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Josemaría Escrivá

Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás (9 January 1902 – 26 June 1975) was a Spanish Catholic priest who founded Opus Dei, an organization of laypeople and priests dedicated to the principle of everyday holiness. He was canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II, who declared Josemaría should be "counted among the great witnesses of Christianity."

Escrivá gained a doctorate in civil law at the Complutense University of Madrid and a doctorate in theology at the Lateran University in Rome. His principal work was the initiation, government and expansion of Opus Dei. Escrivá's best-known publication is The Way, which has been translated into 43 languages and has sold several million copies.

After his death, his canonization attracted considerable attention and controversy among some Catholics and the worldwide press. Several journalists who have investigated the history of Opus Dei, among them Vatican analyst John L. Allen Jr., have argued that many of these accusations are unproven or have grown from allegations by enemies of Escrivá and his organization. Cardinal Albino Luciani (later Pope John Paul I), Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, Óscar Romero, and many other Catholic leaders have endorsed Escrivá's teaching concerning the universal call to holiness, the role of the laity, and the sanctifying effect of ordinary work. According to Allen, among Catholics, Escrivá is "reviled by some and venerated by millions more".

Early life
José María Mariano Escriva y Albás was born to José Escriva y Corzán and his wife, María de los Dolores Albás y Blanc on 9 January 1902, in the small town of Barbastro, in Huesca, Spain, the second of six children and the first of two sons. José Escrivá was a merchant and a partner in a textile company that eventually went bankrupt, forcing the family to relocate in 1915 to the city of Logroño, in the northern province of La Rioja, where he worked as a clerk in a clothing store. Young Josemaría first felt that "he had been chosen for something", it is reported, when he saw footprints left in the snow by a monk walking barefoot.

With his father's blessing, Escrivá prepared to become a priest of the Catholic Church. He studied first in Logroño and then in Zaragoza, where he was ordained as deacon on Saturday, 20 December 1924. He was ordained a priest, also in Zaragoza, on Saturday, 28 March 1925. After a brief appointment to a rural parish in Perdiguera, he went to Madrid, the Spanish capital, in 1927 to study law at the Central University. In Madrid, Escrivá was employed as a private tutor and as a chaplain to the Foundation of Santa Isabel, which comprised the royal Convent of Santa Isabel and a school managed by the Little Sisters of the Assumption.

Mission as the founder of Opus Dei
A prayerful retreat helped him to discern more definitely what he considered to be God's will for him, and, on 2 October 1928, he "saw" Opus Dei (Work of God), a way by which Catholics might learn to sanctify themselves by their secular work. He founded it in 1928, and Pius XII gave it final approval in 1950. According to the decree of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which contains a condensed biography of Escrivá, "[t]o this mission he gave himself totally. From the beginning his was a very wide-ranging apostolate in social environments of all kinds. He worked especially among the poor and the sick languishing in the slums and hospitals of Madrid."

During the Spanish Civil War, Escrivá fled from Madrid, which was controlled by the anti-clerical Republicans, via Andorra and France, to the city of Burgos, which was the headquarters of General Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces. After the war ended in 1939 with Franco's victory, Escrivá was able to resume his studies in Madrid and complete a doctorate in law, for which he submitted a thesis on the historical jurisdiction of the Abbess of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas.

The Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, affiliated with Opus Dei, was founded on Sunday, 14 February 1943. Escrivá relocated to Rome in 1946. The decree declaring Escrivá "Venerable" states that "in 1947 and on Monday, 16 June 1950, he obtained approval of Opus Dei as an institution of pontifical right. With tireless charity and operative hope he guided the development of Opus Dei throughout the world, activating a vast mobilization of lay people ... He gave life to numerous initiatives in the work of evangelization and human welfare; he fostered vocations to the priesthood and the religious life everywhere... Above all, he devoted himself tirelessly to the task of forming the members of Opus Dei."

Later years
According to some accounts, at the age of two he suffered from a disease (perhaps epilepsy ) so severe that the doctors expected him to die soon, but his mother had taken him to Torreciudad, where the Aragonese locals venerated a statue of the Virgin Mary (as "Our Lady of the Angels"), thought to date from the 11th century. Escrivá recovered and, as the director of Opus Dei during the 1960s and 1970s, promoted and oversaw the design and construction of a major shrine at Torreciudad. The new shrine was inaugurated on 7 July 1975, soon after Escrivá's death, and to this day remains the spiritual center of Opus Dei, as well as an important destination for pilgrimage. By the time of Escrivá's death in 1975, the members of Opus Dei numbered some 60,000 in 80 countries. As an adult, Escrivá suffered from type 1 diabetes and, according to some sources, also epilepsy.

In 1950, Escrivá was appointed an Honorary Domestic Prelate by Pope Pius XII, which allowed him to use the title of Monsignor. In 1955, he received a doctorate of theology from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. He was a consultor to two Vatican congregations (the Congregation for Seminaries and Universities and the Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Code of Canon Law) and an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) confirmed the importance of the universal call to holiness, the role of the laity, and the Mass as the basis of Christian life.

In 1948 Escrivá founded the Collegium Romanum Sanctae Crucis (Roman College of the Holy Cross), Opus Dei's educational center for men, in Rome. In 1953 he founded the Collegium Romanum Sanctae Mariae (Roman College of Saint Mary) to serve the women's section (these institutions are now joined into the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.) Escrivá also established the University of Navarre, in Pamplona, and the University of Piura (in Peru), as secular institutions affiliated with Opus Dei. Escrivá died of cardiac arrest on 26 June 1975, aged 73.

Three years after Escrivá died, the then Cardinal Albino Luciani (later Pope John Paul I) celebrated the originality of his contribution to Christian spirituality.

Attitudes in general
One of the persons who knew Escrivá best was the Bishop of Madrid, where Opus Dei was initiated, Bishop Leopoldo Eijo y Garay, for Escrivá would visit and report to him quite frequently and the two established a very strong friendship. In a 1943 report to Rome, the bishop stated: "The distinctive notes of his character are his energy and his capacity for organization and government; with an ability to pass unnoticed. He has shown himself most obedient to the Church hierarchy -- one very special hallmark of his priestly work is the way he fosters, in speech and in writing, in public and in private, love for Holy Mother Church and for the Roman Pontiff." Bishop Eijo y Garay wrote to the Jesuit Provincial of Toledo, Carlos Gomez Martinho, S.J. in 1941: "Fr. Escrivá is an exemplary priest, chosen by God for apostolic enterprises; humble, prudent, self-sacrificing in work, docile to his bishop, of outstanding intelligence and with a very solid spiritual and doctrinal formation." Eijo y Garay told an officer of the Falange that "[T]o think that Fr. Josemaría Escrivá is capable of creating anything secret is absurd. He is as frank and open as a child!"

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist, founder of "logotherapy", and a Nazi concentration camp survivor, met Escrivá in Rome in 1970 and later wrote of "the refreshing serenity which emanated from him and warmed the whole conversation", and "the unbelievable rhythm" with which his thought flowed, and finally "his amazing capacity" for getting into "immediate contact" with those with whom he was speaking. Frankl went on: "Escrivá evidently lived totally in the present moment, he opened out to it completely, and gave himself entirely to it."

According to Álvaro del Portillo, who was Escrivá's closest collaborator for many years, there was one basic quality of Escrivá "that pervaded everything else: his dedication to God, and to all souls for God's sake; his constant readiness to correspond generously to the will of God." Pope Paul VI summarized his opinion of what he termed the "extraordinariness" of Escrivá's sanctity in this way: "He is one of those men who has received the most charisms (supernatural gifts) and have corresponded most generously to them."

"The first impression one gets from watching Escrivá 'live'", John L. Allen Jr. writes after watching some movies on the founder of Opus Dei in 2005, "is his effervescence, his keen sense of humor. He cracks jokes, makes faces, roams the stage, and generally leaves his audience in stitches in off-the-cuff responses to questions from people in the crowd."

Critics, such as Spanish architect Miguel Fisac, who was one of the earliest members of Opus Dei and who associated with Escrivá for nearly twenty years before ending his relation with Escrivá and Opus Dei, have given a very different description of Escrivá as a pious but vain, secretive, and ambitious man, given to private displays of violent temper, and who demonstrated little charity towards others or genuine concern for the poor. According to British journalist Giles Tremlett, "biographies of Escrivá have produced conflicting visions of the saint as either a loving, caring charismatic person or a mean-spirited, manipulative egoist". French historian Édouard de Blaye has referred to Escrivá as a "mixture of mysticism and ambition".

Prayer
On the centennial of Escrivá's birthday, Cardinal Ratzinger (who became Pope Benedict XVI) commented: "I have always been impressed by Josemaría Escrivá's explanation of the name 'Opus Dei': an explanation ... gives us an idea of the founder's spiritual profile. Escrivá knew he had to found something, but he was also conscious that what he was founding was not his own work, that he himself did not invent anything and that the Lord was merely making use of him. So it was not his work, but Opus Dei (God's Work). [This] gives us to understand that he was in a permanent dialogue, a real contact with the One who created us and works for us and with us... If therefore St Josemaría speaks of the common vocation to holiness, it seems to me that he is basically drawing on his own personal experience, not of having done incredible things himself, but of having let God work. Therefore a renewal, a force for good was born in the world even if human weaknesses will always remain."

