Saint Josemaría Escrivá in 1937-1945

None of the people who lived with him during that period can remember hearing him comment on this, not even an assessment of Franco's military and political role.

He wished with all his might - and he said so on numerous occasions - for the end of the war and the end of the killing and hatred. He hoped that a situation would soon arrive in which citizens and the Church would enjoy freedom, and that the latter would be able to carry out its pastoral activity without hindrance.

"On one occasion a person came to see Don Josemaría whose relatives had been murdered by the communists at plenary session of the Executive Council in the countryside, at the crossroads of a road. He wanted to erect a large cross on that very spot, at report , to commemorate the dead members of his family. You must not do it," the priest told him, "because you are driven by hatred: it will not be the Cross of Christ but the cross of the devil. The cross was not planted and that person knew how to forgive (VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., The Founder of Opus Dei. Life of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. II: God and Audacity, Rialp, Madrid 2002, p. 383).

Luis Rodríguez-Candela recalls St. Josemaría's attitude in those times of anxiety and terror. "His equanimity in judging events which, because of their gravity, greatly affected everyone, was astonishing". And he adds: "He never spoke with hatred or rancour in his judgement of anyone (...). He was hurt by what was happening (...). And when the rest of us were celebrating victories, Don Josemaría remained silent" (Cf. José Luis Rodríguez-Candela Manzaneque, testimony, in AGP).

Pedro Casciaro, a member of Opus Dei, son of a Provincial President of the Popular Front, recalls that "he never spoke of politics: he wanted and prayed for peace and for the freedom of consciences; he wished, with his big heart open to all, that everyone would return and come closer to God" (CASCIARO, P., Soñad y os quedaréis cortos. Testimony about the founder by one of the oldest members of Opus Dei. Prologue by Javier ECHEVARRÍA, Rialp, Madrid 1994, p. 131).

source: www.opusdei.es

It is a fact with a vague historical profile. In August 1936 some ladies told his mother and brothers that a person who looked very much like him had been hanged in a street in Madrid. St Josemaría heard this story a year later, in late summer 1937, during the last weeks he spent as a refugee in the Honduran Legation in Madrid.

"A piece of belated news: I have been told - to me and to my face - repeatedly that my brother Josemaría [St Josemaría's way of referring to himself] was found hanging from a tree, in Moncloa, according to some; others, in Calle de Ferraz. Some people identified the body. Another version of his death: that he was shot" (Letter of St Josemaría to the faithful of Opus Dei in Valencia, Madrid, 18.IX.1937, quoted in the commentary to point 743 of The Way, a work by St Josemaría, in The Way. Critical-historical edition prepared by Pedro Rodríguez, 3rd ed. corrected and enlarged, Rialp, Madrid 2004, p. 852).

source: www.opusdei.es

The coup d'état carried out by a sector of the military against the Republic provoked a revolution in the territory that came under the government of the Popular Front. One of the features of this revolution was anticlericalism, which materialised in the destruction of buildings and objects linked to Catholicism, and in the persecution of Catholics and members of the clergy.

Andreu Nin, leader of a Trotskyist party, declared in La Vanguardia of 2 August 1936 that "the workers' class solved the problem of the Church by simply not leaving a single one standing".

Numerous Catholics were murdered simply because they were Catholics. Thousands of priests were also executed for no other reason than their priesthood. It is estimated that in Madrid approximately 35% of the clergy were killed.

The so-called "hunt for the priest" was unleashed, forcing priests to hide their clerical status by using false identities. Those who were not imprisoned or killed tried to survive in various hiding places subject.

On August 8, 1936, Josemaría Escrivá had to leave his family home because it was unsafe and began a long journey through various places in Madrid: he spent the night of August 8 in a boarding house at 13, Menéndez Pelayo Street, and the following day he went to the home of the Sainz de los Terreros family, in Sagasta Street, where he stayed until August 30.

On 1st September he went to the home of the Herrero Fontana family; and on 4th September he went to the home of Álvaro González, in calle Caracas, nº 15. He stayed there the night of 4 to 5 September, and then moved to 39 Serrano Street, together with Álvaro del Portillo, who also took refuge there. On 2 October, fearing further searches, he had to leave this refuge in Calle Serrano and returned to the Herrero Fontana home. As it was not a safe place, from 3 to 6 October, he stayed at the house of Eugenio Sellés, in Calle Maestro Chapí. He returned to the Herrero Fontana home, and finally, on 7 October, he managed to take refuge in the Clinic of Doctor Suils, in Arturo Soria Street.

