Opus Dei head who visited
Manila and Cebu to be beatified
Press Release
January 23, 2014
Bishop Alvaro del Portillo was the first successor of Opus Dei founder
St Josemaria Escriva
CEBU CITY – In a letter addressed to the
Prelate of Opus Dei, Bishop Javier Echevarria, the Holy See confirmed
Pope Francis’ approval of the beatification of Alvaro del Portillo,
which will be held on September 27, 2014, in Madrid, del Portillo’s
hometown. Faithful from all over the world are expected to participate
in the ceremony, including many from the Philippines.
Bishop del Portillo was in
the Philippines on January 21 to February 1, 1987 for a pastoral visit
to the members and the different apostolic and social projects of Opus
Dei in the country.
Cardinal Sin hosted a dinner
for him at Villa San Miguel, during which the late Cardinal thanked
the Prelate for the work of Opus Dei in the Philippines, “spreading
the message of the universal call to holiness among the lay faithful
and bringing spirituality to the secular environments where the
priests and religious cannot reach,” the Cardinal said. Bishop del
Portillo also paid a courtesy call to then President Cory Aquino.
The prelate had a number of
general audiences at the Philippine International Convention Center in
Manila and at the Cebu Plaza Hotel. These were catechetical gatherings
where he answered personal questions on the spiritual life,
sanctification of work, family life, and social responsibility.
Bishop del Portillo is
remembered for his untiring service to the Church and his desire to
help others. In one of his general audiences, he made an observation
about Philippine society, “My daughters and my sons, I have seen
enormous wealth and enormous poverty.”
“I know that some among you
are already running personal undertakings that form people, provide
trades and skills, and make people capable of raising their status so
they can work better and earn more,” he said. The faithful of Opus Dei
in the Philippines were then running technical training schools for
those unable to afford a college education and were beginning a farm
school in Batangas for children of farmers of high school age.
Upon his return to Rome, he sent an Italian delegation to Cebu to help
set up a technical school similar to Centro ELIS, a successful social
project in an outlying district of Rome. That technical school is now
CITE (Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise) in Talamban,
which has graduated 3,000 industrial technicians from the Visayas and
Mindanao since it opened in 1991. It is recognized by the national
government and industry as one of the leading technical schools in the
Philippines.
President Corazon Aquino formally inaugurated CITE in February 1992.
She also inaugurated the Dagatan Family Farm School in Batangas in
August 1988, the first of its kind in Asia.
Other projects inspired by Bishop del Portillo in the Philippines
include the Banilad Center for Professional Development for girls in
Cebu and DAWV (Development Advocacy for Women Volunteerism).
Last July 5, Pope Francis signed the decree of the Congregation for
the Causes of Saints approving a miracle obtained through the
intercession of Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, thus paving the way for
his beatification.
The miracle was the instantaneous healing of Chilean newborn baby,
Jose Ignacio Ureta Wilson in 2003. The boy suffered a cardiac arrest
lasting more than 30 minutes and a massive hemorrhage. The medical
team considered the baby dead, when unexpectedly, his heart started to
beat again. His parents had been praying for his revival through the
intercession of Bishop Alvaro del Portillo. Ten years later Jose
Ignacio is living a normal life.
The late Msgr. Flavio Cappucci, postulator of Alvaro del Portillo’s
cause, said his office has received from all over the world 12,000
signed accounts of favors granted through the intercession of Bishop
Alvaro. They include “graces of all kinds, both material and
spiritual,” he said. “Clearly the most striking are the extraordinary
cures, of which there is a variety: from the disappearance of
melanomas with metastasis after praying to Alvaro del Portillo, to the
full recovery of a child who had drowned in a swimming pool.”
Bishop Alvaro del Portillo died in Rome on March 23, 1994 upon
returning from a pilgrimage of the Holy Land. He turned 80 two weeks
earlier on March 11, 1994. Pope John Paul II went to pray during his
wake and later spoke of "the example he always gave of fortitude and
of trust in divine providence and his fidelity to the See of Peter.”
The beatification ceremony in Madrid will be presided over by the
Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, Cardinal
Angelo Amato.