In his canonization homily, Pope John Paul II described Escrivá as "a master in the practice of prayer, which he considered to be an extraordinary 'weapon' to redeem the world...It is not a paradox but a perennial truth; the fruitfulness of the apostolate lies above all in prayer and in intense and constant sacramental life." In John Paul II's Decree of Canonization, he refers to the five brief prayers or aspirations of Escrivá through which "one can trace the entire life story of Blessed Josemaría Escrivá. He was barely sixteen when he began to recite the first two aspirations [Domine, ut videam!, Lord, that I might see! and Domina, ut sit!, Lady, that it might be!], as soon as he had the first inklings of God's call. They expressed the burning desire of his heart: to see what God was asking of him, so that he might do it without delay, lovingly fulfilling the Lord's will. The third aspiration [Omnes cum Petro ad Iesum per Mariam!, All together with Peter to Jesus through Mary!] appears frequently in his writings as a young priest and shows how his zeal to win souls for God went hand in hand with both a firm determination to be faithful to the Church and an ardent devotion to Mary, the Virgin Mother of God. Regnare Christum volumus! We want Christ to reign!: these words aptly express his constant pastoral concern to spread among all men and women the call to share, through Christ, in the dignity of God's children. God's sons and daughters should live for the purpose, to serve Him alone: Deo omnis gloria! All the glory to God!"

During the thanksgiving Mass for the canonization of St. Josemaría, John Paul II, said: "In the Founder of Opus Dei, there is an extraordinary love for the will of God. There exists a sure criterion of holiness: fidelity in accomplishing the divine will down to the last consequences. For each one of us the Lord has a plan, to each he entrusts a mission on earth. The saint could not even conceive of himself outside of God's plan. He lived only to achieve it. St Josemaría was chosen by the Lord to announce the universal call to holiness and to point out that daily life and ordinary activities are a path to holiness. One could say that he was the saint of ordinary life."

Not all Catholic commentators, however, were impressed equally by Escrivá's spirituality. For instance, the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote in an article of 1963 that Escrivá's The Way provided an "insufficient spirituality" to sustain a religious organization and that the book was hardly more than "a little Spanish manual for advanced Boy Scouts". Von Balthasar also questioned the attitudes towards prayer described by The Way, declaring that Escrivá's use of prayer "moves almost exclusively within the circle of the self, of a self that must be great and strong, equipped with pagan virtues, apostolic and Napoleonic. That which is most necessary, which is the contemplative rooting of the Word "on good soil" (Matthew 13:8), that which constitutes the aim of the prayers of the saints, of the great founders, the prayer of a Foucauld, is something one will search for in vain here."

Von Balthasar repeated his negative evaluation of The Way in a television interview from 1984.

Similar criticism of Escrivá's spirituality has been stated by other commentators: for instance, according to Kenneth L. Woodward, a journalist who specializes in articles about the Catholic Church, "to judge by his writings alone, Escrivá's was an unexceptional spirit, derivative and often banal in his thoughts, personally inspiring, perhaps, but devoid of original insights", whose book The Way reveals "a remarkable narrowness of mind, weariness of human sexuality, and artlessness of expression."

Towards the liturgy
Escrivá conceived the Mass as the "Source and summit of the Christian's interior life," a terminology which was later used by the Second Vatican Council. Escrivá strove to obey whatever was indicated by the competent authority regarding the celebration of Mass and "[h]e took all necessary steps to ensure that the prescriptions of Vatican II, notably in the area of the liturgy, were applied within Opus Dei." As his prayer was much integrated with traditional liturgy, Escrivá found the transition difficult and asked Echevarría to help him with respect to the new rites. Although he missed the practices of the old rites, especially some gestures such as the kissing of the paten (a small plate, usually made of silver or gold, used to hold Eucharistic bread), he prohibited his devotees to ask for any dispensation for him "out of a spirit of obedience to ecclesiastical norms... He has decided to show his love for the liturgy through the new rite", commented Echevarría. However, when Annibale Bugnini, Secretary of the Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy, learned of Escrivá's difficulties, he granted Escrivá the possibility of celebrating the Mass using the old rite. Whenever Escrivá celebrated this rite, he did so only in the presence of one Mass server.

Vladimir Felzmann, a priest who worked as Escrivá's personal assistant before quitting Opus Dei in 1981, claimed in an interview for Newsweek that Escrivá was so distraught by the reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council that he and his deputy, Álvaro del Portillo, "went to Greece in 1967 to see if [they] could bring Opus Dei into the Greek Orthodox Church. Escrivá thought the [Catholic] church was a shambles and that the Orthodox might be the salvation of himself and of Opus Dei as the faithful remnant." Felzmann claims that Escrivá soon abandoned those plans as impracticable. Flavio Capucci, a member of Opus Dei and the postulator of the cause for Escrivá's canonization, denies that Escrivá ever contemplated quitting the Catholic Church. This was also denied by the information office of Opus Dei, which stated that Escrivá's visit to Greece in 1966 was done in order to analyze the convenience of organizing Opus Dei in that country, and that Escrivá even brought back icons as presents for Pope Paul VI and Angelo Dell'Acqua (then the substitute to the Vatican Secretary of State), whom he had informed of the visit beforehand.

Mortification
Escrivá taught that "joy has its roots in the form of a cross", and that "suffering is the touchstone of love", convictions which were represented in his own life. He practiced corporal mortification personally and recommended it to others in Opus Dei. In particular, his enthusiasm for the practice of self-flagellation has attracted controversy, with critics quoting testimonies about Escrivá whipping himself furiously until the walls of his cubicle were speckled with blood. Both the practice of self-mortification as a form of penance, and the conviction that suffering can help a person to acquire sanctity, have ample precedent in Catholic teaching and practice. Referring to Escrivá, John Paul II stated in Christifideles omnes:"During the Spanish Civil War he personally experienced the fury of anti-religious persecution and gave daily proof of heroism in a constant priestly activity seasoned with abundant prayer and penance. It did not take long before many came to consider him a saint. When the war was over many bishops invited him to preach retreats to their clergy, thereby greatly contributing to the renewal of Christian life in Spain. Many religious orders and congregations also requested his pastoral services. At the same time, God allowed him to suffer public attacks. He responded invariably with pardon, to the point of considering his detractors as benefactors. But this Cross was such a source of blessings from heaven that the Servant of God's apostolate spread with astonishing speed."

Towards the Virgin Mary
Pope John Paul II stated on Sunday, 6 October 2002, after the Angelus greetings: "Love for our Lady is a constant characteristic of the life of Josemaría Escrivá and is an eminent part of the legacy that he left to his spiritual sons and daughters." The Pope also said that "St. Josemaría wrote a beautiful small book called The Holy Rosary which presents spiritual childhood, a real disposition of spirit of those who wish to attain total abandonment to the divine will".

When Escrivá was 10 or 11 years old, he already had the habit of carrying the rosary in his pocket. As a priest, he would ordinarily end his homilies and his personal prayer with a conversation with the Blessed Virgin. He instructed that all rooms in the offices of Opus Dei should have an image of the Virgin. He encouraged his spiritual children to greet these images when they entered a room. He encouraged a Marian apostolate, preaching that "To Jesus we go and to Him we return through Mary". While looking at a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe giving a rose to San Juan Diego, he commented: "I would like to die that way." On 26 June 1975, after entering his work room, which had a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, he slumped on the floor and died.

Towards people
"Escrivá de Balaguer was a very human saint", preached John Paul II. "All those who met him, whatever their culture or social status, felt he was a father, totally devoted to serving others, for he was convinced that every soul is a marvellous treasure; indeed, every person is worth all of Christ's Blood. This attitude of service is obvious in his dedication to his priestly ministry and in the magnanimity with which he started so many works of evangelization and human advancement for the poorest persons."

Former numerary María del Carmen Tapia (born 1925), who worked with Escrivá for 18 years inside the organization, seven as his secretary, wrote in her book, Beyond the Threshold: A Life in Opus Dei, that Escrivá often became angry, and that as secretary in charge of recording his words and actions, she was not allowed to record anything negative that she witnessed. She claims she was subjected to abusive words from Escrivá, who called her filthy names, and then screamed during this meeting with both men and women present, upbraiding a member who helped Tapia send letters. She was kept prisoner in the headquarters of Opus Dei in Rome from November 1965 until March 1966. "I was held completely deprived of any outside contact with the absolute prohibition to go out for any reason or receive or make telephone calls or to write or receive letters. Nor could I go out for the so-called weekly walk or the monthly excursion. I was a prisoner."

However, some of his devotees claim that, through him, Opus Dei has been able to better the quality of life of many women, and refer to his respect for women and his interest in improving their lives. Historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, a Catholic convert, asserted that "Opus Dei has an enviable record of educating the poor and supporting women, whether single or married, in any occupation they choose."

Towards his family
Opus Dei's founder modified his name in several ways over the course of his life. In the church records of the cathedral at Barbastro, he appears as having been baptized four days after birth with the name José María Julián Mariano, and his surname was spelled Escriba. As early as his school days, José Escrivá had "adopted the rather more distinguished version spelled with a "v" rather than a "b." His name is spelled Escrivá in the memento of his first Mass. According to critics like Luis Carandell and Michael Walsh a former Jesuit priest, he also adopted the use of the conjunction y ("and") joining his father's and mother's surnames ("Escrivá y Albás"), a usage which he claims is associated with aristocratic families, even though that has been the legal naming format in Spain since 1870.

On 16 June 1940, the Spanish Boletín Oficial del Estado ("Official State Bulletin") records that Escrivá requested of the government that he be permitted to change his "first surname so that it will be written Escrivá de Balaguer". He justified the petition on the grounds that "the name Escrivá is common in the east coast and in Catalonia, leading to harmful and annoying confusion". On 20 June 1943, when he was 41 years old, the registry book of the Barbastro cathedral and the baptismal certificate of José María were annotated to represent "that the surname Escriba was changed to Escrivá de Balaguer". Balaguer is the name of the town in Catalonia from which Escrivá's paternal family derived.