He stayed at Doctor Suils' Clinic for about five and a half months, from 7 October 1936 to 14 March 1937, when he was able to move to a new refuge: the Consulate or Legation of Honduras, at Paseo de la Castellana no. 53, next to place de Castelar.

He stayed in this Consulate for more than five months, from 14 March 1937 until the end of August 1937, when he obtained documentation that allowed him a certain degree of freedom. Then, after staying for some time in a boarding house in Ayala Street with a member of Opus Dei, Juan Jiménez Vargas, on 7 October he left Madrid on his way to Barcelona, via Valencia.

See:
-MONTERO, A., Historia de la persecución religiosa en España. 1936-1939, B.A.C., Madrid 1961.
-CÁRCEL ORTÍ, A., La persecución religiosa en España durante la Segunda República (1931-1939), Rialp, Madrid 1990.
-Mártires Españoles del Siglo XX, B.A.C., Madrid 1995.
-REDONDO, G., Historia de la Iglesia en España (1931-1939), Rialp, Madrid 1993.
-AA. VV., Diccionario de Historia Eclesiástica de España, vol. CSIC, Madrid 1972.
-ALFAYA, J. L., Como un río de fuego. Prologue by Cardinal A. M. ROUCO, Ediciones Internacionales Universitarias, Madrid 1998.

source: www.opusdei.es

Ángel Suils Pérez was born in 1906 in Logroño into a family originally from Altoaragón. He attended high school with Saint Josemaría, when the Escrivá family moved to the capital of La Rioja. His father was a doctor and attended St. Josemaría's mother in 1919 on the occasion of the birth of his brother Santiago in Logroño.

In the first months of the civil war, Saint Josemaría found a temporary refuge in the house of the Herrero Fontana family; but as that was not a safe place, Joaquín Herrero Fontana - a doctor born in Logroño, a friend of Ángel Suils and of Saint Josemaría - arranged for Escrivá to be admitted to the psychiatric clinic that Ángel ran in Madrid's Ciudad Lineal.

At the beginning of the war, the socialist trade union UGT set up a company that became the owner of the sanatorium and appointed its former owner, Ángel Suils, as director . Under this legal cover, the place offered relative security against arbitrary searches by the militias. Nevertheless, there were some arrests and shootings of people who lived there.

-Cf. VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., The Founder of Opus Dei. Vida de Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. II: Dios y Audacia, Rialp, Madrid 2002, p. 41 ff.

source: www.opusdei.es

In various ways, depending on the external circumstances, which varied throughout the conflict.

During his stay in Madrid, from 18 July 1936 until he found refuge in the Honduran Legation, he had no choice but to renounce the external signs of his priesthood because of religious persecution and, like many priests in those circumstances, he was obliged to celebrate the Eucharist clandestinely.

In any case, whenever the occasion required it, he did not hesitate to manifest his priestly condition in order to attend spiritually to those who asked for it, knowing that by doing so he was putting his life at risk, as he could be betrayed and betrayed for that reason.

On August 30, 1936, Saint Josemaría was taking refuge with Juan Jiménez Vargas in the home of some acquaintances in Sagasta Street in Madrid. One of them, José Manuel Sainz de los Terreros, did not know who Don Josemaría was, and years later, he recalled what happened to them when the militiamen suddenly entered the house to search it:
"They searched from the basement to the attic, began to inspect the cellars and then moved on to each of the flats. Before they reached ours, we climbed up an interior staircase to a garret full of coal dust and junk, like all garrets, where we couldn't stand up because we could reach the ceiling with our heads. It was unbearably hot. At one point we heard them enter the attic next door to do a search.

While we were in this situation, Father Josemaría came up to me and said, "I'm a priest:
-I am a priest; we are in difficult times; if you want, make an act of contrition and I will give you absolution.
Inexplicably, after having searched the whole house, they didn't go into that attic. It took a lot of courage to tell me that he was a priest because I could have betrayed him and, if they had entered, I could have tried to save my life by betraying him.

-VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., The Founder of Opus Dei. Vida de Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. II: Dios y Audacia, Rialp, Madrid 2002, pp. 31-32.

When he arrived at the Legation in Honduras he was able to develop his priestly activity with less uncertainty, preaching and celebrating Mass for those who were refugees there.
From the Legation he continued to write letters to his friends and acquaintances, using different codes because of postal censorship. For example, to refer to Jesus Christ he wrote "Don Manuel", and to speak of himself, "El abuelo" (Grandfather).

