It is a religious institution based in Rome, founded by the priest Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer on October 2, 1928, it had the objective of bringing Christian men closer to holiness, living according to faith, for this its founder implemented a series of actions, such as daily masses, visits to those most in need, among other things, that would help believers achieve the goal. Opus Dei was appointed personal prelature by Pope John Paul II in 1982.
During its beginnings, this organization was founded as a kind of academy called DyA where the subjects of law and architecture were taught, but it was not until a few years later, that its founder implemented a series of customs that would help to achieve its objective, which was to bring man closer to faith, which was something new for the time since at that time it was believed that only religious could be saints.
The internationalization of Opus Dei was another of the objectives pursued by JosemarÍa Escrivá, but due to the constant wars in Europe (Spanish Civil War, First and Second World Wars) and the continuous religious persecutions its expansion was decimated, it was then that its expansion The founder makes the decision to move to Rome since there it would be easier for him to achieve the goal of expanding to the world.
In 1982 she was appointed by Pope John Paul II as a personal prelature, which are institutions belonging to the Catholic Church in charge of carrying out works of charity and evangelization in different parts of the world regardless of social class or culture. These are governed by a prelate, who is assisted by three vicars (a judge appointed by the prelate to serve as an aid to him) and is made up of deacons, priests and laity. Being a personal prelature, its clergy are only limited to rendering accounts to the prelate of the order and the latter in turn to the pope. This organization is found in 68 countries on the 5 continents of the world.
There are three types of members that belong to Opus Dei and these are the priests, who represent only 2% of the total of the prelature, usually they are the ones who occupy the high positions of the prelature (prelate and vicars) these are prepared in the organization's own study centers and can be divided into numerary priests (they live in the prelature centers) and attachés (they live in their own homes).
Another of the types of members are the laity, which make up 98% of the members of the prelature and these in turn are divided into, supernumeraries, aggregates, numeraries and auxiliary numeraries, supernumeraries do not have a commitment to celibacy (they can marry), they can lead an ordinary life, oriented to the spiritual, due to their different obligations to their families, jobs, etc., they do not have time availability like the other members, but they tend to collaborate financially and in situations that warrant it, the attachés do have a commitment to celibacy and generally do not hold positions in the prelature. The numeraries are those members who commonly live in the organization's centers, they can have their civil profession if they wish, but if the prelature asks them to do without it to fulfill functions within the organization, they must do so, they are in charge of teach the other members of the order and on some occasions they can perform in directive positions, then there are the auxiliary numeraries, they are women who dedicate themselves only to housework within the order, in order for the centers to be kind of homes of family.
Lastly, there are the priests of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, which is an institution of clerics closely linked to the prelature and is made up of priests, diocesan deacons who so wish, and priests. On the other hand, there are the cooperators, who, although they are not members, collaborate with the prelature in different ways, whether by praying, with alms or with work, to cooperate with the order it is not necessary to be a Christian, it is enough to have the desire to do so.
Opus Dei despite being a purely religious organization throughout history has received a great number of criticisms, since according to former members of the order they say that their social works have a background and it is the recruitment of new members, it is also criticism for promoting the breaking of family ties, threats from other members when trying to leave the order, the members' mail is checked before they read it, they cannot carry out activities that are not programmed and if so, they must give a detailed report of what is going to be done, the ambition to have more power, to want to obtain important positions in society in general (politics, work, business, etc.) in order to have more influence in society.
