Bishop Javier Echevarría Rodríguez, pictured above, the Prelate of Opus Dei, died Monday
evening at the age of 84 in Rome, several days after being
hospitalized with pneumonia.
According to a Dec. 12
statement from the personal prelature, Bishop Echevarría was given the final
sacraments this afternoon by his auxiliary, Msgr. Fernando Ocariz.
“Bishop Echevarría was
receiving an antibiotic to fight a lung infection,” the statement added. “The
clinical situation was complicated in the final hours provoking respiratory
insufficiency, which resulted in his death.”
The bishop was born in
Madrid in 1932, where he met St.
Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, an organization dedicated to
spiritual growth and discipleship among the laity which teaches its members to
use their work and their ordinary activities as a way to encounter God. (Your Watchman believes Opus Dei is
the intelligence or CIA arm of the Roman Catholic Church.)
He was St. Josemaria's secretary from 1953 to 1975, and was ordained a priest of the prelature in 1955, at
the age of 23.
He was later named secretary general of Opus Dei, and was
elected prelate in 1994. He was consecrated a
bishop the following year.
Opus Dei stated that the
prelature's ordinary government now falls to Msgr. Ocariz. He is to convoke a congress of the community
within three months to nominate a successor to Bishop Echevarría, who must be
confirmed by the Pope
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