From September 1937 onwards, he obtained a document that gave him a certain freedom of movement in Madrid - although his life was still in danger - and he preached spiritual exercises, always clandestinely and taking many precautions. He attended to some religious communities that were sheltered in private homes and administered sacraments such as reconciliation and the anointing of the sick, posing as a doctor. In this way he administered the holy oils, for example, to the father of Alvaro del Portillo.

Circumstances changed during his stay in Pamplona and then in Burgos, after crossing the Pyrenees on foot. He lived in the Castilian capital for a year and three months, from January 1938 to March 1939, and from there he carried out an intense pastoral activity, travelling to attend to the people he knew, many of whom were spread out on the various war fronts.

-VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., The Founder of Opus Dei. Vida de Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. II: Dios y Audacia, Rialp, Madrid 2002. Chap. X.

Pedro Casciaro says of St. Josemaría's stay in Burgos in 1938: "He devoted a lot of time to taking contact with the members of Opus Dei who were scattered on the war fronts, and to attending to them spiritually. This led him to make frequent trips around the Peninsula, in terrible conditions of poor health, discomfort and extreme poverty" (CASCIARO, P., Soñad y os quedaréis cortos. Testimony about the founder by one of the oldest members of Opus Dei. Prologue by Javier ECHEVARRÍA, Rialp, Madrid 1994, p. 164).

source: www.opusdei.es

It was not an easy decision for him, as in 1937 he found himself in a delicate dilemma. He was still a refugee in Madrid, where his mother, his siblings, and some faithful of Opus Dei, most of whom were also refugees, except for Isidoro Zorzano, who could move freely thanks to his Argentinean origin. And in the other part of Spain (the country had been split in two by the conflict) there were also other members of Opus Dei and people with whom he wished to be able to exercise his priestly activity as soon as possible, at framework in freedom.

He did not know how long the conflict would last, and during the previous months the various steps he had taken to leave Madrid through diplomatic channels had failed one after the other.

In the end he was left with only one alternative: either to stay in Madrid in a situation that could perhaps last for several more years; or to attempt a clandestine exit, which could be made through the war fronts or across the Pyrenees, passing through France and then returning to Spain via San Sebastián. This second option seemed the simplest, because "going over to the other side" via the front - as so many people on both sides did - required him to be mobilised, and St Josemaría was not because of his age (35).

-VÁZQUEZ DE PRADA, A., The Founder of Opus Dei. Life of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Vol. II: God and Audacity, Rialp, Madrid 2002. Chap. X.

source: www.opusdei.es

A preliminary consideration should be made: in wartime, the value of money and its usefulness change substantially. In those war years, the estimated figure averagefor crossing the Pyrenees was around 1,200 pesetas per person, plus extras. To this had to be added the expenses derived from the journey and - above all - from the expeditionaries' stay in Barcelona. Together with St. Josemaría, seven people escaped, who spent six weeks in the Catalan capital. This meant that the expenses amounted to some two thousand pesetas per person.

This money came mainly from the professional salaries and savings of four of them: José María Albareda and Tomás Alvira, professors at high school; Juan Jiménez Vargas, a doctor; and Manuel Sainz de los Terreros, an engineer.

Three of the expedition members were students: Pedro Casciaro, Miguel Fisac and Francisco Botella, and the families of the latter two paid their expenses. The families of Sainz de los Terreros and Jiménez Vargas also collaborated.

Other members of the Work in Madrid contributed something, such as the engineer Isidoro Zorzano and José María González Barredo, professor at high school. To this was added the little that remained of the money earmarked for the installation in July 1936 of the new residency programin Ferraz, which could not be carried out because of the conflict.

In spite of everything, the sum of unforeseen events meant that the eight expedition members were unable to cover the expenses, and for this reason, on arriving in Andorra, they left the last of their guides owing 5,400 pesetas.

source: www.opusdei.es

An acquaintance of José María Albareda and of Saint Josemaría, the Aragonese priest and historian Pascual Galindo (Santa Fe de Huerva, 1892-Zaragoza, 1990), had managed to reach the other conflict zone, leaving from Barcelona and using one of the clandestine groups dedicated to the escape of people through the Catalan Pyrenees.

Thanks to this priest, Saint Josemaría learned of this possibility and took the necessary steps to contact the appropriate people in Barcelona. It was Juan Jiménez Vargas who took direct charge of these steps.

But the escape turned out to be much more complicated than expected, due to various factors: unfavourable weather conditions, tougher border surveillance, and the need for the guides to form a sufficiently large group to make the crossing. All this delayed the departure.

