I realized that he was a man of God, a holy priest

Msgr. Enrique Pelach, Bishop Emeritus of Abancay, Peru

Tags: Priesthood, Priestly Society of the Holy Cross First news of Opus Dei
I first heard about Opus Dei in 1941, on the occasion of one of the many episodes of persecution that St Josemaria Escriva and his Work had to endure. This one was in Barcelona.

While I was still a seminarian I was working as assistant rector of the seminary in Gerona. The Rector, Dr. Damian Estela, heard the news that two young men had been expelled from the Congregación Mariana (an organization like the Legion of Mary) for belonging to a “heretical sect” called Opus Dei. That was all that we heard in the seminary at Gerona, and nothing more.

The Rector told me all this, alarmed because we were only a hundred kilometers from Barcelona. I offered to go there and find out more.
In Barcelona I had a friend who was a priest, Dr. Ricardo Aragó. This priest was older than me and his family lived quite close to mine. He was a writer, and always knew exactly what was happening in church circles. He would be sure to give us full details.

I caught the first train to Barcelona the next morning, and took a taxi from the station to Sarriá, the upper part of the city, where Dr. Aragó lived. He opened the door himself, and was surprised to see me.
- “What a miracle! What brings you here?”
- “I need some information,” I told him.
As soon as we were sitting down I asked him point-blank about the Opus Dei “heresy”.
- “It isn’t a heresy,” he said, “it’s a very good project, and one that will do great things for the Church.”
I thought I hadn’t made myself clear, and said, “No, Dr. Aragó, I’m asking about a heresy that is said to be very pernicious and that is leading young people astray.”
- “Yes, Opus Dei,” he said; “but it isn’t a heresy, but an organization that will do great things for the Church. It is a very good project.” Then he told me in full detail who the Founder was, when Opus Dei had started, what its aims were and why it was unjustly persecuted, even by good people, who saw heresies in the idea of the universal call to holiness and wanting to be saints in the middle of the world, amidst the work and concerns of ordinary life.

I caught the train back to Gerona with one thing clear in my mind: that Opus Dei was not only not a heresy, but was a very good thing, which would bring good to the Church.

The Rector of my seminary didn’t need to worry. I told him about my conversation with Dr. Aragó in great detail, and it was clear to both of us that there was nothing to be afraid of, but we could be happy that God had brought about something so good for the Church.

Holy Year 1950
At the end of the 1940s, on December 3, 1949, I met the Founder of Opus Dei in person.

In Rome there was already an air of great expectancy about the Holy Year in 1950, which promised large-scale celebrations. The Spanish Ambassador to the Holy See, Joaquin Ruiz Jimenez, had the happy idea of organizing a lunch meeting at the Palazzo Altems, the Spanish College, for the cream of the Spanish colony in Rome, to converse together about the Holy Year. I was studying in Rome during that period.

In the big dining-room of the College, we students were seated at the tables round the walls, leaving the tables in the center of the room, arranged in a T-shape, for the guests.

At the President’s table sat Msgr. Escriva with the Ambassador, the Rector, Don Jaime Flores, and other important people. It was mid-day on December 3, 1949, as I will never forget. Msgr. Escriva was much sought-after by everyone; people kept going up to greet him and talk to him. I moved towards him, and when he turned to me I introduced myself and added that I wanted to ask his advice.
- “Tell me, my son. What do you want?” he responded.
I explained briefly about a project for the missions I wanted to set in motion, and my great difficulty, which was the question of the Bishops.
- “Look, my son,” he said. “First of all, pray hard for it; secondly, offer up your study and your work, hours and hours, for it; then, go and speak to each Bishop, one by one, with great confidence; and finally, set the thing going.”

He didn’t add anything further, and neither did I. I thanked him for the advice and withdrew. What he had said made such an impression on me that, although many years have gone by, I still remember it word for word.

By January 7, I was back in Rome again, with all the initial organization that I wanted already under way.

So the Holy Year proceeded, splendidly celebrated in Rome. In the middle of May was the canonization of St Anthony Maria Claret, a saint from Catalonia, Spain, who had been Bishop of Cuba. Many Spanish people came for his canonization, and the Spanish Ambassador once again hosted a lunch in the Spanish College for the VIPs who had come from Spain and some Spanish people living in Rome. Msgr. Escriva was again invited, and this was my opportunity to thank him for his excellent advice. As on the previous occasion on December 3, after we had paid a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, I went up to him. Immediately he said, “I remember you, my son.”

