With the favorable opinion of the members of the general elective Congress, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz has appointed Monsignor Mariano Fazio as Vicar General of Opus Dei. The new Vicar will be the Prelate's main assistant in governing the Prelature.
Mariano Fazio was born in Buenos Aires on April 25, 1960. He studied History at the University of Buenos Aires and received a doctorate in Philosophy from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.
In 1991, he was ordained a priest by Saint John Paul II, after having worked for 7 years in Ecuador as a professor of Philosophy of Law and editorial writer for the newspaper El Telégrafo.
From 1996 to 2002, he was the first dean of the School of Church Communications at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, and then, from 2002 to 2008, the rector of the same university. During the same period, he was elected president of the Conference of Rectors of the Pontifical Universities of Rome.
In 2007, he was named an expert for the Fifth General Conference of Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, which was held in Aparecida, Brazil. There he had the opportunity to get to know the then Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
Several months later, he returned to South America, where he has served as the Vicar of Opus Dei in Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia. In December 2014 he was named Vicar General of Opus Dei by Bishop Javier Echevarría, the Prelate at that time.
He has wide-ranging cultural and philosophical interests. He is a member of the Chesterton Society in Argentina and the National Academy of History in Ecuador.
He is the author of more than 20 books on modern society and the process of secularization. These include Historia de la filosofía contemporánea, Historia de la filosofía moderna, and Historia de las ideas contemporáneas.
One of his recent books, Pope Francis: Keys to His Thought, has been translated into English and is reviewed here.
Other publications include San Juan XXIII; Beato Pablo VI: Gobernar desde el dolor; De Benedicto XV a Benedicto XVI.