List of points

Some people, precisely because of the presence of laymen of Opus Dei in influential positions in Spanish society, speak of the influence of Opus Dei in Spain. Can you explain what this influence is?

I dislike intensely anything that might sound like 'blowing one's own trumpet'. But I think it would not be humility but blindness and ingratitude to the Lord, who so generously blesses our work, if we did not recognise that Opus Dei has a real influence on the life of Spain. It is logical that in those countries where we have been working for quite a few years — and the Work has been in Spain for thirty-nine years, because it was God's will that our Association should be born to the life of the Church in Spain — the influence of Opus Dei should already have had a noticeable social impact which reflects the progressive development of our apostolate.

How is this influence felt? Obviously, since Opus Dei is an Association with spiritual and apostolic aims, the nature of its influence — in Spain as in the other countries, spread over the five continents, in which we are working — can be none other than spiritual and apostolic. Opus Dei's influence in civil society is not of a temporal nature (social, political or economic); though it is reflected in the ethical aspects of human activities. Like the influence of the Church itself, the soul of the world, it belongs to a different and higher order and is expressed precisely by the word 'sanctification'.

This leads us to the subject of the members of Opus Dei whom you call influential. In an association whose aim is political, those members will be 'influential' who occupy positions in parliament or in government, in the Council of Ministers, in the Cabinet. In a cultural association, the 'influential' members will be philosophers of renown, or authors of national reputation, etc. But if, as in the case of Opus Dei, the Association seeks the sanctification of men's ordinary work, be it manual or intellectual, it is obvious that all of its members have to be considered influential because all of them work, and in Opus Dei the general duty of man to work carries with it special disciplinary and ascetical significance. All of them endeavour to do their work, whatever it may be, in a holy, Christian manner, with a desire for perfection. For me, therefore, the witness which a son of mine who is a miner gives among his companions is as influential as important and necessary, as that of a vice-chancellor of a university among the other members of the academic body.

Where, then, lies the influence of Opus Dei? The answer is easily found when we consider the sociological fact that people of all classes, professions, ages and states of life, belong to our Association; men and women, clergy and laity, old and young, celibate and married people, university men, industrial and agricultural workers, clerks, members of the professions, people who work in official institutions, and so on. Have you considered the great power of spreading Christianity represented by such a broad and varied spectrum of people; especially if they are counted in tens of thousands and are animated, with the same apostolic spirit, to sanctify their profession or job, regardless of differences of social environment, to sanctify themselves in that work and sanctify with that work?

To this personal apostolic work should be added the growth of our corporate works of apostolate: student residences, conference centres, the University of Navarra, training centres for skilled and unskilled workers, technical institutes, schools, secretarial colleges, home management schools, etc. These centres are undoubtedly sources which project the Christian view of life. Managed by laymen, directed as professional activities by lay citizens who are the same as their colleagues at work, and open to people of all classes and conditions, these centres have made many sectors of society appreciate the need of offering a Christian solution to the problems which arise in the exercise of their profession or job.

All of this gives Opus Dei prominence and significance in society not the fact that some of its members occupy positions of human influence. This does not interest us in the least, and is left therefore to the free decision and responsibly of each member. What interests us is that all the members (and the goodness of God is such that there are many) carry out tasks of which even the most humble are divinely influential.

This is quite logical. Who would say that the influence of the Church in the United States began on the day that a Catholic, John Kennedy, was elected President?

You have occasionally referred to Opus Dei as 'organised unorganisation'. What exactly do you mean by this?

I mean that in our apostolate we give primary and fundamental importance to the spontaneity of the individual, to free and responsible initiative guided by the action of the Spirit, and not to organisational structures and tactics imposed from above, from the seat of government.

There is obviously a minimum of organisation, with a central government, which always acts collegially and has its seat in Rome, and regional governments which are also collegiate, each headed by a Counsellor. But all the activity of these organisms is directed fundamentally to one task: to provide the members with the spiritual assistance necessary for their life of piety, and an adequate spiritual, doctrinal, religious and human formation. And then, off you go! That is to say, Christians, sanctify all the paths of men, for all bear the imprint of the footsteps of God.

