Rome Newsroom, Aug 8, 2023 / 10:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis changed canon law on Tuesday regarding the governance of Opus Dei and any future personal prelatures.
In a motu proprio issued Aug. 8, the pope assimilated the personal prelature to “public clerical associations of pontifical right with the faculty of incardinating clerics.” It also further defined the role of the prelate as a “moderator endowed with the faculties of an ordinary.”
The motu proprio modifies canons 295 and 296 of the Code of Canon Law on personal prelatures and immediately entered into force on the day of its publication.
The updated canons now state that the statutes that govern a personal prelature can be “approved or issued by the Apostolic See.”
To date, the international Catholic organization Opus Dei is the only personal prelature in the Catholic Church. The group’s statutes have yet to be approved by the Holy See following its extraordinary congress in April.
Opus Dei is a personal prelature made up of laymen and laywomen and priests founded by St. Josemaría Escrivá in 1928. Escrivá called the organization Opus Dei to emphasize his belief that its foundation was a “work of God” — or, in Latin, “opus Dei.”
Canon 296 on the lay involvement in the personal prelature now also includes a reference to canon 107 and stresses that “the manner of this organic cooperation and the main duties and rights connected with it shall be determined appropriately in the statutes.”
The changes build upon the pope’s previous decree on the oversight of Opus Dei last year in the motu proprio “To guard the charism,” which declared that its leader, the prelate, could no longer be a bishop.
In the text of the decree, Pope Francis also recalled that the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium transferred the competence over personal prelatures to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Clergy.
Responding to the most recent changes, Opus Dei spokesman Manuel Sanchez told CNA that the organization “will study what consequences these changes may have for the juridical configuration of Opus Dei, also in the context of the work that is being carried out with the clergy dicastery on the adaptation of the statutes required by the motu proprio Ad Charisma Tuendum, in a climate of communion with the Holy Father.”
Opus Dei has about 90,000 members — 98% of whom are laypeople, the majority of which are married. In addition to its lay members, some 1,900 priests incardinated in different dioceses throughout the world belong to the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, an association of clergy intrinsically united to the prelature of Opus Dei.
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Besides having no idea what this change signifies, whoever wrote it must have attended the same school as Karmala Harris. Here’s what I found jarring: “Opus Dei has about 90,000 members — 98% of whom are laypeople, the majority of which are married.” Why isn’t it “…the majority of whom are married” since it refers to people and not things”
This is an “apostolic letter in the form of a motu propio”. It could be Pope Francis is reacting to flaws pointed out to him; or he is further developing what he always intended. Meantime there now is indicated a confusion of trying to shape all personal prelatures into a uniformity all at once using Canon Law, Opus Dei and VATICAN II. Yet it disrupts what is settled already for Opus Dei.
By all appearances Tuendam is not revoked and as such this “apostolic letter in the form of a motu propio” would seem to be an “authorized interpretative tool” for Tuendam. The founder of Opus Dei accepted ad hoc positions during the formation of the work making it clear that it ultimately was not the form -not the charism and not the way the content is expressed.
If this letter is meant to be an “authorized interpretative tool” for Tuendam, it does not actually say so or indicate that; however, it would seem to be taking precedence over Tuendam and everything else for the moment.
The “prelate as a moderator with the faculties of an ordinary”, now indicated, is not the inspiration of the founder of Opus Dei. Neither is it the inspiration of the founder that the “prelate as a moderator with the faculties of an ordinary”, would be restricted to being a “conditioned interpreting medium” (with whatever related “faculties of an ordinary”). What this is, is a new type of “prelate”? But even that is not in the founder’s inspiration.
Opus Dei members now add they will work with this letter for considerations in a “climate of communion” with the Holy See. It would thus seem that these members have “climate” powers for these exigencies that would help settle things that appear to be absent; but which is left unacknowledged. Possibly so that Opus Dei members are co-opted for defining every personal prelature.
The Church needs to learn how to speak to ordinary people. We are not a Church of lawyers. Or are we?
The head of Opus Dei was a Bishop until last year when he was demoted to a Monseignor. I don”‘t think things look rosy for this organization.
Was a bishop demoted, or was the vacant position filled by a monsignor instead of a bishop?