And before I could say anything, he took me by the arm and we walked together away from the noise of the crowd toward the open gallery opposite, at the other side of the inner courtyard. There was no-one else there. We stopped, and he listened to me as I thanked him for his good advice; I told him all the negotiations and arrangements I had made, and that the missions project was now functioning.

Msgr. Escriva didn’t make any comment on this. When I finished my brief speech, he took hold of my right arm and we again walked along the gallery. He started speaking to me about something completely different, though connected. He talked about the priesthood, holiness, love for the Church, self-dedication, putting Christ at the summit of all human activities. It made a terrific impression on me. I realized that the person who was talking to me was a man of God, a holy priest. When we got to the end of the gallery he kept hold of me; we turned round and he carried on talking. The impact on me of all he said was indescribable. Finding myself suddenly with a holy priest who took such an interest in what was essential in my life and in such a direct and personal way, was something so profound that when I wanted to recall the conversation later – my own contribution had been minimal – I no longer could. I overwhelmed, and made plenty of resolutions.

At that time there was no place in Opus Dei for diocesan priests. There would be a place for them just one month later, when on June 16, 1950, Pope Pius XII signed the official Church approval of Opus Dei, with the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, which diocesan priests could join, as an inseparable part of it. At the time I did not hear about this highly significant approval, which was to be so important for my life.

Opus Dei in Gerona
In 1951 I finished my studies at the university in Rome, and returned to my seminary in Gerona. The following year a group of young people attended a retreat in a place called Bañolas given by Fr Florencio Sanchez Bella, an Opus Dei priest living in Barcelona. When they came back from the retreat they all went home with my namesake and friend Enrique Salvatella, and he telephoned me to ask whether I was free to see an Opus Dei priest who had just preached them a retreat in Bañolas, and who wanted to come and talk to me.
- “Well, Enrique,” I said, “I can hear a lot of men talking in the background. They must be the ones who’ve just done the retreat.”
- “Yes, they are,” he said. “They’re talking to the priest.”
“Then I’d better come over there, and save him time. The seminary’s on holiday.” I presented myself at his third-floor apartment ten minutes later.
- “You’d better come into my office,” said Enrique apologetically, “because the house is full of people.”
- “I can hear them,” I replied. “They all sound very happy.”
“It was a fantastic retreat!” said Enrique. “You can talk in peace here. I’ll tell Fr Florencio you’ve come.”
Then a young priest, Fr Florencio, came quickly into the room. We greeted each other like old friends even though we’d never met before, and straight away he told me, speaking quickly and almost without stopping, - “These men have just done a retreat in Bañolas. Some are already in Opus Dei and others want to join. I asked them who could hear their confessions and give them spiritual guidance, a priest who understands Opus Dei, because I live in Barcelona, and they said Fr Pelach. They all seem to know you. Would you do that?”
- “Just a minute,” I began.
- “Do you have anything against Opus Dei?”
- “No, nothing at all. I admire it, but I don’t know much about it. You say that some of these people are in Opus Dei and others want to be. You’ll have to tell me something about Opus Dei, or how can I give them spiritual guidance?”
- “Well, they have a perfectly secular spirituality, like a diocesan priest’s.”
I sprang to my feet like a shot. “What has Opus Dei got for diocesan priests?” I asked.
Fr Florencio burst out laughing.
- “Sit down, sit down!”
And he began to tell me about it. I listened in great surprise, thinking that I’d missed hearing about it because of the years I’d spent at university in Rome. I said, - “So there must be plenty of diocesan priests in Opus Dei!”
He merely answered, “Look, in the Work statistics don’t matter.”
I must confess that that made me especially happy. You have to do good without making any fuss. (Later on, I learned that I had been the first diocesan priest in Spain and in the world to ask for admission to the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross.)
Fr Florencio went on telling me in great detail about this new discovery, and I drank in his words. At one point, he talked about the universality of the Work, and I asked, “Can a diocesan priest in the Work go to the missions?”
- “Yes,” he answered, “but the Father has written in one of his instructions that he would have to go as part of a group, so that he was sure of being properly looked after, both humanly and supernaturally, in accordance with our spirit.”
I jumped up again and exclaimed, “If that’s so, put my name down for it!”
- “No, not yet. You’ll have to think about it carefully and pray a lot for it.”
- “Put my name down for it!” I repeated. “I’ve thought about it and prayed for it. I’ve even been looking for this all over Europe.”
- “And you’ve found it right here in Gerona,” he said with a smile.
We went on talking a while longer. Then he told me he’d come back in a week and we could continue our conversation; and that meanwhile I should pray a lot to our Lady for my vocation to Opus Dei. With that, we parted.