Having reached this point, the Association as such has done its job, the job precisely for which the members of Opus Dei have come together. The Association has nothing else to do. It neither can, nor should it, give any further indications. Here begins the free and responsible, personal action of each member. Each one does his apostolate on his own initiative, working with complete personal freedom. Autonomously forming his own conscience before the concrete decisions he has to take, he endeavours to seek Christian perfection and to give Christian witness in his own environment, sanctifying his own work. whether it be professional, intellectual or manual. Naturally, as each one makes decisions autonomously in his secular life, in the temporal realities in which he moves, there will often be different options, criteria and ways of acting. We have, in a word, that blessed 'unorganisation', that just and necessary pluralism, which is an essential characteristic of good spirit in Opus Dei, and which has always seemed to me the only just and orderly way to conceive the apostolate of the laity.

I will add that this 'organised unorganisation' appears even in the corporate works of apostolate which Opus Dei directs as an association, with the desire of contributing to resolve in a Christian way the problems which affect the community of each country. These activities and initiatives of the Association are always of a directly apostolic nature. They are educational or social welfare activities. But it is precisely our spirit to see that these initiatives should not come from above. And since the circumstances, needs and possibilities of each nation or social group are unique, the central government of the Work leaves to the regional governments practically total autonomy. It is their responsibility to decide, foster and organise the concrete apostolic activities which they consider most appropriate, a university centre, a residence for students, a welfare centre or an agricultural college for farm workers. The logical result is that we have a multicoloured and varied mosaic of activities, a mosaic which is 'organisedly unorganised'.

Could you describe the differences in the way Opus Dei as an association fulfils its mission and the way the members of Opus Dei as individuals fulfil theirs; for example, by what criteria is a project deemed best undertaken by the Association, such as a school or conference centre, or by individuals such as a publishing or commercial venture?

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. It helps them to learn Christ's doctrine and the Church's teachings. Its spirit moves them to work well for the love of God and as a service to other men. In a word, it helps them to behave like genuine Christians: being loyal friends, respecting the legitimate freedom of others, and trying to make our world more just.

Each member earns his living and serves society in the job he held before joining the Work and would hold if he did not belong to Opus Dei. There are miners, teachers, housewives, shopkeepers, university professors, secretaries, farmers, etc. A member of Opus Dei can carry on any noble human activity, no honest work is excluded. For instance, a publisher or a business man who joins the Work continues to hold the position he held before. And if he looks for a new job, or decides with other business men to form a company of one sort or another, he decides freely, accepting personally the results of his work and answering personally for its success or failure.

All the activity of Opus Dei's directors is based on a great respect for the members' professional freedom. This point is of capital importance. The Work's very existence depends on it, so no exceptions are admitted. A member's job is in no way related to his membership. Consequently, neither the Work nor any of the other members has anything to do with his professional activities. Joining the Work only implies an obligation to make an honest effort to seek holiness in and through one's job and to be more fully aware of the service to humanity that every Christian life should be.

As I was saying, the principal mission of Opus Dei is to give a Christian formation to its members and to other people who wish to receive it. However, moved by a desire to contribute to the solution of each society's problems, which are so closely related to the Christian ideal, it also has some other corporate activities. Our criterion here is that Opus Dei, whose aims are exclusively spiritual, can only conduct corporately, activities which clearly constitute an immediate Christian service, an apostolate. It would be ridiculous to think that Opus Dei as such could mine coal or run any type of commercial venture. Its corporate works are all directly apostolic activities: training centres for farm workers, medical dispensaries in developing countries or areas, schools for girls from under-privileged families. In other words, educational or welfare activities like those carried on throughout the world by organisations of every religious creed.

In these activities we count in the first place on the work of Opus Dei's members who occasionally work full time in them, and also on the generous help of many other people, Christian and non-Christian alike. Some of them help us for spiritual reasons. Others do not share our apostolic motives, but they see that these activities benefit society and are open to everyone, without any kind of racial, religious or ideological discrimination.