One of the earliest members of Opus Dei, and a friend for many years, the architect Miguel Fisac, who later quit Opus Dei, said that Escrivá found it embarrassing to have his father's family name since his father's company became bankrupt, that he had a "great affection for the aristocracy", and that, when Escrivá was a chaplain at the Foundation of Santa Isabel in Madrid, he would often meet aristocratic visitors who would ask, upon learning that his name was Escrivá, whether he belonged to the noble Escrivá de Romaní family, only to ignore him when they learned that he did not. According to Vásquez de Prada, a writer, Opus Dei member, and official biographer who produced a three-volume biography of Escrivá, the act had nothing to do with ambition but was motivated rather by fairness and loyalty to his family. The main problem is that in Spanish the letters b and v are pronounced in the same way and therefore bureaucrats and clerics had made mistakes in transcribing the Escrivá family name in some official documents throughout the generations. Defenders of Escrivá have also argued that the addition of "de Balaguer" corresponded to a practice adopted by many Spanish families that felt a need to distinguish themselves from others with the same surname but proceeding from different regions and consequently having different histories.

Escrivá's younger brother Santiago stated that his brother "loved the members of his family" and took good care of them. When their father died, he says, Escrivá told their mother that "she should stay calm, because he will always take care of us. And he fulfilled this promise." Escrivá would find time in his busy schedule to chat and take a walk with his younger brother, acting like a father towards him. When the family transferred to Madrid, he obeyed the instructions of their father that he obtain a doctorate in Law. "Thanks to his docility to this advice", says Santiago, "he was able to support the family by giving classes in Law, and with this he acquired a juridical mentality ... which would later be so necessary to do Opus Dei." Escrivá also modified his first name. From José María, he changed it to the original Josemaría. Biographers state, that around 1935 [age 33], "he joined his first two names because his single love for the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph were equally inseparable".

Towards his country
Many of his contemporaries recount the tendency of Escrivá to preach about patriotism as opposed to nationalism.

Critics have alleged that Escrivá personally, as well as the organization of Opus Dei, were associated originally with the ideology of "National Catholicism", particularly during the Spanish Civil War and the years immediately after it, and that they were therefore also closely associated with the authoritarian regime of General Franco. According to Catalan sociologist Joan Estruch:

"More than "a classic of the spirituality of all time", Escrivá de Balaguer is at bottom a child of his time: he is the product of a specific country, a specific epoch, a specific church. These are the Spain of General Franco and the church of Pope Pius X. If Opus Dei had "never seen the need to bring itself up to date", as Escrivá maintained, Opus would today be a paramilitary, pro-fascist, antimodernist, integralist (reactionary) organization. If it is not, it is because it has evolved over time, just as the Catholic Church, the Franco regime, and Msgr. Escrivá himself evolved."

Estruch cites, for instance, the fact that the first edition of Escrivá's The Way, finished in Burgos and published in Valencia in 1939, had the dateline Año de la Victoria ("Year of the Victory"), referring to Franco's military triumph over the Republican forces in the civil war, as well as a prologue by a pro-Franco bishop, Xavier Lauzurica, which ended with the admonition to the reader to "always stay vigilant and alert, because the enemy does not sleep. If you make these maxims your life, you will be a perfect imitator of Jesus Christ and a gentleman without blemish. And with Christs like you Spain will return to the old grandeur of its saints, wise men, and heroes." Escrivá preached personally to General Franco and his family during a week-long spiritual retreat at the Pardo Palace (Franco's official residence) in April 1946.

Vittorio Messori claims that the ties between Escrivá and Francoism are part of a black legend propagated against Escrivá and Opus Dei. Allen states that based on his research Escrivá could not be said to be pro-Franco (for which he was criticized for not joining other Catholics in openly praising Franco) nor anti-Franco (for which he was criticized for not being "pro-democracy"). According to Allen, there is no statement from Escrivá for or against Franco. Escrivá's devotees and some historians have emphasized his personal effort to avoid partiality in politics. Professor Peter Berglar, a German historian, asserts that Franco's falangists suspected Escrivá of "internationalism, anti-Spainism and Freemasonry" and that during "the first decade of Franco's regime, Opus Dei and Escrivá were attacked with perseverance bordering on fanaticism, not by enemies, but by supporters of the new Spanish State. Escrivá was even reported to the Tribunal for the Fight against Freemasonry".

Awards and honors
Escrivá received several awards:
 * The Grand Cross of Alfonso X the Wise (1951)
 * The Gold Cross of St. Raymond of Penyafort (1954)
 * The Grand Cross of Isabella the Catholic (1956)
 * The Grand Cross of Charles III (1960)
 * Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Zaragoza (Spain, 1960)
 * The Gold Medal by the City council of Barbastro (1975).

Some biographers have said that Escrivá did not seek these awards, that they were nevertheless granted to him, that he accepted them due to charity to those who were granting these, and that he did not give the slightest importance to these awards. Journalist Luis Carandell, however, recounts testimonies about how members of Opus Dei paid for the insignia of the Grand Cross of Charles III to be made from gold, only to have Escrivá angrily reject it and demand instead one encrusted with diamonds. Carandell holds that this episode was part of a larger pattern in Escrivá's life of ambition for social prestige and the trappings of wealth. Sympathetic biographers, however, insist that Escrivá taught that material things are good, but that people should not get attached to them and should serve only God. It is reported that he declared that "he has most who needs least" and that it took only 10 minutes to gather his possessions after his death.

Controversies
In addition to the questions raised about the depth of Escrivá's spirituality and theological thinking, his purported habits of secretiveness and elitism (although for the most part, Opus Dei faithful belong to the middle-to-low levels of society, in terms of education, income and social status), his alleged bad temper and ambition for social status and worldly luxuries, several other specific aspects of Escrivá's life and work have generated some criticism, particularly regarding his canonization by the Catholic Church. The sources of criticism include his alleged private statements in defence of Adolf Hitler, collaboration by members of Opus Dei with right-wing political causes (especially during General Francisco Franco's dictatorship in Spain), Escrivá's request for the rehabilitation in his favour of an aristocratic title and allegations that he maintained bad relations with other Catholic officials, of whom he could be very critical in private.

Alleged defence of Hitler
During Escrivá's beatification process, Vladimir Felzmann, who had been Escrivá's personal assistant before Felzmann quit Opus Dei and became a priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster and an aide to Cardinal Basil Hume, sent several letters to Flavio Capucci, the postulator (i.e., chief promoter) of Escrivá's cause. In his letters, Felzmann claimed that in 1967 or 1968, during the intermission to a World War II movie, Escrivá had said to him, "Vlad, Hitler couldn't have been such a bad person. He couldn't have killed six million. It couldn't have been more than four million". Felzmann later explained that those remarks should be regarded in the context of Catholic anticommunism in Spain, emphasizing that in 1941 all of the male members of Opus Dei, who then numbered about fifty, offered to join the "Blue Division", a group of Spaniard volunteers who joined the German forces in their fight against the Soviet Army, along the Eastern Front. Another phrase that has been attributed to Escrivá by some of his critics is "Hitler against the Jews, Hitler against the Slavs, means Hitler against Communism".

Álvaro del Portillo, who succeeded Escrivá as the director of Opus Dei, declared that any claims that Escrivá endorsed Hitler were "a patent falsehood" and part of "a slanderous campaign". He and others have stated that Escrivá regarded Hitler as a "pagan", a "racist" and a "tyrant" (see Opus Dei and politics).

Alleged support for right-wing leaders
One of the most controversial accusations against Escrivá is that he and Opus Dei were active in bolstering far-right regimes, especially the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco in Spain. After 1957, several members of Opus Dei served as ministers in Franco's government. In particular, the "technocrats" most associated with the "Spanish miracle" of the 1960s were members of Opus Dei: Alberto Ullastres, Mariano Navarro Rubio, Gregorio López-Bravo, Laureano López Rodó, Juan José Espinosa, and Faustino García-Moncó. Most of these "technocrats" entered the government under the patronage of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco who, though not a member of Opus Dei himself, was reportedly sympathetic to the organization and its values and who, as Franco grew older and more frail, increasingly came to exercise the day-to-day control of the Spanish government.

According to journalist Luis Carandell, when Ullastres and Navarro Rubio were first appointed to the government in 1957, Escrivá gleefully exclaimed "They have made us ministers!" something which Opus Dei has officially denied. On 23 May 1958, Escrivá sent a letter to Franco, which said, in part:

"Although a stranger to any political activity, I cannot help but rejoice as a priest and Spaniard that the Chief of State’s authoritative voice should proclaim that, "The Spanish nation considers it a badge of honour to accept the law of God according to the one and true doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church, inseparable faith of the national conscience which will inspire its legislation." It is in fidelity to our people’s Catholic tradition that the best guarantee of success in acts of government, the certainty of a just and lasting peace within the national community, as well as the divine blessing for those holding positions of authority, will always be found. I ask God our Lord to bestow upon your Excellency with every sort felicity and impart abundant grace to carry out the grave mission entrusted to you."

In 1963, Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote a scathing critique of Escrivá's spirituality, characterizing Escrivá's approach to religion as a form of "integrism", stating "despite the affirmations of the members of Opus Dei that they are free in their political options, it is undeniable that its foundation is marked by Francoism, that that is the 'law within which it has been formed'". In another essay, published the following year, von Balthasar characterized Opus Dei as "an integrist concentration of power within the Church", explaining that the main objective of integrism is "imposing the spiritual with worldly means".

