one attempts to universal-
ize a maxim. If a proposed action can be universally applicable, one can
say that it is binding and absolute, allowing no exceptions. If it cannot
be universalized, one ought not to perform the proposed act. Lying, for ex-
ample, is never allowed since, according to Kant, the universalization of
such an act would inevitably lead to social disorder and disintegration.
Even though Kant acknowledged that "not every untruth is a lie," he could
not bring himself to refrain from calling whoever willfully uttered an
untruth a "liar."
The difficulty with the deontological approach is that it carries with
it the danger of positivism, the idea that something is wrong because it is
forbidden. If one's moral life is defined as acting out of a sense of duty
rather than inclination, where and how does one recognize one's duty? For
Kant, the answer is provided by one's own autonomous reason and "holy
will."
Hegel also appealed to a sense of personal duty, and wrote: "In duty the
individual finds his liberation; liberation from dependence on mere
natural impulse." But when asked where this articulation of duty is
found, Hegel replied that it is embodied in the state, the subordination to
which "frees" the individual from servitude to his self-centered natural
appetites. The dangers of the state becoming the final arbiter of human
conduct are obvious.
The German philosopher Josef Pieper wrote about a professor of
jurisprudence with whom he studied prior to the Second World War, a legal
positivist who taught that "Verbrechen ist, was verbaten ist": a crime is
whatever is forbidden. Unfortunately, the man was a Jew, and tragically
died as a result of his "crime" after the National Socialists came to power
and decreed Jewish to be such. In this way, he died in conformity with his
own positivist jurisprudence. Under such a system, regrettably, law becomes
divorced from morality - or even more radically, comes to supplant it. Such
an approach is not so alien to our own American experience, as can be
seen in the writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, who urged, "every word of
moral significance [ought to] be banished from the law altogether."
Too often, contemporary debate on moral issues actually tries to
address the issues without morality! The distribution of condoms to
Philadelphia public school children, for example, is called by many a
medical, not a moral, issue. Questions of private or public morality are
not to enter into the national debate on abortion, according to some. In
the opinion of a significant segment of our population, there is only one
criterion for the resolution of the abortion question: the woman's
unrestricted right to do whatever she wants with her unborn child for
whatever reasons she chooses - health, vanity, financial well-being, or
perhaps even moral sentiment.
The deontological approach to morality faces the danger of ultimately
falling into the same quagmire as the utilitarian. Some individual or
collective person takes it upon himself (or themselves) to be the final
arbiter of human conduct without any appeal beyond the interests of the
self or the state. In contemporary moral debates we see autonomy running
rampant, so that virtually any act becomes morally legitimate simply
because there are people who are engaging in it and will argue for its
legitimacy! As MacIntyre points out, we have lost any overarching frame
of reference for the debate.
Natural Law: The Outside Standard
Despite its abandonment, the natural law tradition continues to be the
most useful methodology in a technological and pluralistic society since
it simply looks to the nature of the human person for the formulation of
moral propositions and is entirely open to any developments and insights
within the natural sciences. The natural law tradition believes in an
objective moral order and, consequently, holds that there are certain moral
absolutes that ought never to be violated if one hopes to obtain personal
wholeness or societal health. As Aristotle wrote:
"There are some actions and emotions whose very names connote baseness,
e.g., spite, shamelessness, envy; and among actions, adultery, theft, and
murder. These and similar emotions and actions imply by their very names
that they are bad... It is, therefore, impossible ever to do right in
performing them: to perform them is always wrong. In cases of this sort,
let us say adultery, rightness and wrongness do not depend on committing it
with the right woman at the right time and in the right manner, but the
mere fact of committing such action at all is to do wrong."
The same insight is evident in Abraham Lincoln's response to Stephen
Douglas in their famous debate on slavery: "When Judge Douglas says that
whoever, or whatever community, wants slaves, they have a right to have
them, he is perfectly logical if there is nothing wrong in the institution;
but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that anybody has
a right to do a wrong." Within the natural law tradition, certain acts are
wrong not because they are forbidden, but because they are wrong - that is,
because they do not conform or serve the good of the human person. In his
debate with Douglas, Lincoln had to appeal to the precedence of morality
over law, since the law at that time did not universally support his
position against slavery. But where do these moral absolutes come from?