As I went downstairs I realized that we had said nothing about spiritual guidance for those men, we’d only talked about me. I walked home radiant with joy, my thoughts and imagination overflowing, so much so that on the bridge over the River Oñar I found myself stopping and saying aloud, “I’ve been caught!” The sound of my own voice brought me to my senses, and, walking rapidly, I arrived in front of the Tabernacle of our seminary church in no time at all.

Waiting
So I prayed, and prayed. I couldn’t stop thinking about this great discovery. There was the hidden treasure that I had looked for in seven different countries, the pearl of great price from the Gospel parable. I felt supremely happy.

The week went by slowly, and in fact it stretched to ten days, before I could talk about it again, not with Fr Florencio this time, but another priest, Fr Emilio Navarro. In this conversation, which lasted for hours, he told me in depth about Opus Dei’s life and spirit. He also gave me a book by the Founder to read. He told me that God calls each person individually right where they happen to be, and nobody is taken out of their place because of having a vocation to Opus Dei. Consequently, diocesan priests in the Work are always under obedience to their own Bishops. So I wouldn’t have any superior in Opus Dei; it would simply provide me with the spirit that God had inspired in Fr Escriva, and supernatural help to sanctify myself in the exercise of my ministry, “because that’s what a priest’s work is,” said Fr Emilio. He talked about unity of life, the importance of little things, loving ordinary life, being closely united to my brother-priests, the motto “nihil sine Episcopo” – nothing without the Bishop – and many other things besides.

I agreed with everything, and I wanted to formalize my commitment as soon as possible. So I said, “Put my name down for Opus Dei once and for all.” He smiled, and said that a week later Fr Florencio would be coming and I could talk to him about it. I was to carry on thinking about it thoroughly, and praying for it to our Blessed Lady, who loves us so much. He gave me Fr Florencio’s address, and left.

How beautiful it all was, I thought. What a great thing, that a diocesan priest need never feel alone, but will always have all the human and supernatural help he needs! It’s clear that this is inspired by God!

These and other thoughts made the wait seem long. Why, I wondered, would they not want to put me down for it, when I told both of them again and again that I can see it clearly and my mind is made up? I sometimes hummed a love-song that began, “Hoping, waiting, desperation…” and said a little further on, “Happiness will come, it will come.”

Fr Florencio did not come in a week or even in ten days. On the seventh, eighth, and ninth days I went to the train station to meet him, with no result. In the end I took the first train to Barcelona, and went to Monterols, where he lived.
- “What brings you here?” he asked on seeing me.
- “What do you mean, ‘what brings me here’!”
He gave me a friendly hug and we sat down for a long talk. By the time I left, I knew that I had to write a simply, family-style letter to the Father asking to join the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross. (I also knew that joining it was not a matter of “putting one’s name down for it”.)
- “Meanwhile,” Fr Florencio told me as I left, “keep on praying and offering things up, and on a feast of our Lady that you like, write the letter – a simple, family-style letter to the Father,” he said again.

I dated my letter August 5, 1952. That day is the feast of Our Lady of the Snows, the dedication of the Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome, which was the first church built in the West in honor of our Blessed Lady. A snow-fall showed where it should be built, after the great Council of Ephesus that defined as a dogma of faith that the Mother of Jesus, the Son of God, is truly the Mother of God. I wished to leave in our Lady’s hands my total commitment to God in Opus Dei, which I wanted never to go back on. She would help me to be faithful.


Extracts from the book Abancay. Un obispo en las Andes peruanas, by Enrique Pelach, Madrid: Rialp, 2006.