In the end, the expedition in which St. Josemaría took part consisted of more than 40 people from different backgrounds.

source: www.opusdei.es

The organisation that helped the escape was made up of a group group of people from Peramola (Lleida) who lived in the farmhouses in the area. The main guide was Josep Cirera, a shepherd who knew the passes and the safest places on the crossing very well. This guide had various links and the collaboration of families who sheltered and fed the escapees, such as the Molleví family, the conference room family, the Mora family, the Coll family, etc.

Cirera, who was in charge of directing the most dangerous part of the crossing, charged 1,000 pesetas per person. The liaisons in the Peramola area were paid 200-300 pesetas per person for offering them safe refuge and providing them with food.

source: www.opusdei.es

He was accompanied by seven young men. Some were his own age - 35 - such as José María Albareda, who had joined Opus Dei in the middle of the civil war. Also with them was a friend of Albareda's, Tomás Alvira, a 31-year-old high school teacher, and Manuel Sainz de los Terreros, who was almost 30. The rest were in their twenties: Juan Jiménez Vargas was 24, as was Miguel Fisac. The youngest were Pedro Casciaro and Francisco Botella, aged 22.

In that period, only Tomás Alvira was not a member of Opus Dei. A few years later Alvira (Villanueva del Gállego, Zaragoza, 17 January 1906) asked to be admitted to the Work and thus became one of the first supernumeraries of Opus Dei. He died in 1992, and his Cause of Canonisation has been opened, together with that of his wife, Paquita Domínguez.

CASCIARO, P., Dream and you will fall short. Testimony about the founder by one of the oldest members of Opus Dei. Prologue by Javier ECHEVARRÍA, Rialp, Madrid 1994.

-VÁZQUEZ, A., Tomás Alvira y Paquita Domínguez: la aventura de un matrimonio feliz, Palabra, Madrid 2007.

source: www.opusdei.es

After crossing the Pyrenees, after a brief stay in Pamplona, St. Josemaría decided to settle in Burgos, where he lived - amidst shortages of all kinds subject, like so many Spaniards of the time - from January 8, 1938 until March 27, 1939, when he moved to Madrid.

He was motivated by three fundamental reasons: it was the city with the best rail links to the rest of the provincial capitals in that part of Spain. It therefore became the most appropriate place from a geographical point of view for Opus Dei members who had been assigned to the various fronts of the so-called "national zone" to come to see him, because there were others who remained on the fronts of the so-called "republican zone".

Another decisive reason for settling in Burgos was that Casimiro Morcillo, a priest he knew who was in charge of organisational tasks in the diocese of Madrid-Alcalá, lived there.

And the third reason was that, because of the war, many of his acquaintances, whom he wished to continue to treat humanely and apostolically, were living in that city.

It is unfounded to imagine any other motivation than an apostolic one - the only one that interested the Founder - for this transfer.

When he settled in Burgos, the Founder was a 36-year-old priest completely unknown except in certain ecclesiastical circles in Aragon and Madrid. He was of little relevance at the time (as evidenced by the fact that neither his arrival nor his stay in Burgos is recorded in any newspaper or publication of the time).

It is true that he had attended to and met thousands of people in Madrid, due to his priestly work at the board of trustees de Enfermos, but the vast majority - with the exception of some students and university professors - had been dying patients in hospitals, families from poor neighbourhoods, children living in the belt of misery that surrounded the capital, or "little rascals" from the Asilo de Porta Coeli. In other words, people of no social standing.

And Opus Dei was still an almost unknown reality: it was made up of a few dozen students, and most of them were at that time scattered on various fronts. The Work, like its founder, was hardly known outside the university environment of Madrid and the ecclesiastical circles of Madrid.

-CASCIARO, P., Soñad y os quedaréis cortos. Testimony about the founder by one of the oldest members of Opus Dei. Prologue by Javier ECHEVARRÍA, Rialp, Madrid 1994.

source: www.opusdei.es

With Franco he did not have any contact. Nor did he have any dealings with prominent Francoist figures. He had met Ramón Serrano Suñer years earlier in Zaragoza, at the academic staffof high schoolAmado, where they both taught classLaw, but there had been no friendly relationship between them. This explains why in Burgos, where Serrano Suñer (who was then Minister of the Interior and, so to speak, "Franco's right-hand man") lived, they did not have any attention.

Nor did he have a special relationship with two old acquaintances from his university days in Zaragoza who obtained political posts in 1938: Enrique Giménez Arnau, who was appointed head of the private administrative officeof the Ministry of the Interior at the same time; and José Lorente Sanz, who was appointed undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior. The attentionwith the latter was reduced to making a series of arrangements for the publication of Camino.