How do you explain the enormous success of Opus Dei, and by what criteria do you measure this success?

When an undertaking is supernatural, its 'success' or 'failure' in the ordinary sense of the word is relatively unimportant. As Saint Paul said to the Christians at Corinth, what matters in the spiritual life is not what others think of us, or even our own opinion of ourselves, but God's opinion.

Undoubtedly the Work has spread all over the world. Men and women of close to seventy nationalities now belong to it. To tell the truth, it is something that surprises me. I cannot provide any explanation for it. The only explanation is the will of God, for 'the Spirit breathes where He will' and He makes use of whomever He sees fit to sanctify men. For me it is an occasion for thanksgiving, for humility and for asking God for the grace to serve Him always.

You also asked by what criteria I measure and judge. The answer is very simple: sanctity, fruits of sanctity.

Opus Dei's most important apostolate is the testimony of the life and conversation of each individual member in his daily contacts with his friends and fellow workers. Who can measure the supernatural effectiveness of this quiet and humble apostolate? It is impossible to evaluate the help we receive from a loyal and sincere friend or the influence of a good mother over her family.

But perhaps your question refers to the corporate apostolates carried out by Opus Dei, supposing that their results can be measured from a human or technical viewpoint: whether a technical training centre for workers contributes to the social advancement of its pupils, whether a university offers its students an adequate cultural and professional formation. If that was your intention, I would say that their results can be explained in part by the fact that they are undertakings carried out by carefully trained professionals who are practising their own profession. This implies, among other things, that these activities are planned in every case in the light of the particular necessities of the society in which they are to be carried out, and adapted to real needs, not according to preconceived schemes.

But let me repeat that Opus Dei is not primarily interested in human effectiveness. The real success or failure of our activities depends on whether, in addition to being humanly well-run, they help those who carry them out and those who make use of their services to love God, to feel their brotherhood with their fellow men, and to manifest these sentiments in a disinterested service of humanity.

Would you agree with the statement which is occasionally made that special conditions in Spain during the last thirty years have contributed to the growth of Opus Dei there?

In very few places have we had fewer facilities than in Spain. I don't like to say so, because I naturally love my country deeply, but it is in Spain that we have had the greatest difficulties in making the Work take root. No sooner had it been born, than it met with the opposition of all the enemies of personal freedom and of people who were so attached to traditional ideas that they could not understand the life of the members of Opus Dei, ordinary Christians who strive to live their Christian vocation fully without leaving the world.

The situation in Spain with respect to our corporate apostolates has not been particularly favourable either. The governments of countries where Catholics are a minority have helped the educational and welfare activities founded by the members of Opus Dei far more generously than the Spanish government. The aid that those governments grant the corporate activities of Opus Dei, like that they usually give other similar centres, is not a privilege, but a just recognition of their social function and of the money they save the taxpayers.

In the course of its international expansion, the spirit of Opus Dei has been very well received in all countries. Our difficulties have in large part been the result of falsehoods originating in Spain. They were invented by members of certain well-defined sectors of Spanish society; in the first place, by the international organisation I mentioned before, but fortunately that seems to belong to the past and I do not hold a grudge against anyone. Another sector is composed of people characterised by partisanship, when not by narrow-mindedness or a totalitarian mentality, who do not understand pluralism and who use their reputation as Catholics for political purposes. I don't know how to explain why, but some of them seem to take special pleasure in attacking Opus Dei, perhaps for false human reasons. Since they can finance them amply with the Spanish taxpayers' money, their attacks are reproduced in certain sectors of the press.

I am perfectly aware that you would like me to name concrete persons and institutions, but I hope you will understand why I do not do so. Neither my mission nor Opus Dei's is political; my business is to pray. I don't want to say anything that could possibly be interpreted as an intervention in politics. In fact I would prefer not to have even mentioned the subject. I have held my peace for almost forty years, and if I say anything now it is only because I have an obligation to denounce as absolutely false the distorted picture that has been given of our exclusively spiritual work. And for that very reason, although I have kept silent until now, I intend to speak out in the future. even more clearly if necessary.