From the nature of the human person and his world.
The natural law tradition holds that the driving motivation of human
actions is not a Kantian sense of duty, but rather the pursuit of
happiness, a sense of well-being that results from one's becoming more
fully human by living in accord with one's own nature. It finds this moti-
vation impelling every human act.
That which is most characteristic of human nature is rationality, the
ability to see the purposefulness within one's own nature and to choose
actions that enable one to achieve the ends or goals for which one is
created. It might be argued that an ethic based on the pursuit of happiness
quickly degenerates into some form of hedonism. However, the natural law
tradition insists that although certain actions may appear to bring happi-
ness they will ineluctably bring misery if they do not assist one in
attaining those ends for which he was created. It is the belief in a
created, intelligible order that prevents the natural law tradition
from degenerating into subjectivism.
Consequently, it is never enough simply to appeal to human nature
as such in the formulation of moral propositions within the natural law
tradition. There must always be an appeal to human nature as created, a
nature created for happiness in this world and ultimately in the world to
come. If human nature is not created, it has no purposefulness, no intelli-
gible ends that may be reasonably sought in human behavior and fostered
through social legislation.
A thing has its nature bestowed upon it by its Creator. A pen has a
nature because it was created as such, and its nature can be understood in
terms of the purpose for which it was created. If there is to be a
revitalization of the natural law tradition to assist contemporary society
in dealing with ever new moral challenges, it must be one that is faithful
to the tradition in its fullness. This means acknowledging, as a minimum,
that there is a Creator who has bestowed both worth and meaning on human
creatures.
Since Communism was based on atheistic premises, it denied that there
was such a thing as human nature. If Communism's premise was correct, then
so was its conclusion - there was no human nature. Consequently, Communist
countries themselves attempted to create man, the "Socialist man," and were
prepared to use any means at their disposal, since nothing violated a non-
existent human nature! Without a human nature, there could be no such thing
as human rights. The logic is inexorable. The consequences are grotesque.
In the same way, a secularized technological society that ignores the
natural law can be just as dangerous to human flourishing as was any
Communist regime.
The Sacredness of Life
At the center of the natural law tradition is the inviolability of
the individual person - created in the image and likeness of God, from whom
he receives his true worth. It cannot be stated in strong enough terms,
that a respect for the inviolability of the person is the necessary
starting-point for formulating moral propositions to deal with current
developments in medicine and technology. One cannot formulate in
advance what moral positions ought to be constructed to deal with
specific cases presented by technological developments. But the very
nature of the individual person provides the source of moral reflection.
The right of the individual to personal integrity will lead to the moral
norms governing issues of privacy and confidentiality in an age of
electronic data gathering and storage. The inherent nature of man and woman
who each produce gametes of 23 chromosomes, the joining of which will give
rise to a new human life of 46 chromosomes, provides what is necessary
for formulating principles to order human relationships, to govern the
social institution of marriage, to regulate the births of children, to
overcome the problem of infertility, and to deal with a host of other
contemporary moral conundrums. The inviolability of the innocent person
will provide guidance for the formulation of policies dealing with "life
issues" ranging from feeding comatose patients to waging war and inflicting
capital punishment.
The moral dilemmas arising from the mind-boggling advances in medicine
and technology do not admit of easy, simplistic solutions. But they are not
insoluble. We as a people have the cultural and moral resources to ad-
dress these questions in a humane and reasonable manner because we draw on
a tradition, a tradition of natural law, that has served human goods in
vastly different cultural contexts successfully, precisely because it
respects humanity as a divine creation. As Americans, we are especially
fortunate to have it within our own national tradition. In our own
founding documents, we acknowledge the "laws of nature and nature's God"
and hold "these truths to be self evident: that all men are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This tradition stands ready to
serve us as a people if only we will draw upon it.
John Haas is the John Cardinal Krol Professor of Moral Theology at St.
Charles Borremeo Seminary in Philadelphia.
This article has been reprinted with permission from the author. It
originally appeared in "The Intercollegiate Review", Fall 1992.
