VATICAN CITY // Opus Dei has announced that on May 15 Pope Leo XIV met with the leadership of the personal prelature.
According to a statement on their official website, "the Holy Father Leo XIV received in audience the Prelate of Opus Dei, Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz, accompanied by his auxiliary vicar, Msgr. Mariano Fazio. It was a brief meeting in which the Pope expressed his closeness and affection."
Among other topics, according to the statement, "the Holy Father asked about the current study of the Statutes of the Prelature and listened with great interest to the explanations given to him. At the end of the audience, the Pope referred to the feasts of Our Lady celebrated on the day of his election. In a familiar atmosphere of trust, Pope Leo XIV gave the Prelate and the auxiliary vicar his paternal blessing."
The audience and future encounters with the new pontiff will be of significant importance to the future of “the Work.”
In July 2022, Pope Francis published the motu proprio Ad Charisma Tuendum. In it, Pope Francis announced dramatic changes regarding the nature of Opus Dei.
The document decreed that the leader (prelate) can no longer be ordained as a bishop and oversight of Opus Dei was transferred from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops to the Dicastery for the Clergy. It also ordered a revision of Opus Dei’s statutes to bring them into conformity with these new norms.
The process of revising and approving the new statutes was underway, with significant discussions planned for Opus Dei’s Tenth Ordinary General Congress in April – May 2025. However Opus Dei announced April 24 that it was significantly reducing the scope of its two-week general congress due to the death of Pope Francis two days before the assembly’s scheduled start date.