Getting back to the main subject of your question, if many people of all social classes, in Spain and throughout the world, have decided to follow Christ with the Work's help, living its spirit, the explanation is not to be found in the environment nor in other external factors. Proof of it lies in the fact that the very people who so lightly affirm the contrary have seen their own groups shrink and the external factors are the same for everyone. Perhaps a partial explanation, from the human point of view, is that they form closed groups, while we do not deprive anyone of his personal freedom.

If in Spain (as in several other countries) Opus Dei is quite well developed, it may well be because our spiritual work began there forty years ago, and, as I mentioned before, the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War made it necessary to postpone our extension to other countries. Nevertheless I want to add that for a number of years we Spaniards have been a minority in the Work.

I would not like you to think that I do not love my country or that I am not extremely pleased with the activity the Work carries on there. But it is a shame that falsehoods are occasionally disseminated about Opus Dei and Spain.

How is the Work developing in France at the present time?

As I was telling you, the government of the Work in each country is autonomous. You can obtain the best information on the work of Opus Dei in France by asking the Directors of the Work in that country. But among the activities Opus Dei carries on corporately, for which Opus Dei as such is responsible. there are student residences like the Residence Internationale de Rouvray in Paris and the Residence Universitaire de l'Ile Verte in Grenoble; conference centres like the Centre de Rencontres Couvrelles in the Department of Aisne, etc.

But let me remind you that the corporate works are the least important thing. The main task of Opus Dei is the direct, personal witness which the members give in the practice of their own ordinary work. And for this, it is useless to count the members. But do not think about the ghost of secrecy. By no means. The birds that fill the skies are no secret, but no one thinks of counting them.

What is the present status of the Work in the rest of the world, especially in the English speaking countries?

Opus Dei feels as much at home in England as in Kenya, in Nigeria as in Japan, in the United States as in Austria, in Ireland as in Mexico or Argentina. In each place it is the same theological and pastoral phenomenon which takes root in the souls of the people of that country. It is not anchored to one particular culture nor to one specific historical period.

In the English speaking world, thanks to God's help and the cooperation of very many people, Opus Dei has apostolic works of different types: Netherhall House in London, devoted to Afro-Asian students, Hudson Centre in Montreal for the human and intellectual development of young women, Warrane College for the students in Sydney. In the United States, where Opus Dei began to work in 1949, one could mention Midtown, a centre for workers in the Near West Side of Chicago, Stonecrest Community Center in Washington for the education of women who lack professional training, Trimount House, a university residence in Boston, etc.

One final remark: the Work's influence, so far as it exists in each case, will always be spiritual and of a religious, never a temporal, nature.

It is generally believed that, as an organisation, Opus Dei wields considerable economic power. Since Opus Dei does engage in activities in the field of education, social welfare, etc., could you explain how Opus Dei conducts these activities, i.e., how does it obtain funds, how does it coordinate and use them?

In all countries in which it works, Opus Dei does carry out social, educational and welfare projects. They are not, however, its main function. Opus Dei's aim is to help men and women to be good Christians, and therefore witnesses of Christ in the midst of their everyday occupations The activities you mention are directed precisely towards that goal. The effectiveness of all our work is, therefore. based on the grace of God and on a life of prayer, work and sacrifice. But undoubtedly any activity in the field of education or social welfare needs to make use of a certain amount of money.

Each centre is financed in the same way as any other of its type. Student residences, for example, through providing the room and board for the residents, high schools by providing the pupils' tuition, agricultural schools from the sale of their products. But these funds are hardly ever sufficient to cover all the expenses of a centre, especially if you consider that the activities of the Work are all planned with an apostolic outlook and that the majority of them are designed for people with very limited economic resources who, in many cases, pay only, a nominal fee for the training they receive.