These were the only people in the political sphere whom he knew.

In the military sphere, Escrivá had known General Luis Orgaz Yoldi since 1931, a neighbour of the Romeo family, with whom he had been friends since the years he lived in Zaragoza. He also knew two other military men: Colonel Vicente Rodríguez Rodríguez, father of Vicente Rodríguez Casado, a young member of Opus Dei; and Joaquín Lahuerta López, the father of a student who frequented the residency programDYA.

In Burgos, he met mainly personalities from the ecclesiastical and academic world, and especially young students whom he had dealt with at the residency programDYA and who came to see him from various places.

source: www.opusdei.es

He stayed for most of the time in a modest hotel, now defunct, the Sabadell, together with Pedro Casciaro and Francisco Botella. José María Albareda spent some time with them, as he lived in nearby Vitoria.

Casciaro and Botella, both students of Exact Sciences, were simple privates. Casciaro was assigned to the General Directorate of Mobilisation, Instruction and Recovery, and was assigned to the Cipher Office, where he was in charge of encrypting and decrypting the telegrams that were sent and received, with messages that were at core topic due to the logical requirements of the conflict.

Botella was assigned to the Recovery Section of that Directorate General, which was related to Hospitals and Health.

source: www.opusdei.es

All the witnesses agree that his attitude was unusual at the time: in the face of the violence generated by the war, he always spoke of forgiveness and urged people to flee from revenge and seek reconciliation.

In April 1938 he wrote about a conversation he had had with a young officer whom he had met by chance during a train journey to Andalusia: "An ensign, who has suffered extraordinarily in his family and his estate because of the persecution by the Reds, prophesied his next revenge. I tell him that I have suffered like him, in my family and in my estate, but that I wish the Reds would live and convert. Christian words clash, in his noble soul, with those feelings of violence, and you can see him react".

-Francesco Angelicchio, one of the first Italians in Opus Dei, says: "I have always heard him express very clear and severe condemnations of totalitarian, tyrannical and liberticidal regimes, whatever their colour.

URBANO, P., El hombre de Villa Tevere, place & Janés, Barcelona 1995, p. 118.

source: www.opusdei.es

Pedro Casciaro era hijo del Presidente del Frente Popular en Albacete, y durante su estancia en Burgos fue objeto de una grave denuncia por parte de un antiguo conocido de su familia. No se le acusaba de nada personal, sino del hecho de ser hijo de un Presidente del Frente Popular. La denuncia no prosperó, porque el denunciante falleció repentinamente.

Contaba Casciaro en su libro Soñad y os quedaréis cortos la actitud del Fundador después de la travesía por los Pirineos, cuando dejaron atrás muchos meses de temores, angustias y sufrimientos.

"Eran tiempos de guerra y los ánimos estaban muy exaltados; las opiniones, sobre todo en el terreno político, se defendían con ardor y pasión. Los que se habían escapado de la "otra zona" caían con frecuencia en un revanchismo exacerbado, explicable por las víctimas que habían tenido en su familia o por las penalidades que habían sufrido. Sin embargo, jamás, en medio de este ambiente, vi ni oí en el Padre expresión alguna que no fuera serena, prudente y caritativa con todos. Y de los que entonces estuvimos más cerca de él, quizá pocos podrían estar tan sensibilizados como yo, a causa de mi compleja situación familiar.

Un comentario hiriente, un gesto de desprecio, una alusión... yo lo hubiese detectado enseguida; pero nunca lo dijo. El Padre nunca hablaba de política: quería y rezaba por la paz y por la libertad de las conciencias; deseaba, con su corazón grande y abierto a todos, que todos volvieran y se acercaran a Dios. Y sufría cuando escuchaba una valoración exclusivamente política de aquellos sucesos, olvidando la cruenta persecución religiosa y los numerosos sacrilegios que se estaban cometiendo.

Eso explica que apenas llegamos a Fuenterrabía el Padre me pidiese que dejara una relación escrita en la Oficina de Información, haciendo constar los esfuerzos que había hecho mi padre, a veces con éxito, para salvar muchas vidas y evitar sacrilegios. Valiéndose de su cargo de Director provincial de Monumentos Históricos y Artísticos, mi padre había logrado esconder en unos almacenes en Albacete y en un sótano del pueblo de Fuensanta, ignorados por las masas, muchos vasos sagrados, custodias, imágenes religiosas, etc. Es justo —me dijo el Padre— que el día de mañana se sepa el bien que ha hecho tanta gente buena, independientemente de las opiniones políticas que hayan podido tener.

