The Istituto Storico San Josemaría Escrivá (Rome) and the Josemaría Escrivá Study Centre (University of Navarre) have just published the monograph, “Gentes, escenarios y estrategias. El Opus Dei durante el pontificado de Pío XII, 1939-1958”, edited by Santiago Martínez and Fernando Crovetto.
This volume brings together ten works written by scholars from European and American universities dealing with the history of Opus Dei during the middle decades of the twentieth century. This was a decisive stage in the contemporary history of the Church and marked a time of strong expansion for the institution.
The recently opened collections of the Vatican Apostolic Archives shed new light on an expanding Catholicism at a time of new pastoral challenges. This period also coincides with a time of widespread acceptance of the message of Opus Dei among lay people and priests from the most diverse latitudes, professional fields, and life circumstances.
The various chapters show some facets of this dynamic pluralism; they analyse the expansion of the Work in this chronology, a subject that historiography has not yet dealt with in depth; they deal with the institutional history of Opus Dei, then a secular institute approved as such in 1950; they outline the great variety and condition of the people who came to Opus Dei; they analyse the invitation of the Holy See to evangelise the Yauyos prelature, a region lacking in clergy in the Peruvian Andean highlands, as well as describing the spread of Opus Dei in specific countries, such as Chile, Argentina and Italy.
The book seeks to complete the regional accounts of the Work in diverse cultural, religious, and geographical contexts. To this end, the history of the institution is inserted into the wider context of the expansion of the Catholic Church. This was achieved through the scenarios, strategies and people who helped to spread both the institution and its specific message in the years leading up to the Second Vatican Council.
You can buy it here.
