List of points

In this context what is the role which Opus Dei has fulfilled, and is at present fulfilling?

It is not for me to evaluate the work which, through the grace of God, Opus Dei has done. All I will say is that the purpose of Opus Dei is to foster the search for holiness and the carrying out of the apostolate by Christians who live in the world, whatever their state in life or position in society.

The Work was born to help those Christians, who through their family, their friendships, their ordinary work, their aspirations, form part of the very texture of civil society, to understand that their life, just as it is, can be an opportunity for meeting Christ: that it is a way of holiness and apostolate. Christ is present in any honest human activity. The life of an ordinary Christian, which to some people may seem banal and petty, can and should be a holy and sanctifying life.

In other words: if you want to follow Christ, to serve the Church and help other men to recognise their eternal destiny, there is no need to leave the world or keep it at arm's length. You don't even need to take up an ecclesiastical activity. The only condition which is both necessary and sufficient is to fulfil the mission which God has given you, in the place and in the environment indicated by his Providence.

Since God wants the majority of Christians to remain in secular activities and to sanctify the world from within, the purpose of Opus Dei is to help them discover their divine mission, showing them that their human vocation — their professional, family and social vocation — is not opposed to their supernatural vocation. On the contrary, it is an integral part of it.

The one and only mission of Opus Dei is the spreading of this message, which comes from the Gospel, among all those who live and work in the world, whatever be their background, profession or trade. And to those who grasp this ideal of holiness, the Work offers the spiritual assistance and the doctrinal, ascetical and apostolic training which they need to put it into practice.

Members of Opus Dei do not act as a group. They act individually, with personal freedom and responsibility. Thus Opus Dei is not a 'closed organisation' or one which in some way gathers its members to isolate them from the rest of men. The 'corporate activities' which are the only ones the Work undertakes and for which it takes responsibility, are open to everyone with no type of social, cultural or religious discrimination. And the members, just because it is in the world that they seek sanctity, always work with the people with whom they are connected through their job or their participation in civic life.

It is an essential part of the Christian spirit not only to live in union with the ordinary hierarchy — the Pope and the bishops — but also to feel at one with the rest of one's brothers in the Faith. For a long time I have thought that one of the worst ills affecting the Church today is the ignorance many Catholics have concerning what Catholics in other countries or sectors of society are doing and thinking. We must rekindle the sense of brotherliness which was so deeply felt by the early Christians. It will help us to feel united, while loving at the same time the variety of our individual vocations. And it will lead us to avoid many of the unjust and offensive judgements made by particular little groups in the name of Catholicism, against their brothers in the Faith, who in fact are acting nobly and with a spirit of sacrifice in the particular circumstances of their own countries.

The important thing is for everyone to try to be faithful to his own divine calling. Only thus can he contribute to the Church the benefits deriving from the special charism he has received from God. What members of Opus Dei, who are ordinary Christians, have to do is to sanctify the world from within, taking part in the whole range of human activities. Since their membership in Opus Dei in no way modifies their situation in the world, they take part, as they see fit, in the life of the parish, in group religious celebrations, etc. In this sense too they are ordinary Christians who want to be good Catholics.

However, the members of the Work do not as a rule take part in confessional activities. Only in exceptional cases, at the express request of the hierarchy, do members of Opus Dei work in ecclesiastical activities. They do not adopt this attitude in order to be different, and still less out of disregard for confessional activities. It is simply that they want to do what befits the vocation to Opus Dei. There are already many religious and clergy, and many lay people also, who work in these activities and put their wholehearted efforts into them.

The task to which members of the Work are called by God is of another kind. Within the framework of the universal call to holiness, members of Opus Dei receive in addition a special call to dedicate themselves, freely and responsibly, to look for holiness and carry out the apostolate in the middle of the world, committing themselves to live a particular spirituality and to receive throughout their lives a specific formation. If they were to neglect their work in the world in order to carry out ecclesiastical activities, the divine gifts they have received would be wasted and, through a misguided desire for immediate pastoral effectiveness, they would do real harm to the Church. For there would be fewer Christians dedicated to sanctifying themselves in all the professions and trades of civil society, in the immense field of secular work.

And anyway the demands which continuous religious and professional training makes, as well as the time which each individual dedicates to acts of piety, to prayer and to the generous fulfilment of the duties of his state keep the members fully occupied. There just isn't any spare time.

Opus Dei has sometimes be described as an intellectual elite which wants to permeate key political, financial and cultural sectors to control them from within, although with good intentions. Is this true?