Estas palabras ponen de manifiesto su grandeza de alma. Nunca formuló una acusación para nadie: cuando no podía alabar, callaba. Jamás tuvo una expresión de rencor. Y en aquella época no era tarea fácil unir el amor a la justicia con la caridad; pero el Padre supo hacerlo admirablemente.

Otro rasgo característico de aquel momento histórico es que mucha gente hablaba de sí misma en un tono heroico y grandilocuente: se puso tan de moda el contarse unos a otros sus penalidades pasadas, que llegó a acuñarse esta frase: "no me cuente usted su caso, por favor". Por contraste, el Padre, que tenía tantas penalidades que relatar, no lo hizo nunca. Tampoco buscó un acomodo oficial. Hizo lo de siempre: trabajar, callar, rezar, y procurar pasar inadvertido.

Nos recomendó, en medio de aquel clima exaltado, que nunca tuviéramos odio en el corazón y que perdonáramos siempre. Hay que situarse en aquellos momentos para entender lo que significaban estas palabras en toda su radicalidad: estaba teniendo lugar la mayor persecución sufrida por la Iglesia en España, en la cual murieron casi siete mil eclesiásticos y numerosos católicos a causa de su fe.

Algunos de los que habían perdido la vida en aquel conflicto a causa de su fe eran muy amigos del Padre, como don Pedro Poveda, Fundador de la Institución Teresiana, hoy también en los altares; o don Lino Vea-Murguía, al que detuvieron el 16 de agosto del 36 y abandonaron muerto, tras asesinarlo, junto a la tapia del Cementerio del Este. Habían asesinado también a muchos sacerdotes conocidos suyos; entre ellos, a su padrino de bautismo.

Era viudo —comentaría el Padre años más tarde, evocando su figura, a raíz de la pregunta de una mujer que había sufrido una cruel persecución en su país—, y más tarde se hizo sacerdote. Lo martirizaron cuando tenía sesenta y tres años. Yo me llamo Mariano por él. Y a la monjita que me enseñó las primeras letras en el colegio —era amiga de mi madre antes de hacerse monja— la asesinaron en Valencia. Esto no me horroriza, me llena de lágrimas el corazón... Están equivocados. No han sabido amar.

He recordado todas estas cosas para consolarte, hija mía, concluyó diciendo el Padre a esta mujer; no por hablar de política, porque yo de política no entiendo, ni hablo, ni hablaré mientras el Señor me deje en este mundo, pues ése no es mi oficio. Pero di a los tuyos, de mi parte, que se unan a ti y a mí para perdonar.

El Padre supo perdonar; y nos enseñó a perdonar siempre".

—CASCIARO, P., Soñad y os quedaréis cortos. Testimonio sobre el fundador de uno de los miembros más antiguos del Opus Dei. Prólogo de Javier ECHEVARRÍA, Rialp, Madrid 1994, pp. 130-132.

Al inicio de la guerra civil Álvaro del Portillo tuvo que refugiarse en la embajada de Finlandia, que fue asaltada a comienzos de diciembre de 1936. Fue detenido y pasó casi dos meses en la cárcel de San Antón (cuya sede era el colegio de los Escolapios de Madrid). Fue liberado sin cargos el 29 de enero de 1937, gracias a las presiones diplomáticas que se hicieron desde diversos países para la liberación de las personas detenidas de forma indiscriminada en los distintos asaltos a las sedes diplomáticas en el Madrid republicano. Su padre estuvo detenido, también de forma arbitraria, en la misma cárcel y falleció a causa de las penalidades poco tiempo después de que le dejaran en libertad. El fundador pudo administrarle —siempre de forma clandestina— la Unción de los Enfermos haciéndose pasar por médico.

Manuel Sainz de los Terreros fue detenido el 30 de agosto de 1936 por los milicianos que registraban su domicilio. Fue llevado a la cárcel de Porlier (otro colegio de Escolapios convertido en cárcel durante la guerra), y quedó en libertad vigilada con obligación de realizar trabajos para la cárcel de San Antón.

Juan Jiménez Vargas fue encarcelado en un registro efectuado en el domicilio familiar. Fue acusado de haber militado en la AET, Asociación Escolar Tradicionalista, vinculada al carlismo. En noviembre de 1936 estuvo a punto de formar parte de una saca de presos de la cárcel de Porlier: todos los componentes de esa saca fueron fusilados en Paracuellos del Jarama. Se libró —como sucedió a tantas otras personas durante aquel conflicto— por la arbitrariedad y el desorden con que se producían las detenciones y se llevaban —cuando se llevaban— los procesos. Más tarde quedó en libertad, y posteriormente decidió desertar del ejército republicano, en el que ejercía su profesión de médico.

