Spanish diocese proposes Opus Dei shrine plan

Could a years-long dispute over Torrecuidad be near its end?

A two-year dispute over a Spanish shrine took a new step this week when the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón announced a new proposal, which included declaring it an international shrine and putting it under the direct supervision of the Holy See.

Torreciudad shrine. Pillar file photo.

But while the prelature of Opus Dei, which claims a right to run the Torrecuidad shrine, said in statement Tuesday that while it “had knowledge” of the proposal, officials said they would wait for a Vatican-appointed commissary to rule on the future of the shrine.

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In a July 1 press release, the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón said that it sent the Holy See a proposal regarding the shrine, which would seemingly facilitate Opus Dei’s administration of the shrine apart from oversight by the diocesan bishop.

The proposal would allow Opus Dei to appoint Torrecuidad’s rector, and have financial independence from the diocese, with financial administration audited by the Vatican regularly.

The diocesan proposal has been taken as a major reversal from the diocese, and left some observers of the conflict surprised by an apparent change in tune.

A dispute between Opus Dei and the diocese became contentious in 2023, while both parties worked to establish a plan for a church that had become a major pilgrimage site for Opus Dei.

Both the prelature and the diocese wanted to see Torreciudad designated a diocesan shrine under the spiritual care of Opus Dei, but the parties disagreed on the specifics.

The major points of contention were over the appointment of the shrine’s rector, the level of control the diocese should have over the shrine, and shrine’s expected financial contribution to the diocese.

But its July 1 statement saw the diocese basically resign its concerns on each of the issues, including a claim to financial contributions from the shrine to the diocese — which Opus Dei had agreed to provide in prior negotiations over the shrine.

The diocesan statement also requests the return of a baptismal font located in the Opus Dei generalate in Rome, which was given in the 1950s to St. Josemaria Escriva by Barbasto’s bishop. The font had been previously in Barbasto’s cathedral.

The proposal in the statement mentioned that “Torreciudad, currently a semi-public oratory, should be acknowledged and canonically erected as an international shrine, under the direct supervision of the Holy See” and that “the Holy See, as a competent authority, be the responsible party and natural interlocutor (constituting itself as an extraterritorial entity) and Opus Dei can freely designate… the rector of the new sanctuary.”

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Torreciudad, in northern Spain, has grown to become a site of national pilgrimage over the decades, under the care and development of Opus Dei. But amid a breakdown in talks to reaffirm its canonical status, Barbasto’s bishop opted last year to appoint one of his own priests as rector, triggering a standoff over who has control of the site.

The dispute began with a 1962 agreement between Opus Dei’s founder, Saint Josemaría Escrivá, swith then-bishop of Barbastro, Bishop Jaime Flores.

The deal involved transferring “in perpetuity” the administration of a small hermitage and the image of Our Lady of Torreciudad to a civil foundation formed by people close to Opus Dei.

The civil entity connected to Opus Dei agreed to renovate and operate the site, and proceeded to build a large shrine around the original hermitage, and generally spruce up the location, which was in an advanced state of disrepair after years of neglect.

Opus Dei itself would be responsible for the spiritual care of pilgrims to the site.

Escrivá, himself a native of Barbastro, had a personal connection to the hermitage, and to the Marian image contained within it, because his mother had taken him to visit it when he was young, to thank the Virgin Mary for having cured him from illness.

But while Torreciudad is generally referred to as a shrine, it is not really a shrine -- at least not in the canonical sense, in which the local bishop legally designates a site for public pilgrimage.

Instead, the site was designated in the original 1962 agreement as a “semi-public oratory,” canonically intended for the use of only a particular community.

Because the site attracts around 200,000 pilgrims annually, both the diocese and Opus Dei were interested in turning it into a diocesan shrine, though negotiations fell through in the details of the new agreement.

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While part of the dispute in recent years was about whether the shrine should pay annual taxes to the Barbastro diocese, the diocesan proposal announced this week would seem to give up on that issue.

Instead, the diocesan proposal would see the “new international sanctuary enjoy economic independence from the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón and, as dependent on the Holy See, this shall audit and approve the accounts, and the societies and foundations related to the complex, with the diocese resigning to any benefit or remuneration from them, as of any patrimonial responsibility or of any other kind that can come from the funds raised.”

The prelature explained on its website that entrance fees to exhibitions at the oratory only cover 30% of the shrine’s annual expenses, of more than 1.3 million euros. The rest is obtained through fundraising, carried out by Opus Dei and by shrine supporters in Spain and elsewhere.

Opus Dei’s website claims that negotiations failed in part because the Diocese of Barbastro insisted on charging the prelature a higher amount of money as a contribution to the diocese — an amount Opus Dei argues is disproportionate. The prelature does not say exactly how much, but local media have indicated that it is around 600,000 euros a year.

The diocesan statement also requests that the “original image of Our Lady of the Angels of Torreciudad and the primitive baptismal font of the Cathedral of the Diocese of Barbastro — moved to the General House of the Prelature in Rome –— where so many martyrs of our diocese were baptized, are returned to their original places, where they have been venerated since immemorial times.”

The statement adds that the image should be returned to the shrine’s original sanctuary and that the baptismal font should be returned to the Pantocrator chapel of the Cathedral of Barbastro.

The addition of the baptismal font to the requests left many watchers confused. The font is not and has never been part of the Torreciudad shrine, nor it had been included in any of the previous diocesan requests.

Moreover, the font was a gift of the Bishop of Barbastro in 1959 to Opus Dei, after Saint Josemaría Escrivá intervened in Rome to avoid the diocese’s disappearance, as it was his home diocese.

Barbastro lost 92% of its clergy during the Spanish Civil War and had a hard time growing again after the war, which has periodically led to conversations about the prospect of merging it with a neighboring diocese.

Moreover, when Opus Dei received the baptismal font, it was severely damaged, as it had been hammered down during the civil war.

A 1959 testimony from Barbastro’s vicar general said that by then “the old [font] was completely cracked and full of fissures. It had been in use even after the war, until recently, but was very poorly maintained with lumps of cement. The remains of the old baptismal font, considered unusable, had been thrown into the river.”

The pieces of the font were shipped to Rome, and Saint Josemaría Escrivá ordered its restoration. The font has been in Villa Tevere, the central headquarters of Opus Dei ever since.

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Opus Dei briefly responded to this week the diocesan statement saying that it “had knowledge of the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzon’s press release regarding its proposal about Torreciudad.”

“As is well-known, on October 9, 2024, the Holy See appointed Mons. Alejandro Arellano as plenipotentiary pontifical commissary to study this matter. Throughout these months, we’ve been at his total disposal for everything he has requested, and we await his resolution.”