Vol. 19 - 2025

Studia et Documenta, vol. 19 – 2025

Published: March 2025
Pages: 538

CIEN AÑOS DE LA ORDENACIÓN SACERDOTAL DE SAN JOSEMARÍA EN ZARAGOZA. CONTEXTO ECLESIAL, SOCIAL Y ACADÉMICO

Presentación, Santiago Casas – Fernando Crovetto
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.01]
PDF

La archidiócesis de Zaragoza en los años veinte, Juan Ramón Royo | The Archdiocese of Zaragoza in the 1920s
The diocese of Zaragoza, the fifth largest in Spain, experienced a time of change during the 1920s due to the assassination of its archbishop Cardinal Soldevila in 1923, a long vacancy of his seat, and the beginning of the pontificate of Archbishop Domenech (1925-1955). It was a time of apparent brilliance, with the establishment of numerous religious communities and an important laity (which at the end of the decade would begin to organize itself in Catholic Action). But the diocese was already showing symptoms of crisis, with a decrease in vocations and priests to serve parishes and other diocesan institutions.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.02]
PDF

El gobierno de la archidiócesis de Zaragoza en el pontificado de Juan Soldevila (1902-1923), Santiago Casas Rabasa | The government of the archdiocese of Saragossa in the pontificate of Juan Soldevila (1902-1923)
Josemaría Escrivá was formed as a priest mainly in the archdiocese of Saragossa. There he studied as a seminarian, received the diaconate, the priesthood and took on his first pastoral assignments. The priestly condition seemed essential to him in order to be more open and available to whatever God might ask of him in the future. Perhaps not from a theoretical point of view, but from a practical one, in Saragossa he had his first knowledge of how a diocese was administered and how the power of government was exercised within the Church. This power was exercised in Saragossa by Cardinal Soldevila and his auxiliary bishop Díaz Gómara. Although the exercise of the episcopal function underwent a theoretical and practical change after the Second Vatican Council, the period of St Josemaría’s formation as a priest was marked by the example of these two prelates and their ‘cursus honorum’ gives an idea of what was expected of a prelate both from the point of view of the Holy See and of the diocesan faithful.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.03]
PDF

La difícil aplicación de la Doctrina Social de la Iglesia en España. La gestación de la Escuela Social de Zaragoza (1907-1929), Fernando Crovetto | The Difficult Application of the Social Doctrine of the Church in Spain.
The Creation of the Zaragoza Social School (1907-1929): The Social School of Zaragoza was the practical manifestation of the social concern of a group of Aragonese Catholics who sought to raise social concern among the Spaniards of their time. The school was a pioneer in the Iberian Peninsula and was concerned with spreading the social doctrine of the Church through study and the dissemination of the teachings of the Roman pontiffs. Josemaría Escrivá met some of its members when he was studying law at the University of Zaragoza. This article aims to present the theoretical foundations of the group and describe some of its initiatives as a formative context for the founder of Opus Dei.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.04]
PDF

La Universidad de Zaragoza en la década de 1920, Juan Francisco Baltar Rodríguez | The University of Zaragoza in the 1920s
The University of Zaragoza of the 1920s is where St. Josemaría earned his degree in law. The university maintained methods and customs from the past, but also opened itself up to new realities in the fields of teaching and research. Issues such as university autonomy were latent. Internationalization, the expansion of studies and growth in the number of students, the arrival of women in university classrooms, the provision of new buildings such as the student residence, and new initiatives such as the Jaca summer courses emerged during these years and would mark university life in Zaragoza.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.05]
PDF

Los años de seminario y de ordenación de José María Escrivá (1918-1925), José Luis González Gullón | The seminary and ordination years of José María Escrivá (1918-1925)
José María Escrivá’s youth gave his life direction. In 1918 he felt that God was calling him to become a diocesan priest. For seven years he received the human, spiritual and academic formation of the time in the seminaries of Logroño and Zaragoza. In 1924 he started a Law degree. In March 1925, Escrivá received the priestly ordination and celebrated his first mass. The ceremony was bittersweet, as the joy of fulfilling his dream of becoming a priest was accompanied by the pain of his father’s recent death.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.06]
PDF

STUDI E NOTE

Florentino Pérez Embid (1918-1974), una vida de trabajo entre la universidad y la política, Onésimo Díaz Hernández | Florentino Pérez Embid (1918-1974), a life of work between university and politics
This article will show how Florentino Pérez Embid’s professional activity reflected the message of the sanctification of work preached by José María Escrivá de Balaguer. In his youth, Pérez Embid wanted to become a professor, which he achieved in 1949. Shortly afterwards, he entered political life when he accepted the post of Director General of Propaganda in 1951. As well as being very active in the university and political sectors, he was responsible for formative activities in Opus Dei.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.07]
PDF