Se desconoce la razón concreta por la que condenaron a José María Hernández Garnica. El hecho es que de la cárcel de San Antón de Madrid pasó a la de San Miguel de los Reyes, en Valencia, y luego fue liberado y destinado al servicio militar en la retaguardia, primero en Rodalquilar (Almería) y posteriormente en Baza (Granada), donde le sorprendió el final de la guerra.

source: www.opusdei.es

At the beginning of the war, most Spanish civilians of military age were enrolled on one side or the other, depending on who was in command in the area where they were. It was therefore geography that decided which army one belonged to, except in cases of voluntary evasion to the other side. At that time Opus Dei members were still very few.

Specifically, the men of Opus Dei who were of military age and lived in Madrid or Valencia were called up for the Republican army. This was the case of José María Hernández Garnica, Ricardo Fernández Vallespín, Juan Jiménez Vargas, Pedro Casciaro and Francisco Botella. Their fortunes were different in each case.

Miguel Fisac hid in his family home in his hometown of Daimiel until he crossed the Pyrenees to the other side. Eduardo Alastrué, Vicente Rodríguez Casado and Álvaro del Portillo remained refugees in diplomatic legations until the summer of 1938, when they enlisted in the Army of the Republic. In October they escaped through the Guadalajara front and joined the other army, as each of them personally considered that the political regime defended by many of the leaders of that side - Marxist and materialist - was incompatible with their Christian conscience.

Others, such as José Ramón Herrero Fontana, José Isasa and Jacinto Valentín Gamazo, were caught in the war in the area dominated by the insurgent military and joined the so-called "national army". The last two died at the front.

source: www.opusdei.es

Como recuerda John F. Coverdale, "la Falange dominaba la vida política española después de la Guerra Civil. Era el único partido y controlaba tanto el sindicato único como la única organización estudiantil permitida en el país. Al igual que muchos españoles, algunos miembros del Opus Dei pertenecían a la Falange o a su organización estudiantil. Y otros no quisieron hacerlo.

Escrivá dejó claro a los del Opus Dei que disfrutaban de total autonomía en materias políticas. Como leales hijos de la Iglesia, estarían obligados a seguir las indicaciones dictadas por la jerarquía para salir al paso de las situaciones políticas que amenazasen los valores espirituales. Pero el Opus Dei no les daría ninguna orientación política. (…) Los miembros de la Obra, por tanto, gozaban de completa libertad para pertenecer o no al partido.

El Opus Dei animó a sus miembros y a quienes participaban en sus actividades de formación a ejercer responsablemente su libertad de adscripción política, pero en ningún momento trató de dirigir la elección de nadie. Así, cuando uno de los estudiantes de la residencia de Jenner propuso al director organizar una campaña a favor de la organización estudiantil de la Falange, el director, cortésmente, rechazó la iniciativa y explicó con claridad que la residencia respetaba la libertad política de quienes en ella vivían.

Cada fiel del Opus Dei es libre de manifestar sus opiniones. Y no sólo eso: algunos participan activamente en la vida política. Por ejemplo, Juan Bautista Torelló, un joven barcelonés del Opus Dei, pertenecía a una asociación cultural catalanista, considerada en su momento como un grupo clandestino contrario al régimen. Se lo contó a Escrivá, quien le insistió en que los miembros del Opus Dei eran libres para tomar sus propias decisiones en materias políticas y culturales. Le explicó también que ningún director de la Obra podría ejercer su influencia en estas materias sobre ningún miembro del Opus Dei ni sobre las personas que se acerquen a sus apostolados. Escrivá le sugirió que procurara no ser arrestado, ya que para entonces en Barcelona sólo eran seis de la Obra y sería un golpe para su desarrollo el que uno de ellos estuviera en la cárcel. Pero, concluyó, "haz lo que mejor te parezca".

Como cabeza del Opus Dei y como sacerdote, Escrivá fue muy cuidadoso de no dar sus opiniones en el campo político. En los años inmediatamente posteriores a la Guerra Civil, cuando el himno nacional sonaba en las ceremonias oficiales, casi todo el mundo —también muchos obispos y sacerdotes— saludaban con el brazo en alto, según el uso adoptado por la Falange y el régimen de Franco. Escrivá nunca lo hizo, y no tanto por mostrar oposición, sino para no identificarse con ningún grupo político. Así, consiguió no influir sobre los miembros de la Obra ni retraer de la dirección espiritual a nadie que no compartiera sus opiniones en estos campos.