Another important source of funds is the members of the Work who donate part of the money they earn through their professional work. But most important of all is the generous support of many who do not belong to Opus Dei but want to contribute to these social and educational undertakings. The personnel in charge make an effort to arouse an apostolic zeal and a social concern which will move many people to collaborate actively. Since the centres are conducted with a high degree of professional competence and are planned to meet actual needs of the community, in most cases the response has been very generous. You probably know that, for example, the Association of Friends of the University of Navarra has some 12,000 members.

The finances of each centre are autonomous. They are operated on an independent basis and look for ways to find the necessary funds among people interested in their activities.

How is Opus Dei developing in countries other than Spain? What is its influence in the United States, Britain, Italy etc.?

At present people of sixty-eight nationalities, who work in almost all the countries of America and western Europe and in various parts of Africa, Asia and Oceania, belong to Opus Dei.

The influence of Opus Dei in all these countries is a spiritual one. It consists essentially of helping people to live the spirit of the Gospel more fully in their everyday lives. The situation of these people is extremely varied. From small farmers who till the land in isolated villages of the Andes to Wall Street bankers. Opus Dei teaches all of them the value of their ordinary work, which can be a highly effective means of loving and serving God and others, be it brilliant or lowly from a human point of view. It teaches them to love all men, to respect their freedom, and to work in the way they personally see fit to eliminate intolerance and to make society more just. This is the only influence of Opus Dei in any place where it carries on its apostolates.

As to the social and educational undertakings that the Work, as such, promotes, let me say that they are designed to meet the particular needs of society in each locality. I do not have at hand detailed information about them for, as I told you earlier, our organisation is highly decentralised. I could mention as one example among many, Midtown Sports and Cultural Centre in Chicago, which offers educational and sporting programs to the residents of that neighbourhood. An important part of its work consists in bringing together, in an atmosphere of friendship and collaboration, the different ethnic groups that live there. Another interesting activity in the United States is carried on at The Heights in Washington D.C. Its services include professional guidance courses, special studies for gifted students, college preparation programs, etc.

In England one might mention a number of university residences which provide not only a place to stay but numerous activities to complete the students' human, spiritual and cultural training. Netherhall House in London is perhaps especially interesting because of its notable international character. Students from more than fifty countries have lived there. Many of them are non-Christian, since Opus Dei's houses are open to all without any racial or religious discrimination.

To be brief, I will mention just one more activity, the Centro Internazionale della Gioventu Lavoratrice in Rome. This centre for the professional training of young workers was entrusted to Opus Dei by Pope John XXIII and was inaugurated by Pope Paul VI less than a year ago.

We would like you, as the Chancellor of the University of Navarra, to outline the principles which moved you to found it, and explain its significance today in relation to higher education in Spain.

The University of Navarra was founded in 1952 — after many years of prayer, I am happy to say — with the idea of being a university which would express the cultural and apostolic ideals of a group of professors who felt deeply about education. It aimed then, as it does today, to contribute side by side with the other universities to solve a serious educational problem in Spain and in many other countries, which needs people who are well-trained in order to build a more just society.

Those who began it were no strangers to the Spanish university scene. They were professors who has been educated and had taught at Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Santiago, Granada and many other universities. This close cooperation, which I venture to say was closer even than that between neighbouring State universities, still continues. There are frequent interchanges and visits by professors, and national congresses where work is carried out in harmony, etc. The same contact has been maintained with the best universities in other countries. The present conferring of honorary degrees on professors of the Sorbonne, of Harvard, Coimbra, Munich and Louvain is an expression of this close contact.

The University of Navarra has stimulated the contributions to higher education of many people who consider that university studies, open to all who deserve to study, regardless of their financial resources, are basic to progress. The Association of Friends of the University of Navarra, with its generous help, has distributed a considerable number of scholarships and grants. This number will continue to increase, as will the number of Afro-Asian and Latin-American students.

It has been said that the University of Navarra is a university for people with means and that nevertheless it receives considerable support from the State. We know the first part is not true because we know our fellow students, but what about the State subsidies?