L’Opus Dei in Italia durante il pontificato de Pio XII: stato della questione e prospettive di ricerca, Cosimo di Fazio – Alfredo Méndiz | Opus Dei in Italy during the pontificate of Pius XII: state of the question and research perspectives
Overview of the development of Opus Dei in Italy up to 1958. Brief summary of the current state of research and knowledge acquired. Proposal of guidelines for future scientific work.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.08]
PDF

Percepciones en conflicto: las imágenes públicas del Opus Dei en Estados Unidos durante los años Cincuenta, Federico M. Requena | Conflicting Perceptions: The Public Images of Opus Dei in the United States during the 1950s
The public perceptions of Opus Dei in the United States from its arrival in 1949 until the summer of 1957 are analyzed. The starting point are eighty news articles and articles published during this period, both in Catholic and non-Catholic media. In addition, special attention is paid to the documentation that allows us to reconstruct, as far as possible, the contexts in which these reports appeared, as well as the reactions they provoked. This journey allows us to see a multiplicity of perceptions, conflicting images, which ranged from adequate representations of the nature and purpose of Opus Dei, through distorted images from a juridical and theological perspective, to purely political readings of the institution, linked to the Spanish political situation. The study attempts to identify a possible interaction between the institutional and juridical dimensions, linked to Opus Dei’s status as a secular institute at the time, and these public perceptions.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.09]
PDF

Pedagogía y sociedad de masas en España: Víctor García Hoz (1960-1975), Carlos Veci Lavín | Pedagogy and Mass Society in Spain: Víctor García Hoz (1960-1975)
Víctor García Hoz, chair of Pedagogy and supernumerary member of Opus Dei, perceived as a challenge the economic, social and cultural changes of the 1960s, which were shaping a context increasingly dominated by technology and social and moral uprooting. This article explores how these conditions influenced his preparation of a much-publicised pedagogical synthesis, the theory of personalised education, at a time of growing interest in educational reform in Spain and in the Church. Secondly, he explains how his ideas contributed to the setting up of a network of schools, called Fomento, which was born in the environment of Opus Dei. His friendship with Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer motivated his emphasis on the cultivation of freedom, responsibility and education for work. On the other hand, the pedagogue emphasised, in discussion with his time, the idea of the school as a socialising institution and the need for guidance for students. The General Education Law (1970) promoted some of these approaches, although, in the end, as its implementation was complicated, its possible influence on the Spanish educational system was frustrated.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.10]
PDF

Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri en México. El alcance espiritual de una sensibilidad lingüística, Rafael Jiménez Cataño | Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri in Mexico. The spiritual significance of a linguistic sensibility
This brief study attempts to show how Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri understood well the Mexican colloquialism ni modo, which is not often used correctly by Spaniards, and used it in a way that manifests a very central realism of the charisma of Opus Dei. The conditions that favored this perception are seen: her willingness to assume aspects of the life of the country that welcomed her, and the fact that this idiom gave effective expression to her way of facing the challenges of life. The tools offered by pragmatic linguistics (in particular the theory of politeness) are used to analyze Ortiz de Landázuri’s situation in the Mexican socio-cultural milieu, with examples of the literary use of the same expression. Some formulations of that charisma that we see so well expressed in Guadalupe’s use of the analyzed colloquialism are also pointed out.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.11]
PDF

DOCUMENTAZIONE

La correspondencia postal entre Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Ernestina de Champourcin (1959-1974), Antonio Rodríguez Tovar | The postal correspondence between Josemaría Escrivá and Ernestina de Champourcin (1959-1974)
Edition and commentary on the exchange of letters and postcards among the founder of Opus Dei and Ernestina de Champourcin, from 1959 until 1974.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.12]
PDF

Sirviendo a la Iglesia desde posiciones diversas: el epistolario entre los amigos Casimiro Morcillo y Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer (1938-1971), Nicolás Álvarez de las Asturias – Gonzalo Barbéd Martín | Serving the Church from different positions: the epistolary between friends Casimiro Morcillo and Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer (1938-1971)
Saint Josemaría Escrivá and Casimiro Morcillo, two figures of the Church in Spain in the 20th century, maintained a long, constantly nurturing friendship since they first met in Madrid in 1931. We present the publication of their correspondence, which spans from the time in which they came together in Burgos during the Spanish Civil War, until the death of Mons. Morcillo in 1971.
[DOI: 10.48275/setd.19.2025.13]
PDF