Bishop of Barbastro cites Pope Francis cards in dispute with the Opus Dei for Torreciudad

The Bishop of Barbastro-Monzón (Spain), Mons. Ángel Pérez Pueyo, revealed on Monday during a homily the content of private letters and messages of Pope Francis that would support his position in the dispute with the Opus Dei for the Sanctuary of Torreciudad, where a marian image venerated for more than a thousand years was guarded.

During his homily in the Cathedral on the occasion of the Nativity Party of the Virgin Mary, the Prelate cited a 2023 handwritten letter in which Francisco would have written “with his particular Argentine accent: ‘Ángel, no cedás”, so that the size of the Virgin of Our Lady of Los Angeles was returned to his original hermitage from the sanctuary where he is currently.

The bishop also revealed a comment that the Pontiff would have made in “Public Hearing in the Plaza de San Pedro, on September 18, 2024, seven months before his death. He told me clearly and directly when greeting me: ‘Angel, did the Virgin go down?”

In the homily, Mons. Pérez resorted to “that support” of Pope Francis to claim “that our beloved Virgin of Torreciudad, who for more than a thousand years has been in the hands of our people, who has wanted it, touched, kiss and protected even at the expense of one’s life during the war, returned to the hermitage where it was always.”

“It is not a Baladí petition, but about the claim of the same dignity that is respected in other places such as Fatima or Lourdes,” he continued before arguing that, before the Opus Dei, Benedictine, Claretians, missionaries of the Institute of the Incarnate Word and Lasallistas guarded in the past the image in the sanctuary of the Pueyo or in the Guayente.

“All of them received the same commission that in their day were responsible for the prelature – as remembered in the 1968 party program -: take care of the common mother, the original Romanesque size, and spread her devotion from her own home, to visit her, pray, kiss her, sing, dress her and process her at home,” he added.

The dispute

The Torreciudad dispute is a conflict between the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón and the Opus Dei for the control of this Marian sanctuary in the province of Huesca. In 1962, the bishop of that time gave “forever” the management of a small medieval hermitage to Opus Dei, which transformed it into a large pilgrimage center opened in 1975 and currently receiving more than 200,000 annual visitors.

The conflict arose when the current bishop decided to recover control of the sanctuary, demanding personally to name the rector, increase the annual payment of the current 19 euros symbolic to more than 600,000 euros, and transfer the original image of the Virgin back to the primitive hermitage.

Opus Dei rejects these conditions arguing that they would “impossible” maintain the sanctuary, which already operates with losses exceeding 200,000 euros per year.

Given the impossibility of reaching an agreement, Pope Francis appointed a pontifical commissioner to resolve this dispute that faces two Catholic institutions for one of the most visited Marian sanctuaries in Spain.

Pope Francis and the “mafia intrigues”

In the second part of his homily, Mons. Pérez alluded to the difficulties of maintaining this dispute with the Opus Dei asserts that “this claim of our dignity has not been easy. Nor has it been to raise their voice to defend that our people do not deserve less.”

And, again resorting to another letter from Pope Francis “dated October 13, 2024”, the bishop says that the Pontiff indicated “that he was careful with the ‘mafia intrigues that are in progress’ around this matter.”

“I gladly fight to the exhaustion in defense of our people, their dignity, their popular devotion and religiosity, regardless of any sacrifice,” said the bishop, relying on the veterinary figure of the elderly Eleazar, who was tried to force pork, said:

“If I was forced, as a shepherd would repeat the same words of the old Eleazar, before the pressures to accept what I cannot accept: I cannot do it ‘without attracting stain and dishonor my old age’ that can serve as a bad example to my parishioners.”

“I want to convey the assurance that your pastor will always remain faithful to his people, to that little giant dignity guy who is my greatest pride to serve. And so it will be until the end,” concluded the bishop.

Opus Dei reaction

Opus Dei sources consulted by ACI Press in this regard indicated that “the prelature values ​​a reaction to the words of the Bishop of Barbastro-Monzón, although he considers that he has already explained sufficiently his position,” for example with the question and answers document made public in March 2024.

In it, Opus Dei acknowledges that the property of the original hermitage and the image corresponds to the bishopric of Barbastro-Monzón, but defends the contract of transfer to perpetuity signed in the 60s.

It also points out that if the place, “canonically configured so far as a semi -public oratory, it is governed by the norms that regulate diocesan sanctuaries” an agreement could be reached with the prelature that included the appointment of the rector.

On the other hand, the same sources point out that the prelature “awaits the Pontifical Commissioner to make some decision about it.” The dean of the Roman Rota court, Mons. Alejandro Arellano Cedillo, was designated to resolve the issue in October 2024 by Pope Francis.

The disagreement between the bishopric and the Opus Dei refers to the canonical configuration of the place promoted by the prelature and inaugurated in 1975, which could affect its pastoral care, as well as the ownership and responsibility of conservation of the image of Our Lady of Los Angeles, venerated since the eleventh century.

This is subject to an emphasis contract (perpetuity) made in 1962 between the diocese and a company in the name of an Opus Dei member and was denounced by the Bishopric of Barbastro-Monzón as a full-fledged void 60 years later.