Diocesan Phase of Don Álvaro del Portillo’s Cause of Canonization Finishes in Rome

On next Thursday, June 26, in Rome’s Lateran Palace, Cardinal Camillo Ruini will preside over the closing session of the diocesan process on the life and virtues of the Servant of God, Álvaro del Portillo (1914-1994), bishop and prelate of Opus Dei.

On the same day, the Church celebrates the liturgical memorial of St. Josemaría, founder of Opus Dei.

The process was opened on March 5, 2004. The current Prelate of Opus Dei, Bishop Javier Echevarría, was named by the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints as the competent bishop to investigate his predecessor’s cause of canonization.

However, Bishop Echevarría asked Cardinal Ruini to appoint a tribunal in the Vicariate of the Diocese of Rome to receive his testimony and that of some of the other witnesses.

The remaining witnesses gave testimony to the tribunal of the Prelature in Rome or to tribunals of their dioceses of residence.

Msgr. Flavio Capucci, postulator of the cause, thanked the Vicariate’s tribunal for the work carried out. He also recalled that back in 1978, when the process of St. Josemaría began, Msgr. Alvaro del Portillo had insisted that, in asking the Pope to open the cause of its founder, Opus Dei was not seeking its own glory, but that of the Church. "Today," Capucci said, "we echo these words with our whole heart."

The next stage of the process will take place when the tribunal of the Prelature concludes the sessions of the process of investigation. With the material that both tribunals have collected, the postulator will put together the positio, which is a biography of the Servant of God and a study of how he lived the Christian virtues in a heroic manner.

At the appropriate time, the postulator will send the positio to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.