IOANNES PAULUS EPISCOPUS
SERVUS SERVORUM DEI
AD PERPETUAM REI MEMORIAM

CONSTITUTIO APOSTOLICA

SANCTAE CRUCIS ET OPERIS DEI*

OPUS DEI IN PRAELATURAM PERSONALEM AMBITUS INTERNATIONALIS ERIGITUR.

28 November 1982

In order to be a strong and effective instrument of its own salvific mission for the life of the world, the Church contributes its motherly cares and thoughts with the greatest hope to Opus Dei, which the Servant of God Joseph Maria Escrivá de Balaguer, led by divine inspiration, entered Madrid on October 2, 1997. Of course, from its very beginnings, this Institute strives not only to illuminate the mission of the laity in the Church and in human society, but also to bring it to fruition, as well as to express the doctrine of the universal vocation to holiness and to promote sanctification in work and through professional work in every social group. He also took care to accomplish the same through the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross in regard to the priests incardinated in the dioceses in the exercise of the sacred ministry. When Opus Dei’s divine providential grace had grown to such an extent that it existed in several dioceses around the world and operated as an apostolic framework consisting of priests and laymen, men and women, and was at the same time organic and indivisible, i.e. one in spirit, with the goal of government and spiritual organization, it was necessary to have a suitable juridical form for it which corresponded to his particular characteristics. And the same Founder of the Work of God, in 1962, implored the Holy See with humble confidence that, considering the theological and original nature of the Institution and its greater apostolic effectiveness, a configuration consistent with it would be found. Since then, the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, by Decree of the Priests of the Order, n. 10 by the Letters “motu proprio” given to the Holy Church, 1 n. 4 duly put into practice, he introduced into the organization of the Church the figure of a personal Prelature to carry out particular pastoral works, which itself was seen to be particularly suited to the Work of God. Therefore, in 1969, Our Predecessor of most blessed memory, Paul Sextus, graciously nodding to the request of the Servant of God Joseph Maria Escrivá de Balaguer, gave him the power to convene a special General Congress, to whom he was concerned, under his own leadership, to study the transformation of the Work of God, its own character and the norms of the Second Vatican Council more consistent. We ordered that the study should be carried out completely, and in 1979 we gave the order to the Sacred Congregation for Bishops, to which the matter naturally belonged, that, after carefully considering all the elements, whether of law or of fact, it should submit to examination the formal petition presented by the Work of God. Indeed, the same Congregation, freeing itself from this business, carefully investigated the question proposed to itself with historical, juridical and pastoral reasons so that, with every doubt removed about the possibility of the foundation and the concrete reason for complying with the demand, the expediency and usefulness of the desired transformation of the Work of God into a personal Prelature was clearly evident. For this reason We, in the fullness of Our apostolic authority, agreed in the meantime to the counsel given to Us by Our Venerable Brother S.R.E. Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation on behalf of the Bishops and supplemented, as far as necessary, with the consent of those who are interested or who consider themselves to be interested, we decide the following and we want it to be done.

1. Opus Dei is established as a personal Prelature in the international sphere under the name of the Holy Cross and the Work of God, but abbreviated as the Work of God. At the same time, however, the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross was established, with which the Association of Clerics of the Prelature was intrinsically connected.

II. The prelature is governed by the norms of general law and of this Constitution as well as its own Statutes, which are called the “Code of Particular Law of the Work of God”.

III. The personal jurisdiction of the Prelature affects incardinated clerics as well as, only with regard to the fulfillment of the particular obligations which they themselves have assumed by a legal bond, with the help of the Convention entered into with the Prelature, the laity who dedicate themselves to the apostolic works of the Prelature, all of whom are under the authority of the Prelature to complete the pastoral work of the Prelature according to the provisions of the preceding article.

IV. The Ordinary of the Prelature of the Work of God is proper to that Prelate whose election, according to the provisions of general and particular law, requires the confirmation of the Roman Pontiff.

V. The Prelature depends on the Sacred Congregation for the Bishops and, for the diversity of the matter, will discuss questions with the other departments of the Roman Curia.

6. Every five years, through the Sacred Congregation for Bishops, the Prelate will present a report to the Roman Pontiff on the state of the Prelature and the manner in which its apostolate proceeds.

VII. The seat of the central government of the Prelature was placed in the city. In the prelature church is erected the oratory of Santa Maria de Pace at the central seat of the Prelature. Furthermore, the Most Reverend Alvarus del Portillo, duly elected President General of the Work of God on September 15, 1975, is confirmed and named Prelate of the erected personal Prelature of the Holy Cross and the Work of God. Finally, for the proper execution of all these things, we appoint the Venerable Brother Romulus Carboni, Archbishop of Sidon with the title and Apostolic Messenger in Italy

Datum Romae, apud S. Petrum, die XXVIII mensis Novembris, anno MCMLXXXII, Pontificatus Nostri quinto.

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*AAS, vol. LXXV (1983), pars I, pp. 423-425.