In 1979, von Balthasar distanced himself from a newspaper attack on Opus Dei which had cited his earlier accusations of integrism. He wrote in a personal letter to the Prelature, sent also to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, that "because of my lack of concrete information, I am not able to give an informed opinion about Opus Dei today. On the other hand, one thing strikes me as obvious: many of the criticisms levelled against the movement, including those of your own journal concerning the religious instruction given by Opus Dei members, seem to me to be false and anti-clerical." Von Balthasar maintained his unfavourable judgment of Escrivá's spirituality and repeated it in a television interview in 1984, but he did not renew his criticism of Opus Dei as an organization. In 1988, von Balthasar was named as a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, but he died before he could be elevated to that position at the next consistory.

In response to the accusations of "integrism", Escrivá declared that, "Opus Dei is neither on the left nor on the right nor in the centre" and that "as regards religious liberty, from its foundation Opus Dei has never practised discrimination of any kind." Opus Dei officials state that individual members are free to choose any political affiliation, emphasizing that among its members were also two important figures in the monarchist political opposition of the 1970s in Spain: the writer Rafael Calvo Serer, who was forced into exile by Franco's regime, and the journalist Antonio Fontán, who became the first president of the Senate after the transition to democracy.

John Allen has written that Escrivá was neither anti-Franco nor pro-Franco. Some critics of Opus Dei, such as Miguel Fisac and Damian Thompson, have argued that the group has always sought "advancement not only of its message but also of its interests", and that it has consistently courted those with power and influence, without maintaining a coherent political ideology.

The alleged involvement of Opus Dei in Latin American politics has also been a topic of controversy. According to US journalist Penny Lernoux, the 1966 military coup in Argentina happened soon after its leader, General Juan Carlos Onganía, attended a spiritual retreat sponsored by Opus Dei. During his 1974 visit to Latin America, Escrivá visited Chile, only nine months after the coup d'état in Chile that deposed the elected Marxist president Salvador Allende and installed a right-wing military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. Escrivá declined an invitation to visit personally with the Chilean government junta, alleging that he was ill with influenza, but in his letter to the members of the junta he added that he wished "to let you know how much I pray, have prayed, and have gotten others to pray, for this great nation, especially when it found itself menaced by the scourge of the Marxist heresy."

Critics have charged that Opus Dei members supported Pinochet's coup and then had a role in the "Miracle of Chile" of the 1980s similar to that of the "technocrats" during the Spanish Miracle of the 1960s. However, among the major right-wing politicians, only Joaquín Lavín (who did not occupy public office under Pinochet) has been unequivocally identified as a member of Opus Dei. Another member of Opus Dei, Jorge Sabag Villalobos, belongs to a centre-left party that opposed Pinochet's regime. Peter Berglar, a German historian and member of Opus Dei, has written that connecting Opus Dei with fascist regimes is a "gross slander". Journalist Noam Friedlander states that allegations about Opus Dei involvement with the Pinochet regime are "unproven tales." Several of Escrivá's collaborators stated that he actually despised dictatorships.

Title of nobility
Another source of controversy about Escrivá was the fact that, in 1968, he requested and received from the Spanish Ministry of Justice the rehabilitation in his favor of the aristocratic title of Marquess of Peralta. According to the official Guía de grandezas y títulos del reino ("Guide to the grandeeships and titles of the realm"), the title of Marquess had originally been granted in 1718 to Tomás de Peralta, minister of state, justice and war for the Kingdom of Naples, by Archduke Charles of Austria. Until 1715, Archduke Charles had been, as "Charles III", a pretender to the Spanish throne (see War of Spanish Succession), and from 1711 until 1740 he ruled as Holy Roman Emperor and King of Naples.

Escrivá's successful petition of a title of nobility has aroused controversy not only because it might seem at odds with the humility befitting a Catholic priest, but also because the same title of Marquess of Peralta had been rehabilitated in 1883 by Pope Leo XIII and King Alfonso XII in favor of a man to whom Escrivá had no male-line family association: the Costa Rican diplomat Manuel María de Peralta y Alfaro (1847–1930). On that occasion, the documents ordering the rehabilitation claimed that the original title had been granted in 1738 (not 1718) to Juan Tomás de Peralta y Franco de Medina, by Charles of Austria in his capacity as Holy Roman Emperor, not as pretender to the Spanish throne. Ambassador Peralta, who in 1884 had married a Belgian countess, Jehanne de Clérembault, died without children in 1930. None of his kinsmen in Costa Rica requested the transmission of the marquessate, but one of them has published an extensive genealogical study that would seem to contradict any claim by Escrivá to the title.

Escrivá did not use the title of Marquess of Peralta publicly and, in 1972, he ceded it to his brother Santiago. The argument by endorsers of Escrivá that he requested the rehabilitation of the title as a favor to his family, and that it was his intention from the beginning to cede it to his brother, seems belied by the fact that, in 1968, Santiago had requested for himself the rehabilitation of a different title of nobility, the barony of San Felipe, which was not granted. According to historian Ricardo de la Cierva (a former Minister of Culture in the Spanish government) and to architect Miguel Fisac (who knew Escrivá personally at the time), Escrivá's original request for the title might have been part of an unsuccessful attempt to join the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), a Catholic religious order which required its members to be of noble birth and of which his deputy in Opus Dei, Álvaro del Portillo, was already a member.

Several biographers say Escrivá prohibited his devotees from asking for the title of Marquess of Peralta. They state that Escrivá accepted it due to the advice of some cardinals who told him that he had the obligation to do so for the sake of his brother, Santiago, and so as to practice what he preached about fulfilling civil duties and exercising rights. His brother Santiago said: "The decision was heroic because he knew that he will be vilified as a result... Josemaría did what is best for me. After the right amount of time has passed, without making use of the title (in fact he never had the intention of using it), he passed the title on to me." On the other hand, according to de la Cierva, "Monsignor Escrivá's desire for a marquisate is not to my liking but seems to me, given his idiosyncrasies, comprehensible and even forgivable. That the title should have been based on a falsification seems to me extremely sad and even extremely grave."

Relations with other Catholic leaders
Pauline priest Giancarlo Rocca, a church historian and a professor at the Claretianum in Rome, claims that Escrivá actively sought the rank of bishop but was twice refused by the Vatican curia, first in 1945, and later in 1950 (when he and his followers had lobbied for his appointment as bishop of Vitoria). According to Rocca, in both instances the curial officials expressed concerns about the organization of Opus Dei and about the psychological profile of Escrivá.

Sociologist Alberto Moncada, a former member of Opus Dei, has collected and published various oral testimonies about Escrivá's strained relations with other officials of the Catholic Church. In particular, Moncada quotes Antonio Pérez-Tenessa, who at the time was secretary general of Opus Dei in Rome, as witnessing Escrivá's intense displeasure over the election of Pope Paul VI in 1963, and later expressing doubts in private about the salvation of the Pope's soul. According to María del Carmen Tapia, who worked with Escrivá in Rome, the founder of Opus Dei had "no respect" for Popes John XXIII or Paul VI and believed that his own organization of Opus Dei was "above the Church in holiness."

Luigi de Magistris, at the time the regent of the Vatican's Apostolic Penitentiary, wrote in a 1989 confidential vote asking for the suspension of the proceedings for Escrivá's beatification, that "it is not a mystery that there were serious tensions" between Escrivá and the Jesuits. De Magistris then alluded to Escrivá distancing himself from the Jesuit priest Valentino Sánchez, who had previously been Escrivá's confessor, over the Jesuits' opposition to the proposed constitutions of Opus Dei. Journalist Luis Carandell claims that, during his years in Rome, Escrivá kept his distance from the Jesuit Superior General, the Spaniard Pedro Arrupe, to the extent that Arrupe once joked with Antonio Riberi, the apostolic nuncio to Spain, about doubting whether Escrivá really existed.

According to Alberto Moncada, Escrivá's years in Rome were dedicated in large part to his campaign to make Opus Dei independent from the authority of diocesan bishops and of the Vatican curia, something which was finally achieved, after Escrivá's death, with the establishment in 1982, by Pope John Paul II, of Opus Dei as a personal prelature, subject only to its own prelate and to the Pope. As such, Opus Dei is currently the only personal prelature in the Catholic Church, although this juridical figure ―similar in nature to other kinds of hierarchical organization in the church's history, such as military and personal ordinariates― is fruit of the Second Vatican Council's aim to provide pastoral attention in ways more suited to the actual situation of many of its faithful. In this way, its work complements that of the dioceses, and in some cases even takes the form of a more direct collaboration: for example, when priests of Opus Dei assume pastoral care of parishes at the request of the local bishops. Escrivá may have had this in mind when he wrote, "The only ambition, the only desire of Opus Dei and each of its members is to serve the Church as the Church wants to be served, within the specific vocation God has given us." Membership in the prelature does not exempt a Catholic from the authority of the local diocesan bishop.

Beatification and canonization
After the death of Escrivá de Balaguer on 26 June 1975, the Postulation for the Cause of his beatification and canonization received many testimonies and postulatory letters from people all over the world. On the fifth anniversary of Escrivá's death, the Postulation solicited the initiation of the cause of beatification from the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints. One-third of the world's bishops (an unprecedented number) petitioned for Escrivá's beatification.

His cause for beatification was introduced in Rome on 19 February 1981 on the strength of the apparently miraculous cure in 1976 of a rare disease, lipomatosis, suffered by Sister Concepción Boullón Rubio, whose family had prayed to Escrivá to help her. On 9 April 1990, Pope John Paul II declared that Escrivá possessed Christian virtues to a "heroic degree", and on 6 July 1991 the Board of Physicians for the Congregation of the Causes of Saints unanimously accepted the cure of Sister Rubio. He was beatified on 17 May 1992.

