On 21 June, the founder of the Work was in Barcelona. He gave a meditation in an Opus Dei centre, speaking about how a churchman had told them that the Work had arrived in Rome a century ahead of its time. Looking at the Tabernacle, he added: “Lord! Could You have permitted me, in good faith, to deceive so many souls? I have done everything for your glory and knowing that it is your Will!”1 He recalled Peter’s words to Jesus: “Behold, we have left everything and followed you” (Mt 19:27), and continued his prayer: “What will become of us? You cannot abandon those who have trusted in You!”2.
Shortly afterwards, St. Josemaría and José Orlandis, who would accompany him, prayed before the image of our Lady of Mercy and boarded the steamship J.J. Sister, which operated the Barcelona-Genoa route. During the night the sea was very rough. The ship rolled heavily. The passengers heard shouts and the noise of crockery falling and breaking. They docked in Genoa at nightfall on the 22nd. Blessed Álvaro and Salvador Canals, who were waiting for them at the port, took them to the hotel. The following morning they celebrated Mass in the church of San Sisto and, in a hired car, made their way to Rome, arriving after 9 in the evening.
A night of vigil
No sooner had he caught sight of the dome of St Peter’s than the founder, deeply moved, prayed the Creed aloud. They stayed in a top-floor flat at Piazza della Città Leonina, number 9, a few metres from Bernini’s colonnade. Everyone else retired to rest, but Fr. Josemaría spent a night of vigil in prayer on the terrace, gazing at the pontifical apartments.
The flat in which the founder stayed with his sons in the small Piazza della Città Leonina was the property of the Holy See, rented to Luciana Frassati (sister of Pier Giorgio, canonised in 2025) and wife of a Polish diplomat, Jas Gawroński. Signora Frassati sublet part of the apartment to them, including an entrance hall, small corridor, dining room, oratory, St. Josemaría’s bedroom, a covered terrace, and a bathroom.
Many visits, many formalities, and the audience with Pius XII
Blessed Álvaro, who had been in Rome for several months, organised a schedule of visits for St. Josemaría in order to establish useful contacts with a view to obtaining the decretum laudis. Indeed, in barely two weeks he met with numerous ecclesiastical figures.3 These were days of “many visits, many formalities, and much providence of God the Father,”4 together with prayer and work on the new forms of the decree — entrusted by the Holy See to Larraona — and on the Constitutions of the Work: “We are immersed in canonical doctrine,”5 St. Josemaría noted in his liturgical calendar.
On 16 July, Pope Pius XII received him in audience. We do not know the details of this meeting; it completed, in some sense, those first Roman days. The founder was radiant: he had never dreamed of such a cordial welcome from the Curia. And, despite the intense heat, he pressed ahead with work on the study of the so-called “new forms”6 and of the decretum laudis for Opus Dei.
The founder also visited other ecclesiastical and civil figures, such as the Jesuit Severiano Azcona, assistant for Spain, who undertook to write a letter to the provincials asking them to modify their attitude of mistrust towards Opus Dei; José Antonio Sangróniz and Mario Ponce de León, respectively ambassador and consul of Spain to the Italian State; Juan Teixidor, minister chargé d'affaires to the Holy See; Carlos Calaf, spiritual director of the Spanish College; and Martin Gillet, Master of the Dominicans.
In search of a seat for Opus Dei
St Josemaría also addressed the second objective: establishing a presence in Rome. The Eternal City would favour direct contact with the Holy See and the universal dissemination of the Work’s message. It was therefore necessary to find a house that could serve as its central headquarters. He visited some buildings for sale or for rent, and bought furniture, lamps and antiques to furnish the apartment in which they were living.
With his sons’ help, he obtained from the Apostolic Penitentiary indulgences for those who offered their professional work to God and for those who devoutly kissed or said a short prayer before the wooden cross placed in the oratories of Opus Dei centres; rescripts from the Congregation of Religious, such as the authorisation for members of the Work to take charge of the care of objects of worship; and another from the Vicariate of Rome authorising the establishment of the general procuratorship of Opus Dei in Rome and the presence of a semi-public oratory. With particular joy, he received from the Bishop of Forlì the relics of Saints Symphorus and Mercuriana, Roman martyrs; as well as a relic of the lignum crucis (the wood of the cross) and other relics provided by Umberto Dionisi, rector of the Basilica of Santa Cecilia.
Some dreams come true
On 3 July, he reserved the Eucharist in the oratory of the Città Leonina apartment and, from then on, regularly celebrated Mass there. He also brought some of the dreams he had cherished for decades to fruition, such as praying in the St. Peter’s Basilica, which he visited two days after his arrival, and celebrating Mass in the catacombs, in particular in those of San Callisto. He also celebrated in the cell of St. Joseph Calasanz, in the rooms of St. Ignatius of Loyola, and in the church of the Claretian convent on Via Giulia. He was happy in the Eternal City, despite the intense heat, which his constitution, affected as it was by diabetes, felt especially keenly. In the car Canals hired, he made a number of excursions to Ostia, Castel Gandolfo and Tivoli, sometimes accompanied by Larraona or Goyeneche.
St. Josemaría was aware that life in the Eternal City offered him a new perspective: “I am very happy. It was necessary to come, in order to see things clearly,”7 he remarked to his siblings. For this reason, in addition to recalling unfinished matters in Spain, in his letters to the members of the General Council and to the Central Advisory, he asked them to think about people who might be able to move to Rome, and about the purchase of the objects needed to complete the oratory at Città Leonina.
Once the first Roman steps had been taken, it was time to strengthen the governance and activities of the Work. On 31 August, St. Josemaría and Blessed Álvaro took off from Ciampino Airport to return temporarily to Spain. In addition to their personal luggage, they carried with them the relics of two martyrs, the diplomatic bag8 of the Spanish Embassy for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and that of the Vatican for the nuncio in Spain.
[1] Recollection of Francisco Ponz Piedrafita, Pamplona, 17 October 2005, General Archive of the Prelature of Opus Dei (AGP), A.5, 238-3-5.
[2] Recollection of Francisco Ponz Piedrafita, Pamplona, 17 October 2005, AGP, A.5, 238-3-5.
[3] Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini, Pro-Secretary of State, who was enthusiastic about Opus Dei’s work with intellectuals and undertook to request an audience with the Pope on its behalf; Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini, Archbishop of Palermo; Cardinal Federico Tedeschini, former nuncio in Spain; Mons. Manuel Fernández-Conde, official of the Secretariat of State; Mons. Luca Ermenegildo Pasetto, Secretary of the Congregation of Religious; the Claretians Siervo Goyeneche and Arcadio Larraona, officials of the same Congregation; and Serafino De Angelis, official of the Apostolic Penitentiary.
[4] Liturgical calendar, 11 and 18 July 1946, AGP, A.2, 180-1-5.
[5] Liturgical calendar, 11 and 18 July 1946, AGP, A.2, 180-1-5.
[6] Associations of Christian life and apostolate that did not conform to the strict canonical concept of the states of perfection, either because the members did not take public vows or because they did not live in common. On account of their novelty, they were referred to as new forms of Christian life, new forms of perfection, or of apostolate, or of religious life; or simply “new forms.”
[7] Letter from Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer to Carmen and Santiago, Rome, 30 June 1946, AGP, A.3.4, 259-1, 460630-3.
[8] The totality of the correspondence that a diplomatic mission abroad sends to its own government, or receives from it, in order to allow it to communicate with its State in full freedom and security.