| Type: | Bishop |
| Honorific Prefix: | Blessed |
| Álvaro del Portillo | |
| Bishop | |
| Native Name: | Álvaro del Portillo y Diez de Sollano |
| Native Name Lang: | es |
| Church: | Roman Catholic Church |
| Term: | 1982 - 1994 |
| Predecessor: | Saint Josemaría Escrivá |
| Successor: | Javier Echevarría Rodríguez |
| Other Post: | Titular Bishop of Vita (1990-1994) |
| Ordination: | 25 June 1944 |
| Ordained By: | Leopoldo Eijo y Garay |
| Consecration: | 6 January 1991 |
| Consecrated By: | Pope John Paul II |
| Birth Date: | 11 March 1914 |
| Birth Place: | Madrid, Spain |
| Death Place: | Rome, Italy |
| Buried: | Church of Santa María de la Paz, Italy |
| Previous Post: | General President of Opus Dei (1975-1982) |
| Coat Of Arms: | Coat of arms of Álvaro del Portillo.svg |
| Motto: | Regnare Christum volumus ("We want Christ to Reign!") |
| Feast Day: | 12 May |
| Venerated: | Roman Catholic Church |
| Saint Title: | Blessed |
| Beatified Date: | 27 September 2014 |
| Beatified Place: | Madrid, Spain |
| Beatified By: | Cardinal Angelo Amato (on behalf of Pope Francis) |
Álvaro del Portillo y Diez de Sollano (11 March 1914 – 23 March 1994) was a Spanish Catholic bishop and engineer who served as the prelate of Opus Dei between 1982 and 1994.
Church leaders Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Carlo Caffarra have praised Portillo as a faithful servant of God. John Paul II referred to him as a "good and faithful servant" while Caffarra dubbed him a "disciple of Christ".
His cause of sainthood commenced on 21 January 2004 after being titled as a Servant of God. The confirmation of his heroic virtue on 28 June 2012 allowed for Pope Benedict XVI to name him as Venerable. He was beatified on 27 September 2014 in Madrid in a Mass that Cardinal Angelo Amato presided over on the behalf of Pope Francis.
Alvaro del Portillo was born in Madrid on 11 March 1914. He was the third of eight children to the devout Ramón del Portillo Pardo and Clementina Diez de Solano Portillo; the couple had married on 11 January 1908. He was baptized on 17 March in the parish of Saint Joseph. He studied civil engineering and after obtaining his doctorate at the University of Madrid taught at its School of Engineering. He briefly worked with the Bureau of Highways and Bridges in the provinces crossed by the rivers Júcar, Duero and Ebro.
He received his Confirmation on 28 December 1916 from the Bishop of Siguenza Eustaquio Nieto y Martín and went on to receive his First Communion on 12 May 1921.
In 1935, he joined Opus Dei and was subsequently ordained to the priesthood on June 25, 1944 by Bishop Leopoldo Eijo y Garay of Madrid as one of the first three men ordained for Opus Dei [1] He continued his studies to obtain a doctorate in Philosophy and Letters in history in 1944 from Central University of Madrid, with a dissertation entitled Discoveries and Exploration on the California Coast.[2] In 1948 he earned a Doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum[3]
He then dedicated himself exclusively to the ministry and government of Opus Dei as its Secretary General. During the pontificate of Pope Pius XII (1939–1958), he worked in several Dicasteries of the Holy See. He met with that pontiff in a private audience on 4 June 1943 and met with Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Pope Paul VI) on the following 17 June.
In 1963, he was named by Pope John XXIII as a consultant on the Pontifical Commission for the revision of the Code of Canon Law. Pope Paul VI named him consultant on several post-Conciliar commissions. In 1975, he was chosen general president of the Opus Dei and successor of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, and in 1982, the Holy See appointed him as the first Prelate of Opus Dei. In 1991, he was consecrated a bishop by Pope John Paul II, with Archbishops Giovanni Battista Re and Justin Francis Rigali serving as co-consecrators. That same year, he attended World Youth Day in Czestochowa.
He has written extensively about pastoral and ecclesiological matters that examine among others, the role of the lay faithful in the Roman Catholic Church, the human side of priestly formation, the dynamics and functionality of pastoral structures. As Prelate, he also served as Grand Chancellor of the University of Piura in Peru.