By way of a letter dated 15 March 1993, the Postulation for the Cause received news about the miraculous cure of Dr. Manuel Nevado Rey from cancerous chronic radiodermatitis, an incurable disease, which took place in November 1992. The reported miracle, apparently brought about by Escrivá's intervention, was ruled valid by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and approved by Pope John Paul II in December 2001, enabling the canonization of Escrivá. John Paul II, who frequently expressed public endorsement of Opus Dei and its work, canonized Escrivá on 6 October 2002. The canonization Mass was attended by 42 cardinals and 470 bishops from around the world, general superiors of many orders and religious congregations, and representatives of various Catholic groups. During the days of the canonization event, church officials commented on the validity of the message of the founder, repeating John Paul II's decree Christifideles Omnes on Escrivá's virtues, which said that "by inviting Christians to be united to God through their daily work, which is something men will have to do and find their dignity in as long as the world lasts, the timeliness of this message is destined to endure as an inexhaustible source of spiritual light, regardless of changing epochs and situations."

Criticism of the process
Various critics questioned the rapidity of Escrivá's canonization. On the eve of Escrivá's beatification in 1992, journalist William D. Montalbano, writing for the Los Angeles Times, described it as "perhaps the most contentious beatification in modern times." Critics have argued that the process was plagued by irregularities. However, endorsers refer to Rafael Pérez, an Augustinian priest who presided over the tribunal in Madrid for Escrivá's cause, as "one of the best experts" on canonization. Pérez stated that the process was fast because Escrivá's figure is "of the universal importance," the Postulators "knew what they were doing", and, in 1983, the procedures were simplified in order to present "models who lived in a world like ours." Flavio Capucci, the postulator, also reported that the 6,000 postulatory letters to the Vatican showed "earnestness".

Escrivá's canonization was one of the first to be processed after the 1983 Code of Canon Law streamlined the procedures for canonization, and so it was processed more quickly than was typical before. Mother Teresa was canonized even more quickly, having been beatified just 6 years after her death (Escrivá was beatified in 17 years). According to journalist Kenneth L. Woodward, the 6,000-page long positio (the official document about the life and work of the candidate for sainthood prepared by the postulators) was declared confidential, but leaked to the press in 1992, after Escrivá's beatification. Woodward declared that, of 2,000 pages of testimonies, about 40% are by either Álvaro del Portillo or Javier Echevarría Rodríguez who, as successors of Escrivá at the head of Opus Dei, would have the most to gain from the Catholic Church recognizing that organization's founder as a saint. The only critical testimony quoted in the positio was by Alberto Moncada, a Spanish sociologist who had been a member of Opus Dei and whose testimony might have been easier for the church authorities to dismiss because he had had little personal contact with Escrivá and had left the Catholic Church altogether. This critical testimony covered a mere two pages.

Critics of the process also questioned the fact that some of the physicians involved in the authentication of the two "scientifically inexplicable cures" achieved through the posthumous intercession of Escrivá, such as Dr. Raffaello Cortesini (a heart surgeon), were themselves members of Opus Dei. The Vatican has stated that the Medical Consultants for the Congregation affirmed unanimously that the miraculous cure of a cancerous state of chronic radiodermatitis in its third and irreversible stage in Dr. Manuel Nevado Rey (a country doctor in the village of Almendralejo) was "very quick, complete, lasting and scientifically inexplicable." After six months, the theological consultants, according to the Vatican, also unanimously attributed this cure to Escrivá. On the year of his canonization, the Opus Dei prelate reported that the Postulation has gathered 48 reports of unexplained medical favors attributed to Escriva's intercession, as well as 100,000 ordinary favours.

Former Opus Dei members critical of Escrivá's character who claim that they were refused a hearing during the beatification and canonization processes include Miguel Fisac (a well-known Spanish architect who was one of the earliest members of Opus Dei and remained an associate of Escrivá for nearly twenty years), Vladimir Felzmann (a Czech-born engineer and Catholic priest from the UK, who was Escrivá's personal assistant), María del Carmen Tapia (who worked with Escrivá in Opus Dei's central offices in Rome and directed its printing press), Carlos Albás (a Spanish lawyer who was also Escrivá's first cousin once removed), María Angustias Moreno (who was an official of the women's part of Opus Dei, during Escrivá's lifetime),  and John Roche (an Irish physicist and historian of science who was a member of Opus Dei from 1959 to 1973, and managed one of its schools in Kenya). Several groups critical of Escrivá and of Opus Dei emerged both before and after the canonization of Escrivá, including the Opus Dei Awareness Network (ODAN), and "OpusLibros", both collaborations of former members who now oppose Opus Dei and its practices.

According to journalist Kenneth L. Woodward, before the official beatification he

"was able to interview six other men and women who had lived and/or worked closely with Escrivá. The examples they gave of vanity, venality, temper tantrums, harshness toward subordinates, and criticism of popes and other churchmen were hardly the characteristics one expects to find in a Christian saint. But their testimony was not allowed to be heard.  At least two of them were vilified in the positio by name, yet neither of them was permitted to defend their reputations."

Catholic theologian Richard McBrien termed Escrivá's sainthood "the most blatant example of a politicized [canonization] in modern times." According to Catholic writer and biographer John Allen such views are countered by many other ex-members, the present members, and the estimated 900,000 people who attend activities of Opus Dei. He says that the interpretation of the facts "seems to depend upon one's basic approach to spirituality, family life, and the implications of a religious vocation." Allen's account of Opus Dei and its founder, however, was not accepted by all reviewers as impartial.

Reports of discord among judges
Escrivá's canonization attracted an unusual amount of attention and criticism, both within the Catholic Church and by the press. Flavio Capucci, the postulator of Escrivá's cause for sainthood, summarized the main accusations against Escrivá: that "he had a bad temper, that he was cruel, that he was vain, that he was close to Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, that he was pro-Nazi and that he was so dismayed by the Second Vatican Council that he even travelled to Greece with the idea that he might convert to the Orthodox religion".

A Newsweek article by Woodward claimed that, of the nine judges of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints presiding over Escrivá's cause for beatification, two had requested a suspension of the proceedings. The dissenters were identified as Luigi De Magistris, a prelate working in the Vatican's tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, and Justo Fernández Alonso, rector of the Spanish National Church in Rome. According to Woodward, one of the dissenters wrote that the beatification of Escrivá could cause the church "grave public scandal." The same article quoted Cardinal Silvio Oddi as declaring that many bishops were "very displeased" with the rush to canonize Escrivá so soon after his death. In interviews, José Saraiva Martins, Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, has denied being aware of that dissent.

The journal Il Regno, published in Bologna by the congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart (the Dehonians), reproduced, in May 1992, the confidential vote of one of the judges in Escrivá's cause of beatification, in which the judge asked that the process be suspended. The document questioned the haste of the proceedings, the near absence of testimony from critics in the documentation gathered by the postulators, the failure of the documentation to properly address issues about Escrivá's relations with the Franco regime and with other Catholic organizations, and suggestions from the official testimonies themselves that Escrivá lacked proper spiritual humility. This document does not identify the judge by name, but its author indicates that he met Escrivá only once, briefly, in 1966, while serving as a notary for the Holy Office, which implies that the judge in question was De Magistris.

As regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, at the time of the vote De Magistris's work was largely concerned with issues arising from confession and penance. According to church law, a confessor has an absolute duty not to disclose anything that he might have learned from a penitent in the course of a confession (see Seal of the Confessional in the Catholic Church). In his vote, which its own contents date to August 1989, De Magistris argued that the testimony from the main witness, Álvaro del Portillo, should have been entirely excluded from the proceedings, since Portillo had been Escrivá's confessor for 31 years.

John Allen Jr. comments that, according to some observers within the Catholic Church, De Magistris was punished for his opposition to Escrivá's canonization. De Magistris was promoted in 2001 to the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, an important position in the Vatican bureaucracy usually occupied by a cardinal. However, Pope John Paul II did not make De Magistris a cardinal and replaced him as head of the Apostolic Penitentiary after less than two years, effectively forcing him into retirement. The decision by Pope Francis to make De Magistris a cardinal at the consistory of 14 February 2015, when De Magistris was about to turn 89 and therefore could no longer participate in papal conclaves, was interpreted by some commentators as consolation for how De Magistris had been treated under John Paul II.

Teachings and legacy
The significance of Escrivá's message and teachings has been a topic of debate, by Catholics and others. The Protestant French historian Pierre Chaunu, a professor at the Sorbonne and president of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, said that "the work of Escrivá de Balaguer will undoubtedly mark the 21st century. This is a prudent and reasonable wager. Do not pass close to this contemporary without paying him close attention". The Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, who was appointed cardinal by Pope John Paul II (but died in 1988 before his investiture), dismissed Escrivá's principal work, The Way, as "a little Spanish manual for advanced Boy Scouts" and argued that it was quite insufficient to sustain a major religious organization. However, the monk and spiritual writer Thomas Merton declared that Escrivá's book "will certainly do a great deal of good by its simplicity, which is the true medium for the Gospel message".

Critics of Opus Dei have often argued that the importance and originality of Escrivá's intellectual contributions to theology, history, and law, at least as measured by his published writings, has been grossly exaggerated by his devotees. However, various officials of the Catholic Church have spoken well of Escrivá's influence and of the relevance of his teachings. In the decree introducing the cause of beatification and canonization of Escrivá, Cardinal Ugo Poletti wrote in 1981: "For having proclaimed the universal call to holiness since he founded Opus Dei during 1928, Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, has been unanimously recognized as the precursor of precisely what constitutes the fundamental nucleus of the Church's magisterium, a message of such fruitfulness in the life of the Church." Sebastiano Baggio, Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, wrote a month after Escrivá's death: "It is evident even today that the life, works, and message of the founder of Opus Dei constitutes a turning point, or more exactly a new original chapter in the history of Christian spirituality." A Vatican peritus or consultor for the process of beatification said that "he is like a figure from the deepest spiritual sources". Franz König, Archbishop of Vienna, wrote in 1975:

"The magnetic force of Opus Dei probably comes from its profoundly lay spirituality. At the very beginning, in 1928, Msgr. Escrivá anticipated the return to the Patrimony of the Church brought by the Second Vatican Council ... [H]e was able to anticipate the great themes of the Church's pastoral action in the dawn of the third millennium of her history."