Almost all the institutions which have brought a new message or have seriously tried to serve mankind by living Christianity fully have met with misunderstanding, especially at the beginning. That is why at the start some people did not understand the doctrine on lay apostolate which Opus Dei lived and proclaimed.

I must also add — although I do not like to talk about these things — that in our case there was also an organised and persistent campaign of misrepresentation. There were people who said we acted secretly (perhaps this was their own way of behaving), that we wanted to occupy important positions, etc. To be more specific, I can say that this campaign was begun, about thirty years ago, by a Spanish religious who later left his order and the Church. He married in a registry office and is now a Protestant minister. Once misrepresentation starts it is carried along for a time by its own momentum: because there are people who write without checking their information, and then not everyone acts as do competent journalists who, realising they are not infallible, are honest enough to make amends when they find out the truth. And this is what has happened in this case even though these slanders are contradicted by evidence that is clear to everyone, not to mention the fact that they appear incredible right from the word go. Anyway all this gossip to which you have referred concerns only Spain, and anyone who thinks that an international organisation like Opus Dei gravitates around the problems of one country has a short sighted and provincial outlook.

The majority of the members of Opus Dei — in Spain and elsewhere — are housewives, workers, shopkeepers, clerks, etc., people whose jobs carry no special political or social weight. The fact that a large number of workers are members of Opus Dei attracts no attention; but one politician, plenty. As far as I'm concerned the vocation to Opus Dei of a railway porter is as important as that of a company director. It's God who does the calling and in the works of God there is no room for discrimination and still less if it is based on demagoguism.

Anyone who, on seeing members of Opus Dei working in all the different fields of human activity, thinks only in terms of 'influence' and 'control', is simply showing what a poor conception of Christian life he has. Opus Dei has no power, and wants no power, over any temporal activity. All it wants is to spread a Gospel message, to all men who live in the world that God wants them to love Him and serve Him by, with and through their secular activities. It follows that the members of Opus Dei, who are ordinary Christians, work wherever and however they like. The only thing the Work does is to help them spiritually, so that they can always act with a Christian conscience.

Throughout this interview you have commented on important aspects of human life, in particular those which refer to women, and on the value that is given to them in the spirit of Opus Dei. In conclusion, could you give us your opinion as to how the role of women in the life of the Church can best be promoted?

I must admit this question tempts me to go against my usual practice and to give instead a polemical answer, because the term 'Church' is frequently used in a clerical sense as meaning 'proper to the clergy or the Church hierarchy'. And therefore many people understand participation in the life of the Church simply, or at least principally, as helping in the parish, cooperating in associations which have a mandate from the hierarchy, taking an active part in the liturgy and so on.

Such people forget in practice, though they may claim it in theory, that the Church comprises all the People of God. All Christians go to make up the Church. Therefore the Church is present wherever there is a Christian who strives to live in the name of Christ.

In saying this, I am not seeking to minimise the importance of the role of women in the life of the Church. On the contrary, I consider it indispensable. I have spent my life defending the fullness of the Christian vocation of the laity, of ordinary men and women who live in the world, and I have tried to obtain full theological and legal recognition of their mission in the Church and in the world. I only want to point out that some people advocate an unjustifiable limitation of this collaboration. I must insist that ordinary Christians can carry out their specific mission — including their mission in the Church — only if they resist clericalisation and carry on being secular and ordinary, that is, people who live in the world and take part in the affairs and interests of the world.

It is the task of the millions of Christian men and women who fill the earth to bring Christ into all human activities and to announce through their lives the fact that God loves and wants to save everyone. The best and most important way in which they can participate in the life of the Church, and indeed the way which all other ways presuppose, is by being truly Christian precisely where they are, in the place to which their human vocation has called them.

It is very moving to think of so many Christian men and women who, perhaps without any specific resolve, are living simple, ordinary lives and trying to make them a living embodiment of the Will of God. There is an urgent need in the Church to make these people conscious of the sublime value of their lives, to reveal to them that what they are doing, unimportant though it appears, has an eternal value, to urge them, to teach them to listen more attentively to the voice of God who speaks to them through everyday events and situations. God is urging the Church to fulfil this task, the task of making the entire world Christian from within, showing that Christ has redeemed all mankind.

Women will participate in this task in the ways that are proper to them, both in the home and in other occupations which they carry out, developing their special characteristics to the full.

The main thing is that like Mary, who was a woman, a virgin and a mother, they live with their eyes on God, repeating her words fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum — 'be it done unto me according to Thy word' (Luke 1:38). On these words depends the faithfulness to one's personal vocation — which is always unique and non-transferable in each case — which will make us all cooperators in the work of salvation which God carries out in us and in the entire world.