The threats from the bishop of the Aragonese diocese of Barbastro-Monzón, Ángel Pérez Pueyo, in his confrontation against Opus Dei have stirred the waters of the Spanish Church and also of the Vatican, as they place Leo XIV in the dilemma of deciding which side he is on in this conflict inherited from Francis, his predecessor. First, because this bishop has been insisting for a year that he will not sign the Vatican resolution for control of the Torreciudad sanctuary - the spiritual heart of the Work for its members - if he does not contemplate that the 11th century image of the Virgin of Los Angeles, now in the possession of the Opus, return to his diocese. And second, because he has assured that the late Pope Francis wrote him several letters in which he showed his support in the litigation. Now EL PAÍS reveals for the first time two letters written in the Jesuit pontiff's own handwriting in which it can be seen that he takes his side against the ultra-conservative organization. “Don't give in!” Francisco wrote to Pérez Pueyo in a letter dated July 13, 2023.
To understand this letter, we must go back to January 2020, when Opus Dei knocked on the doors of the bishopric to propose a change in the status of the sanctuary and update the “legal framework” of the agreements between both institutions for the control of Torreciudad, in force since 1962. It was the year in which the diocese ceded “the useful domain” of the sanctuary to Opus Dei in perpetuity. However, Pérez Pueyo refused to sign anything and, after three years of talks, on July 17, 2023, he announced the dismissal of the rector of Torreciudad and appointed a priest he trusted in his place. This was the first public confrontation between the institution and the bishopric, four days after Francis wrote that letter. That is, it was a movement supported by the Pope.
Conversations between the bishop and Opus Dei continued for the following year, until on October 9, 2024, Pope Francis swerved and intervened in the sanctuary by appointing an extraordinary commissioner, the Spanish archbishop Alejandro Arellano, dean of the Tribunal of the Rota. The gesture was understood as a boost to the bishop of Barbastro. In fact, several days after making that decision, the Argentine pontiff sent a second letter to Pérez Pueyo in which he reaffirmed his position: “By appointing the Dean of the Rota I make visible my direct intervention in the activities of Opus Dei there.” And he also made a confession: "And, by proposing a new destination, I seek to free you from all 'the mafia intrigues' that are in progress. Thus it is clear that my intervention is total."
What did Francis mean by the proposition of “a new destiny”? Ecclesiastical sources affirm that, at the same time that the Pope intervened in the Torreciudad complex, he appointed Pérez Pueyo as bishop of Ciudad Real because "they had informed him that he could not stand the pressures of the confrontation." The prelate, surprised, according to these sources, sensed that a maneuver had been carried out behind his back and decided to contact Francisco to tell him that he wanted to continue leading the Huesca diocese. “The bishop got an appointment with the Pope, went to Rome and told him everything,” these sources point out.
Francisco was outraged because he understood that they had wanted to deceive him and he paralyzed the appointment in Ciudad Real, which in fact was frozen and was finally decided in July, after his death, by Leo XIV. "It is not the first time that the Vatican and Spain have tried to remove Pérez Pueyo from Barbastro and move him to another diocese. They already tried it years before due to another conflict unrelated to that in Torreciudad," the same sources add.
This newspaper has analyzed these letters comparing them with other handwritten letters from the Argentine pontiff. In all of them, in addition to the fact that their handwriting matches, there is the same symbol with which he used to head all his writings and also his well-known farewell: "I pray for you, do it for me" and "may Jesus bless you and the Holy Virgin take care of you." Ecclesiastical sources suggest that these handwritten letters, like other direct communications from Francis, were scanned by a person he trusted and then sent to the recipients by email.
Pope Francis' letters are not only a demonstration of his direct support for Pérez Pueyo, but also proof of his policy to reduce the power and influence of Opus Dei. First, he put the entity under the control of the Dicastery of the Clergy, a Vatican body to which it must report its activities, and demoted the figure of its top official: “He will not be distinguished” with the position of bishop and will not be able to display either the ring or the episcopal vestments, Francis decreed in the summer of 2022.
And a year later he annulled the exclusive character of personal prelature that the organization had enjoyed since 1982 and which allowed it not to have a defined territorial scope and to be outside the authority of any bishop. Ultimately, the Pope relegated the Opus to the category of a public clerical association (with the power to incorporate clerics into its organization along with lay personnel) and ordered it to rewrite its statutes.
But Francisco died with the Torreciudad conflict open, without the commissioner putting an end to the matter and resolving, among other issues, one of the main issues of the dispute: the possession of the Virgin of Los Angeles. The Opus Dei moved the image to Torreciudad from its original hermitage 60 years ago, after offering to restore it.
The Work details on its website that it has documentary evidence that demonstrates that in 1966 the then bishop transferred the carving in perpetuity, and the institution attaches a notarial act and the emphyteutical census document. For his part, the bishop of Barbastro indicated this Monday in a statement that the documentation with the pact of this “authorized departure” and “in accordance with the law” does not “appear in the archives of either the Cabildo or the diocese.” The bishop stated in that note that the Opus illegally retains the carving and warned that, if the image is not returned, he will present his charge at the disposal of the Vatican.
Harsh criticism of the pontifical commissioner
The Aragonese bishop stressed in the statement the change in the commissioner's position: "I have contemplated in these months how the plenipotentiary commissioner over Torreciudad was transformed into a kind of mediation between them and the diocese, as if this people who were waiting for justice had to accept resignations instead of defending their rights."
Sources from the diocese do not rule out that the bishop will go to court if the issue is not resolved, as the bishopric already did years ago with the lawsuit against the diocese of Lleida, its Diocesan Museum and the Generalitat for the 111 assets of 42 parishes of Barbastro that were in the power of the Lleida episcopate.
The truth is that, with the arrival of Leo XIV, the order regained ground in the dispute. Ecclesiastical sources indicate that the Opus will foreseeably regain control of the sanctuary, although Pérez Pueyo has already indicated that the diocese renounces the management of the complex and the appointment of the rector, and only requests the return of the carving of the virgin and the baptismal font of the cathedral, which had also supposedly been transferred by the Opus Dei to its headquarters in Rome.
And one more thing. The bishop has proposed that the Vatican designate the sanctuary as international and that the Holy See "be the one to audit and approve its accounts, as well as those of the societies and foundations around the complex."