The "absolutely central" part of Escrivá's teaching, says American theologian William May, is that "sanctification is possible only because of the grace of God, freely given to his children through his only-begotten Son, and it consists essentially in an intimate, loving union with Jesus, our Redeemer and Savior."

Escrivá's books, including Furrow, The Way, Christ is Passing By, and The Forge, continue to be read widely, and emphasize the laity's calling to daily sanctification (a message also to be found in the documents of Vatican II). Pope John Paul II made the following observation in his homily at the beatification of Escrivá:

"With supernatural intuition, Blessed Josemaría untiringly preached the universal call to holiness and apostolate. Christ calls everyone to become holy in the realities of everyday life. Hence work too is a means of personal holiness and apostolate, when it is done in union with Jesus Christ."

John Paul II's decree Christifideles omnes states: "By inviting Christians to seek union with God through their daily work — which confers dignity on human beings and is their lot as long as they exist on earth — his message is destined to endure as an inexhaustible source of spiritual light regardless of changing epochs and situations".

title: Josemaría Escrivá


text:
Talk:Opus Dei

Members proposed for sainthood
The Focolare movement has a good section on its members who have been proposed for sainthood. A similar section here would be great. Here's the Focolare example. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focolare_Movement 2600:4040:279C:2700:6C00:5E7A:8D15:832D (talk) 02:42, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Problems with Opus, first person testimony
Opus Dei Awareness Network https://odan.org/ Murphy1492 (talk) 22:57, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Changing the order of the "criticism" and "Supporting views" sections
Is there any reason why the supporting view section is mentioned first? Normally, the criticism is brought up first, and then the counter-arguments are presented.

If no convincing arguments are presented within the next few days, I will rearrange them.

Ideally, however, the entire criticism sections needs to be rewritten and joined together. If anyone has the time and expertise to do so, go ahead. Arsaces (talk) 18:52, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

IP spam adding Opus to Sect
Just wanted to notify, a random IP has been adding Opus and other groups to the Sect page. The same IP that added it to this page a while back. Ncwfl (talk) 17:51, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Opus Dei


text:
Talk:Algolagnia

Mortification of the flesh
From the article:

 * The religious practice of mortification of the flesh as is now regarded by many authorities as a manifestation of algolagnia.

 * What authorities ?

 * This one? http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/taylorgr/sxnhst/chap8.htm

 * "Blessed be pain. Loved be pain. Sanctified be pain. . . Glorified be pain!" (Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, The Way, 208)
 * Seems to be irrelevant on this article. Rather in the one about the saint.

Even so, Mortification of the flesh shouldn't redirect to this article. It may be perfectly appropriate to link here, but it is by no means always equivalent to algolagnia. Wesley

A good source of information
http://www.psych-resources.com/psychsex3/psychsex3160.html

I read all of it, unfortunately I'm too much of a dunce to figure out how to summarize that into a worthwhile article. I'll link to the page in the article, but hopefully someone else will be smart enough to properly regurgitate this eventually. Insomniac By Choice 06:53, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Comparison to masochism
''Note that algolagnia is not the same thing as physical masochism, since there are fewer psychological connotations to algolagnia, which may be a simple liking for pain, without any need for domination, submission or humiliation. It may therefore rather take the form of self-infliction of pain.''

This doesn't make sense - masochism isn't necessarily about domination, submission or humiliation. Although they are often associated together (BDSM), masochism by itself doesn't necessarily include those things. It's true that the word masochism tends to have wider meanings, whilst algolagnia refers specifically to the fetish for pain - is that what the paragraph is trying to say? It's unclear to me. Mdwh 00:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Masochism sentence misleading

 * I agree that the sentence about masochism is poorly worded. I would actually argue that masochism encompasses algolagnia, or to put it another way, algolagniacs are a potential subset of the masochistic society. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.123.206.132 (talk • contribs).

Again, Comparison to Masochism
The following sentence has been modified since 2006 when it generated the last 2 complaints, above (and robotman1974 put a template requesting verifiable sources for the whole article, as the article was very short at the time & included the following dubious claim), but even now in 2009 it is still an unsourced & dubious claim:

 * "It is distinct from BDSM in that it is a physical reaction based on motor functions, and not a believed psychological reaction such as masochism"

1. First, please note that "masochism" as applied in reference to BDSM is typically not considered a paraphilia (Letter to the Editor of The American Journal of Psychiatry: Change in Criterion for Paraphilias in DSM-IV-TR. Russell B. Hilliard, Robert L. Spitzer. 2002. Retrieved: 23 November, 2007.), only when it's done without consent, as the Marquis de Sade is supposed to have preferred, or if it becomes the only way one can reach sexual gratification, per the DSM IV-TR, printed in 2000. So I'm not sure why Elaragirl would try (below) to separate BDSM from algolagnia by calling BDSM a paraphilia, either, unless she's conflagrating the concept of "masochism" as it's defined as a disorder (e.g. in the DSM IV), versus "masochism" as it's defined more casually, often by laymen, to describe the average consensual BDSM participant who also enjoys "vanilla" sex (i.e. those who perform DSM but are not considered to have a disorder).

2. Algolagnia is EQUATED to sadism and masochism, per this expert's citation of THREE colleagues, including those whom he says created the term algolagnia (That's his 2nd citation in the following paragraph), as printed in a peer-reviewed journal, and which met with approval from peers during the peer-review process: "Masochism became defined as sexual algophilia, or the "fondness or love of pain" during sex (Fere, 1899). To incorporate sadism in this construct, Schrenck-Notzing developed the term "algolagnia," determining the attraction to sadomasochism was lust rather than love (Schrenck-Notzing, 1893). ... It was not long before the meaning of algolagnia was expanded to include not just acts, but also the fantasies of sadomasochism that are necessary and sufficient to achieve sexual gratification (Eulenberug, 1911)." Notice that in the first and last citations, algolagnia (or the earlier term, -philia) are merely defined as a specifically "sexual" forms of sadomasochism. (In contrast, S&M may be non-sexual, per expert sources like DSM IV-TR, and Alaragirl (below) and I both agree. N.B.: Kinsey especially started to define S&M as the more "mainstream" definition describing non-dysfunctional people that we see today.)

3. Also showing that it is not "far from being distinct" from BDSM, and the S&M component of BDSM, is that doing algolagnia to someone other than yourself is defined as "active algolagnia"...and "sadism" simultaneously. Algolagnia is defined in the same medical dictionary as "a form of sexual perversion characterized by sadism or masochism."

-

Also the 3 words above -- "believed psychological reaction" which are currently in RED text -- should perhaps be explained using terminology that benefits the average reader... Two alternatives, although it's certainly possible that I'm overlooking a 3rd, possible alternative: 1. Just one part of showing it's not in violation of WP:OR standards, and of benefit to the average reader, is to perhaps link the text that is currently RED, above, to another WP article because that would at least show that it's common and accepted medical terminology (and lead readers to a WP article explaining what those 3 words are supposed to mean, in plain English). 2. Or perhaps someone meant "It is believed to be a psychological reaction" in which case, a physical vs psychological reaction should be explained (including a link to "who" is the expert saying that), and explain why BDSM is 100% physical and 0% psychological (or change the article to reflect that BDSM is only partially psychological), and why Algolagnia is the opposite -- with a link to an expert source who meets WP standards, who confirms all of those uncited claims.

Please cite it next time you modify this sentence in the article -- or else it shows someone's continued desire to insert content that does not meet WP standards, and "they have been warned" so the sentence should be immediately deleted (not even a request) by the next editor who finds this sentence, or a derivation of it, unless it is supported by sources that meet WP standards. THREE YEARS is long enough that the original editor(s) should have had a source for this claim -- and since it contradicts other, SOURCED claims, I'm removing this 3 year-old unsourced claim.216.188.254.2 (talk) 21:30, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Please use real research resources
The state of this article was just wrong. Algolagnia does not incorporate any impulses, social side effects, or any other clinical diagnostics needed to call it a paraphilia. Masochism is the psychological desire for pain and humiliation which MAY result in sexual arousal. Algolagnia is a physiological reaction to pain that doesn't involve desire or psychological aspects directly. I'll expand this article out more, later, when I can get to the library again. -- Elar  a  girl  Talk 06:50, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Is it commonly accepted among medical professionals that Algolagnia is not a paraphilia? If that is so, then the paraphilia template should be removed from the article and vice-versa. Robotman1974 07:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

 * The DSM-IV and ICD-10 don't consider it a paraphilia, but as a minor sexual dysfunction. DSM-IV-TR puts it in Axis II, but in a differerent code that Paraphilias. Almost half of those paraphilias on the template can't be called "clinical" paraphilias, but are just things that are made up.