Shortly after his 80th birthday, he returned to Rome on a pilgrimage from the Holy Land. He died shortly thereafter. He had celebrated his last Mass at the Church of the Cenacle. Later that day, Pope John Paul II came to pray before del Portillo's remains, which now lie in the crypt of the Church of the Prelature, Our Lady of Peace at Bruno Buozzi 75, Rome.
The history of del Portillo's involvement is as follows:
According to Salvador Bernal, his biographer: Del Portillo was the person who argued that there be a specific Decree for priests. Also one of the decisions of the Commission for the Discipline of the Clergy and the Christian People was "defend centuries-old traditions against those who regarded them as mere pietism. It discussed the presence of the priest in the world, and why he needed a good formation in the basic human virtues in order to serve the men and women of his time. But it also warned that priests should not adopt lay lifestyles, much less take on commitments of a partisan political nature. Finally, it asserted the freedom to join associations which in one way or another could help them achieve personal sanctification in the carrying out of their priestly ministry."
"Not a week had gone by after the close of the Council when Cardinal Ciriaci, president of the commission of which Don Alvaro had been secretary, sent him a note expressing heartfelt gratitude and congratulations for the happy conclusion of a great achievement." The note said: "You steered to a safe harbor your decree, which is by no means the least important of the decrees and constitutions of the Council." The vote on the document was 2390 to 4, a nearly unanimous approval after thorough debate, on December 7, 1965. Ciriaci said: (History would regard this decree as) "a fresh, and practically unanimous, confirmation by the Second Vatican Council of ecclesiastical celibacy and the exalted mission of the priesthood."
Pope Paul VI also commented on his work: "I am well aware of the extent to which this is a result of your prudent, tenacious, and courteous efforts. Without failing to respect the freedom of others to have and to express their own opinions, you never swerved from the track of fidelity to the great principles of priestly spirituality."
On his death, John Paul II recalled del Portillo's "zealous priestly and episcopal life, the example he always gave of fortitude and of trust in divine providence and his fidelity to the See of Peter."
The then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger referred to del Portillo's "modesty and availability in every circumstance," in his work at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which del Portillo "enriched in a singular way with his competence and experience."
On December 6, 2002, Javier Echevarria Rodriguez ordered an investigation into the cause for canonization of del Portillo.
In 2004, the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, Camillo Ruini, said "The rather frequent occasions that I had to meet Bishop del Portillo imprinted on my soul the conviction that I found myself in the presence of an exemplary pastor." He added: "In the firmness of his adherence to the doctrine of the Church, in his union with the Pope, in his pastoral charity, in his humility, and in his balance, he exhibited an extraordinary interior richness." According to the Cardinal, "the service that Don Alvaro always provided to the Church of Rome and the prompt and effective way that he supported the Holy Father's pastoral initiatives in this diocese showed the love of the Church that he had learned from St. Josemaría."
Ruini said that there is a desire for a "quick beginning of this cause of canonization" on the part of "so many members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and of the people of God." Also that there is "an abundant store of testimonies of people who knew him, among them, those of quite a few cardinals and bishops," he said. He then added: "The Bishop's Conference [of Italy] has unanimously expressed its favorable opinion" on beginning the cause.
For the process, 133 witnesses were interviewed. Among them were 19 cardinals and 12 bishops or archbishops. 62 of the witnesses belong to the Prelature; 71 do not belong to it. The documentation submitted to the Vatican comprised 2,530 pages in three volumes.
On June 28, 2012 — as approved by Pope Benedict XVI — the Vatican announced that his life had been recognized as one of "heroic virtue", a major step towards an eventual beatification. From this time on, del Portillo was styled "Venerable Servant of God".
On July 5, 2013 Pope Francis published a decree from the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints declaring the miraculous character of a cure of a Chilean boy attributed to the intercession of the del Portillo.[4] Del Portillo was beatified on September 27, 2014 in his birth city of Madrid by Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. May 12 was appointed as his feast day.[5] The former Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, described his holiness as part of the transformation of the world.[6]
"Authentic joy is based on this foundation: that we want to live for God and want to serve others because of God. Let us tell the Lord that we want nothing more than to serve him with joy. If we behave in this way we shall find that our inner peace, our joy, our good humour will attract many souls to God. Give witness to Christian joy. Show to those around you that this is our great secret. We are happy because we are children of God, because we deal with him, because we struggle to become better for him. And when we fail, we go right away to the Sacrament of joy where we recover our sense of fraternity with all men and women." Homily, 12 Apr 1984; quoted by Francis Fernandez Carvajal in In Conversation With God, vol.5, p. 155