The facts have been made available to the public through the press. They show that, while its fees are approximately the same as those of other universities, the University of Navarra gives financial aid to more students than does any other university in the country. And I can assure you that the number of scholarships will be increased further. We aim to reach a percentage of scholarship holders as high, if not higher, than that registered by the non-Spanish universities which are most outstanding in their efforts to help students.

I can understand that Navarra attracts attention because it functions very efficiently and this makes people speculate about the existence of massive financial resources. But they forget, when they reason that way, that material resources are not sufficient in themselves to make an institution prosper. The vitality of this university is due principally to the sense of service, to the enthusiasm and to the effort which teaching staff, students, employees and the admirable women of Navarra who do the cleaning, have put into it. If it were not for their efforts, the university would not have been able to keep going.

Financially the university is supported by subsidies. In the first instance, that of the Provincial Council of Navarra, which is for operating expenses. One must also mention the grant of land for the university buildings made by the Pamplona City Council following a common practice of city councils in many countries. You know from experience the cultural and economic advantages which a region like Navarra and, in particular, the city of Pamplona derive from a modern university which opens to all the possibility of receiving good higher education.

You ask about State subsidies. The Spanish government gives no help for the operating expenses of the University of Navarra. It has granted some subsidies for the buildings necessary to accommodate larger numbers of students, which alleviate the great financial effort which the university has to make to set up these new facilities.

Other sources of income (for the School of Industrial Engineering) are the Corporations in Guipuzcoa and particularly the Provincial Bank of Guipuzcoa.

From the start the help given by Spanish and foreign foundations, both public and private, has played an important role. For example, a large official grant from the United States for scientific equipment for the School of Industrial Engineering; the contribution from the German Foundation Misereor towards the new buildings; the help from the Huarte Foundation for cancer research; grants from the Gulbenkian Foundation etc.

Then there is the help for which we are, if it were possible, even more grateful: that of the thousands of people in Spain and abroad, of all social classes, who are cooperating in so far as they can to maintain the university, even though many of them have very limited financial means.

Finally one must not forget those companies whose interest leads them to cooperate in the research carried out by the university or to help in some other way.

You might imagine that with all this there is money to spare. Well, it isn't so. The University of Navarra still operates at a deficit. I would like still more people and more foundations to help so that this work of service and social welfare can continue and expand.

As the Founder of Opus Dei and the force behind a wide range of university-level educational centres all over the world, could you tell us both why Opus Dei has started these centres and what are the principal features of its contribution to this level of teaching?

The aim of Opus Dei is that many people all over the world may come to know both in theory and in practice that it is possible to sanctify their ordinary tasks, their daily work; that it is possible to seek Christian perfection in the middle of the world without having to give up the work in which our Lord decided to call us. Thus, the most important apostolate of Opus Dei is that which each member carries out individually, through his professional work done with the greatest human perfection possible — despite my personal shortcomings and those which each individual may have — in all environments and in all countries: for among the members of Opus Dei there are people of some seventy countries of all races and social conditions.

Besides, Opus Dei as a corporation, with the help of very many people who do not belong to the Work and who often are not Christian, fosters corporate activities through which it seeks to contribute towards solving the many problems which face the world today: educational institutions, welfare centres, schools for professional development and advancement. etc.

The university-level institutions of which you speak are another aspect of this task. Their principal features can be enumerated as follows: to train people in personal freedom and in personal responsibility. With freedom and responsibility, people work enthusiastically and wholeheartedly, and there is no need for controls or supervision. Everyone feels at home and therefore all you need is a simple schedule. Another characteristic is the spirit of living together in harmony without discrimination of any kind. Here, in this living together, personality takes shape. Each individual learns that, in order to be able to demand respect for his own freedom, he must respect the freedom of others.

Finally, there is the spirit of human brotherhood. Each person's individual talents have to be placed at the service of others: if not, they are of little use. The corporate works which Opus Dei conducts throughout the world are always at the service of everyone, because they are a Christian service.