 * I removed the template from the article (missed that, I'm tired), but I'm not sure about editing the template itself. I'll deal with it tomorrow, I guess. -- Elar  a  girl  Talk 08:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think there should be information put up about the differences between algolagnia and algophilia - I have seen algophilia listed in many places as a synonym of algolagnia, which I think is in error and needs to be corrected in those places http://www.lexic.us/definition-of/algolagnia for example. I am an algolagniac but would have difficulty in accepting being called an algophiliac --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 05:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC) In that a synonym can be a word that has a similar meaning to another word in the same language then it may be acceptable to say algolagnia and algophilia are synonyms of each other, but I have also seen them mentioned as 'exact synonyms' - if an exact synonym means the words have the same meaning then surely it is in error to have algolagnia and algophilia as exact synonyms of each other... I know I am perhaps over-stretching a point here but I do have a personal interest, and I am by no means saying that there would be anything wrong in algolagnia being a paraphilia if it was one but it is not one and I don't think it should be listed anywhere as being one. *phew*! --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 13:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

 * Done (today). I'll probably move the "comparison to BDSM" to near the bottom unless I can see how it's a 'central theme' to the article.216.188.254.2 (talk) 21:30, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

 * Also, mortification of the flesh is not algolagniac in nature, but many who did such things were themselves algolagniac. There are documents going back into the 18th century (one is linked in the article) talking about religious mania and algolagnia. Still, the primary focus is physiological. It produces psychological effects, but the stimuli is physical, and the results are physical, unlike a paraphilia, where the effects is physical, but the stimuli and results are mosty psychological. -- Elar  a  girl  Talk 08:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Okay, thanks for the info. Robotman1974 13:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I must say, that was some very nice work on the article Elaragirl. ONEder Boy 22:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Hopefully I worded it the way User:Elaragirl was looking for. Alatari 20:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

"Disorder"?
Why does this article state that algolagnia is a "disorder"? Being a submissive male myself, I can't see in what way my sexuality is defunct :/. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.172.143.21 (talk) 16:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC).
 * Being a submissive doesn't necessarily make someone an algolagnic. Algolagnics might despise the thought of submitting to anyone; it's purely about being wired to feel pleasure from pain. Alatari 19:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It is the way the DSM words it. The use of the word 'disorder' here seems to violate the WP:NPOV when obviously many algolagnics have been happy with their wiring.  So I would suggest citing some verifiable sources or studies describing this condition as genetically advantageous or others showing psychologically well adapted individuals with algolagnic wiring.  You're getting into the controversy of Western medicine describing anything outside the norm as a disorder even though there maybe advantages to the condition under certain environmental pressures like war time or famine.  Being wired this way and knowing you're somehow different than other people does cause some psychological stress.  Having algolagnia might make an individual a perfect spy for the sheer immunity to torture or excellent candidates for religious orders.  But this will need verification from studies or expert opinions and you may have to wait for the research.   Alatari 19:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree with what Alatari has written above - I myself am an algolagniac and I am exceedingly happy with my wiring... My algolagnia, to me, is most certainly NOT a 'disorder', though I can see why algolagnia may be MISTAKEN for a disorder. --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 15:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I wonder if a regular person can have their brain trained into algolagnia in pre-puberty by having enough pain associations with self stimulation or is it necessarily wired from birth? Alatari 19:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * There's a lot of half-assed speculation on it on some message boards...but nothing serious has been done. As soon as the whole S/M thing came along, nerve-style research on this sort of thing went completely out of style. --AmusedRepose (talk) 22:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Nipple clamps?
Why the picture of the nipple clamps? Wouldn't a picture of an MRI of an algolagnia brain firing differently form a non algolagnia brain make more sense? Or scars on the body of a Dermatillomaniac or other Self-injury style make more sense? Alatari 20:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

A picture of an algolagniac's brain firing differently to that of a non-algolagnic brain would make much more sense... as an algolagniac myself I have never used nipple clamps when inflicting pain on myself, or when having others inflict pain on me, and I think to have a picture of them there makes the casual observer more inclined to view algolagnia as a paraphilia, which it is NOT.--Sweet algolagnia (talk) 15:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I asked my Doctor today if I can have an MRI scan in neurology whilst I am being tested with an algometer - the MRI will hopefully show the difference between the firing of neurons in my algolagnic brain during nociception compared to the firing of neurons in a non-algolagnic brain during nociception (I have just managed to add the link to the nociception page, first time I did it I'd forgotten to sign in so on the History page yes that was me trying to delete the unsigned edit from History and add my signed edit! Sorry, I AM a new user, I am learning though, thanks for being patient) (I may look into adding the page about algometers, but I know it will need someone alot more knowledgable about them than I to create the page). My Doctor intends to refer me to a neurologist in the new year, but as an MRI is not needed in determining algolagnia and my algolagnia has already been established as fact by my medical team then my Doctor says a neurologist may refuse to give me this scan - if I get refused, however, I have already looked into paying for an MRI (at the moment I have no money so this would have to wait. I am doing all this out of my own personal interest in, and addiction to, my algolagnia). Perhaps when I do get given this scan and if I can obtain pictures I can put the pictures of my scan up on the page in place of the picture of the nipple clamps? --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 09:29, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there any actual evidence that the difference in perception of pain by algolagniacs does indeed show on an MRI scan? i.e. Although I know pain is pleasurable for me would that show on the MRI, or is it the subsequent orgasm I would have that would show on the MRI? (Am I making sense? As in, the fact I am finding the pain pleasurable may not show on the MRI until something else occurs that does show on an MRI, like orgasm, if that does show on it). I can see I am going to have to look into MRI's in more detail, as as you can probably tell I do not as yet know that much about them. I shall most definitely look into the tests that have already been done on algolagniacs, but although I have already read much about algolagnia I do not know where to find about medical tests that have been done on algolagniacs - if anyone knows the best place for me to start please let me know here. I am new to the internet, hence everything is taking me a long time. Thank you for your patience. --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 17:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

There is an effect that shows on an MRI -- or more definitively, a CAT scan. But there isn't much differentiation. There are areas of the brain that show when "sensations" are being recieved, but you can't always detect what kind. Pleasure can be of so many kinds that pinning it down to one neurophyiological area is difficult. --AmusedRepose (talk) 19:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

 * MythBusters (season 6) used a fMRI to attempt to detect lies. I'm not sure if anyone is using an fMRI to study algolagniacs.  Alatari (talk) 15:31, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

'''An algometer for an algolagniac? - So long as they have a prescription for one'''  (I know this is not a public forum but at the moment I would just appreciate being able to discuss this)... Is it heard of that an algolagniac can acquire an algometer for the purpose of inflicting pain on themself as opposed to other methods that could lead to severe scarring? I spoke to an assistant in my pharmacy today and she informed me that if I have a 'script for an algometer - which I hope to have soon - then the pharmacy has GOT to supply me with an algometer - being severely scarred myself I do not want to have to scar myself any further in order to get the pain that I have become addicted to, so an algometer would prove to be an invaluable piece of equipment for me, for that reason and other reasons that I need not state here. I just hope my Doctor agrees and gives me a 'script for one POST-HASTE. --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 17:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you will be very happy. An algometer is a device that measures pain thresholds. Almost any active algolagnic of more than a few months has progressed so far beyond normal human pain thresholds that the device is unlikely to assist you unless it's some sort of heavy duty version they use on elephants. Usually, it consists of a few pressure pads, a few needles, a clamp for administering a pinch, ect, and measures the pressure used. They run about $600, an example can be found here  --AmusedRepose (talk) 19:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

'''NO?! Really?!' But I was 99% sure I was right on this - and someone I know saw on television recently about a woman in New York with her own sex parlour thing (whatever they are called, I wouldn't know), and she'' had an algometer that she used on her masochistic clients, unless my friend got it wrong and it wasn't actually an algometer, it was some other device that gave off some form of electrical current (I could just get one of those then, they are cheaper anyway). BUT are you sure that the pressure of the pain given by an algometer can't just be increased and increased as the using person desires? Otherwise, how could it measure the pain threshold of an algolagniac like me, who's pain threshold HAS progressed "far beyond normal human pain thresholds"? How could a Doctor or nurse measure my pain threshold? If I ended up having to buy one that they used on elephants, if one existed, then I would do so, unfortuanately for me I should imagine that there is no call to measure an elephant's pain threshold! (especially seeing as how alot of people don't even seem to believe that animals feel pain anyway, which, as a cat owner, I know is wrong, because, from my six-year experience of owning cats, I would swear blind that animals DO feel pain, my cats CERTAINLY do anyway (not that I've ever hurt them myself, obviously, but I mean from when they've had accidents or been unwell etc.)). Finally, when I looked into buying an algometer, I read that they cost about $150 (I'm not too sure what that is in English pounds with the current exchange rate, but I know I still couldn't afford one at the moment, even if one would work for the purpose for which I would intend it to). Sorry, I've really ranted on, again, I really must attempt to curb my enthusiasm on this subject. Thanks for the info though, I shall take a look at the link you put up for the algometers now, cheers. --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 04:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Other options for algolagniacs - algometers not adequate

If you are an algolagniac like me and are thinking of purchasing an algometer then I would just like to say that you shouldn't, they really are not beneficial at all, just think closer to your natural human instinct and all will be well. Enough said. --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 22:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the picture. Not appropiate. Please put it back in if you think my action is wrong and let me know why. --AmusedRepose (talk) 19:14, 17 December 2007 (UTC)  HOORAH! I'm most glad that someone has removed that heinous picture, so thank you. And I do hope that no-one will object and want it put back up, because like you said, it was inappropriate on the algolagnia page - it would be better placed on the sadism and masochism or BDSM pages. "Goodbye hideous picture!". --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 04:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

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Wymondham Abbey

Wymondham Abbey (pronounced Windum) is the Anglican parish church for the town of Wymondham in Norfolk, England.

History
The monastery was founded in 1107 by William d'Aubigny, Butler (Pincerna) to King Henry I. William was a prominent Norfolk landowner, with estates in Wymondham and nearby New Buckenham. The d'Aubigny (sometimes Latinised to d'Albini) family originated from St. Martin d'Aubigny in Normandy.

