Opus Dei leader dies at 84

Prelate of Opus Dei passes away due to lung infection

Bishop Javier Echevarria Rodriguez (centre), Prelate of Opus Dei, greets Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes of Tlanlnepantia, Mexico at the Vatican. Bishop Echevarria headed Opus Dei for more than 20 years before passing away in Rome. (Photo Credit: CNS Photo/Paul Haring)

Bishop Javier Echevarria Rodriguez, the Prelate of Opus Dei, died at the age of 84 in Rome Dec. 12, days after being hospitalized with pneumonia.

"I wish to make known to you and to all members of this prelature my deepest condolences," the Pope wrote Dec. 13 expressing his sympathy, "at the same time that I unite to your action of giving thanks to God for his paternal and generous witness of his priestly and episcopal life."

The late bishop was born in Madrid in 1932, where he met St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, a Catholic organization with the goal of growing spiritual health and discipleship among laity. Members of Opus Dei are taught to use their work and daily activities to encounter the Lord.

Bishop Echevarria would eventually become St. Josemaria's secretary from 1953 to 1975, and was ordained a priest of the prelature in 1955. He later became the secretary general of Opus Dei, and was elected prelate in 1994, being consecrated a bishop the following year.

Msgr. Fernando Ocariz, Bishop Echevarria's auxiliary, now controls the prelature's ordinary government. A successor will be nominated later.

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