Álvaro del Portillo

Álvaro del Portillo y Diez de Sollano was born in Madrid, Spain, on 11 March 1914, one of eight children of Ramón del Portillo y Pardo and Clementina Díez de Sollano. Raised in a Catholic household, he studied civil engineering in Madrid. In 1935 he met Josemaría Escrivá and asked admission to Opus Dei, becoming one of its earliest members. The Spanish Civil War interrupted his studies and formation; after the war he completed his engineering qualification and later earned doctorates in philosophy and letters and in canon law. He combined professional work as an engineer with an increasingly dedicated life in the apostolate begun by Escrivá.

On 25 June 1944 he was ordained a priest in Madrid, one of the first three priests of Opus Dei. Thereafter he served as Escrivá’s closest collaborator and as secretary general of Opus Dei. He settled in Rome in the late 1940s when the central government of the Work was established there, and he became a consultor to several congregations of the Roman Curia. At the Second Vatican Council he served as a peritus and contributed to conciliar texts, especially the decree Presbyterorum Ordinis on the ministry and life of priests. He also took part in the post-conciliar revision of the Code of Canon Law.

After Escrivá’s death in 1975, del Portillo was elected to succeed him as president general of Opus Dei. When Pope John Paul II erected Opus Dei as a personal prelature in 1982, del Portillo became its first Prelate. He was ordained a bishop by John Paul II on 6 January 1991 and received the titular see of Vita. As Prelate he traveled widely to visit the faithful of the prelature, promoted the canonization cause of the founder, and oversaw the continued international growth of Opus Dei’s apostolates.

Del Portillo died in Rome on 23 March 1994, hours after returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in which he had celebrated Mass at the Cenacle in Jerusalem. He was buried in the crypt of the Prelatic Church of Our Lady of Peace in Rome. Pope Francis authorized his beatification, which was celebrated in Madrid on 27 September 2014. The Church commemorates Blessed Álvaro del Portillo on 12 May. He is remembered for fidelity to the charism of Opus Dei, long service to the Holy See, and a reputation for humility and pastoral charity.