William d'Aubigny's monastery was a dependency of the Benedictine monastery at St Albans, where his uncle Richard was Abbot. The foundation charter stipulated that the prior, as a token of dependence, was to pay a mark of silver yearly to the abbot on the festival of St. Alban. If the priory should become an abbey, then all tokens of subjection to St. Albans would cease. Wymondham Priory was relatively small, initially for some twelve Benedictine monks, but grew in influence and wealth over the coming centuries. William d'Aubigny, the founder, and Maud his wife, who was the daughter of Roger Bigod, and sister of Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk, richly endowed the priory with lands, churches, tithes, and rents.

The founder intended his church to serve as a parish church for the local community as well as a monastic church for the monks, an ill-defined arrangement that led to frequent disputes. The monastic east end was completed by about 1130, and the western half (for the parish) about thirty years later. It was originally dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St Alban. Later, following the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170, Becket's name was added to the dedication and Alban's dropped. Archaeological excavation in 2002 and 2017 disclosed indications of a Late Saxon or early Norman church beneath the nave of the current church. In 1249, Pope Innocent IV ruled that the monks should have the chancel, central tower, transepts, south aisle and SW tower, while the nave N aisle and NW tower became the parish church served by an independent vicar instituted by the bishop.

In 1174, the founder's grandson, William d'Aubigny III, established a chapel in the town dedicated to Becket with two monks from the priory as chaplains. Having served as a gild chapel, then a grammar school and later the town library, in 2022 Becket's Chapel l was purchased by Historic Norfolk and, following a major restoration, is now run as an arts centre.

In the time of Stephen, King of England, the prior obtained the grant of a three days' fair at Wymondham on the eve, day and morrow of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, and also a confirmation of the weekly market. In 1349, both the prior and sub-prior died of the pestilence. Seven of the monks of St. Albans and its cells joined the crusade in Flanders in 1383, under Henry le Despenser, bishop of Norwich. Among them was William York of Wymondham Priory. Of those who returned, none regained their former health, having suffered much from the heat and from foul water. The noted historian and chronicler Thomas Walsingham was appointed prior in 1394.

Disputes between the Wymondham and St. Albans monks were quite common, and in 1449, following a successful petition to the king, Pope Nicholas V granted Wymondham the right to become an Abbey in its own right. However, an episcopal visitation in October, 1492 found numerous irregularities. The buildings of the dorter and farm not repaired; brothers mixed with seculars in the south aisle of the church; they were not in cloister at customary hours; they 'did not exercise themselves in the study of letters' but were 'too fond of ease'. Bishop Goldwell replaced the abbot and the final forty years of the monastery were apparently peaceful and well-ordered.

King Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries brought about the closure of Wymondham Abbey, which was surrendered to the Royal Commissioner John Flowerdew in 1538. The monks had, apparently willingly, already signed the Oath of Supremacy, and were given generous pensions. The last abbot, Loye Ferrers, was appointed vicar when this post fell vacant.

Architecture
The church was originally cruciform in shape, with a central tower and twin west towers. When it was built, Caen stone in Normandy was shipped specially across the English Channel to face the walls. The central tower became unstable and was replaced in about 1376 by a tall octagonal tower (now part ruined), which held the monks' bells. In 1447, work on a much taller single west tower began. This replaced the original Norman towers and held the townspeople's bells. The parish part of the church (see above) was almost doubled in size in the 14th/15th centuries by enlarging of the north aisle to be wider than the nave. In c.1450 the nave height was raised with new Perpendicular style clerestory windows and an exotic hammer-beam roof incorporating human-sized angels with outstretched wings.

The years following the Dissolution saw the gradual demolition of the monastic buildings for re-use of the stone. The eastern end of the church (blocked off from the nave by a solid wall since about 1385) was destroyed, leaving the present church (at 70 m.) only about half its original length. Having failed to secure the east end of the monastic church from the Crown, the parishioners bought the south aisle. This they re-built and greatly enlarged after 1544, incorporating windows re-used from the former chapter house. Repairs to the parish chancel were carried out following Queen Elizabeth I's visit to Norfolk in 1573 (date and initials may be seen on exterior stonework) and most of the Norman pillars were squared off 1584/5.

A notable later benefactor was the Rev'd William Papillon, vicar from 1788 to 1836. Papillon was a wealthy man who purchased the adjacent Abbey Meadow (which gives the church its incomparable rustic setting), separating meadow from churchyard with a ha-ha. He also bought the ruinous east tower, enlarged the churchyard and set up a school for poor children. By the late 1800s the church was again in poor repair with a huge crack in the west tower. A major restoration and re-ordering of the church was carried out 1900-1903 when a new stone gallery was built under the west tower to support the organ in place of a wooden Georgian gallery.

Notable features of the church are the twin towers (a landmark for miles around), the Norman nave, the hammer-beam angel roof of c.1445 in the nave and fine hammer-beam north-aisle roof. The west tower houses a peal of 10 bells, re-cast and re-hung in 1967. Hung in the bell tower are six well-preserved 18th-century hatchments.

Interior
The church is also remarkable for its high quality fittings such as the 1793 organ by James Davis and 1810 chamber organ (also by James Davis). The splendid gilded reredos or altar screen with tester and rood figures above is one of the largest works of Sir Ninian Comper. This was dedicated in 1921 as a war memorial, though the gilding was not finished until 1934. Other works by Comper are the serene statue of the Virgin and Child and nearby paschal candlestick.

Also of note is the Renaissance c.1520 terracotta sedilia, once thought to be a memorial to Abbot Loye Ferrers. This is Italian work from the same workshop as tombs at Oxborough, Norfolk and Layer Marney, Essex. Note also the 1712 Georgian candelabrum (now in the Lady Chapel) and Royal Arms of George II (south aisle), the carved octagonal 15th Century font with modern gilded font cover by Cecil Upcher, the Arts and Crafts Triptych by E P Warren and Robert Anning Bell in the Lady Chapel and many smaller features such as angels, musicians and figures carved on the roof timbers and corbels.

A modern icon panel by the late Rev. David Hunter is on display in the church, which tells the story of St Thomas Becket’s life. The Stations of the Cross icons in the nave and chancel are by iconographer Helen McIldowie-Jenkins.

Burials at the Abbey

 * William d'Aubigny (died 1139)
 * William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel
 * William d'Aubigny, 2nd Earl of Arundel
 * William d'Aubigny, 3rd Earl of Arundel
 * William d'Aubigny, 4th Earl of Arundel
 * Hugh d'Aubigny, 5th Earl of Arundel

Present day
The Church of St Mary and St Thomas of Canterbury serves as the parish church of Wymondham. The Parish also incorporates the Victorian church of Holy Trinity in Spooner Row village nearby. A wide range of services for worship take place at the Abbey, including Sunday Sung Eucharist, Daily Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. In 2016, with financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and local donors, new extensions were built at the east end. These provide display areas, comfortable social and refreshment facilities and vestries.

It is an active parish with a Friends group and a large group of welcomers and volunteers. There is much interest in the history of the building and parish, with a Preservation Trust and Hon. Archivist. The Parish Archives, some dating back to the 13th century, are housed in the parvise chamber above the porch. Early items include deeds, wills, inventories, a royal market charter of 1460, wardens' accounts, the parish Bede Roll of 1524 and records of the town's medieval religious gilds. The church also has a 1613 edition of the King James Bible. Selections of documents, artefacts and silver are displayed at the back of the church.

Organs
Early records suggest that the parish had an organ in the late 1400s, and the church still has a guarantee for a new 'payre of orgons in ye quire' built by William Beton (or Bylton) of King's Lynn in 1523. Beton (d. 1553) later became royal court organ maker/tuner, building organs at Hampton Court, the Chapels Royal and Old St Paul's Cathedral. Today's handsome main organ was built in London by James Davis and installed here in 1793. It is housed in a fine Chippendale 'Gothick' style case on the gallery at the west end of the nave. The three-manual organ (with later addition of pedals) has been enlarged and rebuilt several times but retains most of its original 18th-century pipework. A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register. A smaller chamber organ, also by James Davis and built in 1810, is located in the north aisle. 'The Organ' by David Baker (a former organist at the Abbey) is published by Shire Publications and contains a full description of the instrument, with many illustrations of its components. Wymondham Abbey has a tradition of excellence in choral music and welcomes singers of all ages.

A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.

List of organists

 * Richard Sharp 1793 - 1801
 * George Warnes 1828 - 1843
 * Reuben Warnes 1844 - 1848
 * Mrs Warnes 1849 - 1851
 * George Church 1852 - 1857
 * Horace Hill 1857 - 1867
 * Arthur Glasspoole 1867 - 1880
 * James Harcourt 1880 - 1881 (formerly organist of St Peter Mancroft, Norwich)
 * Algernon Wilde 1882 - 1929
 * L. Hemingway 1929 - 1930
 * Geoffrey Palmer 1930 - 1946
 * Winifred Stubbs 1940 - 1955
 * N. Charleton-Burdon 1955 - 1956
 * Robert Norton 1956 - 1957
 * N. Charleton-Burdon 1957 - 1960
 * Michael Bryan Hesford 1960 - 1964
 * Norman Crowhurst 1964 - 1967
 * Maxwell Betts 1967 - 1981
 * Ralph Cupper 1981
 * Denis Wright 1981 - 1988
 * David Baker 1988 - 1995
 * Howard Thomas (Director of Music) 1995 - 2012
 * Robert Goodrich (Director of Music) 2012 – 2020
 * Mike Webb 2012–2020 (Hon.)
 * Robert Goodrich (Director of Music) 2023–present

title: Wymondham Abbey