Además, Escrivá no dudó en tratar a quienes mantenían posturas contrarias al régimen o eran juzgadas impopulares entonces. La viuda de una persona que estuvo en la cárcel porque se sospechaba que pertenecía a la masonería escribió al fundador del Opus Dei para agradecer la amistad y atención a su marido, en momentos en que nadie, ni siquiera sus más íntimos, se atrevieron a manifestarle su afecto.

Este respeto a la libertad sentó mal en ambientes falangistas, que veían una amenaza a sus aspiraciones en cualquier grupo que no estuviera bajo su control directo. Así, la revista "¿Qué pasa?" y otras publicaciones falangistas publicaron crudos ataques contra la Obra y su fundador, permitidos por los censores oficiales del régimen.

Cierto día, alguien que trabajaba en la Secretaría General de la Falange entregó a Fray José López Ortiz, agustino, buen amigo de Escrivá, una investigación sobre "la organización secreta Opus Dei" llevada a cabo por el servicio de información de la Falange. Además de referirse al Opus Dei como una organización clandestina, se le atacaba por su internacionalismo, su oposición a la nación y al régimen y su supuesto antipatriotismo. También acusaba a la Obra de ser contraria a la Falange y de maquinar sectariamente para hacerse con el control de la universidad. Fray José, que describió el documento como una atroz calumnia, no pudo contener las lágrimas al leerlo al fundador. Para su asombro, Escrivá le miró, sonrió y dijo: "No te preocupes, Pepe, porque todo lo que dicen aquí, gracias a Dios, es falso: pero si me conociesen mejor, habrían podido afirmar con verdad cosas mucho peores, porque yo no soy más que un pobre pecador que ama con locura a Jesucristo". En lugar de romper el documento, Escrivá se lo entregó a Fray José para que se lo devolviera a su amigo y éste no tuviera problemas después".

—COVERDALE, J. F., La Fundación del Opus Dei, Ariel, Barcelona 2002, pp. 314-316. 

El documento a que se hace referencia en los dos últimos párrafos ha sido publicado por RODRÍGUEZ JIMÉNEZ, José Luis, Historia de Falange Española de las JONS, Alianza Editorial, Madrid 2000, 552 pp: "Informe Confidencial sobre la Organización Secreta Opus Dei", elaborado por la Delegación de Información de la Falange.

REDONDO, Gonzalo, La configuración del Estado español, nacional y católico (1939-1947) Eunsa, 1999.

source: www.opusdei.es

This tribunal was set up at the end of the war to prosecute and purge those who were considered ideological enemies of the new regime: Freemasonry, communism, anarchists, etc.

The identity of the author or authors of the complaints remained secret, as did the first phase of the investigation. The accused only knew the charges against him at the very moment he was called to testify.

Luis López Ortiz, secretary of that tribunal - who was the brother of Fray José López Ortiz, a religious who was a close friend of Escrivá's - informed Saint Josemaría of the existence of these accusations, which were dismissed after the relevant investigation.

source: www.opusdei.es

St Josemaría may have learned of the encyclical Mit brenneder Sorge in March 1937 from the republican press in Madrid during his stay in the Legation of Honduras. The encyclical was first published by Cardinal Gomá in the Boletín Eclesiastico of the diocese of Toledo in January 1938. Later, in the course of 1938, it was published in the episcopal bulletins of thirty other Spanish dioceses. It is therefore possible that Saint Josemaría was aware of it during that year. Official propaganda prohibited its publication in the press, but not in the diocesan bulletins.

José Orlandis recalls that in September 1939 St. Josemaría told him that he had offered Mass for Poland, which was then under attack by Hitler's Germany, "this Catholic country that is suffering tremendous pain from the Nazi invasion.

Domingo Díaz-Ambrona had traveled to Germany in 1941. There he perceived the anti-Christian nature of the Nazi regime. Upon his return, he noticed that in Spain Nazism was seen in a very different way, as an enemy of communism. For this reason, on a chance meeting with Josemaría Escrivá on a train trip from Madrid to Avila in August 1941 (when the German invasion of Russia was already underway), he was interested in discussing these issues with him. He was surprised to see the forcefulness with which the priest warned him against Nazism, which he said was a pagan ideology that persecuted the Church and Catholics.

St. Josemaría opposed all totalitarianisms, and in a very special way Nazism. Logically," says Alvaro del Portillo, "Father Josemaría distinguished between Nazism and the German people. Precisely because he felt a particular affection for that nation - it was a sentiment inherited from his father - it pained him greatly to see it subjected to that aberrant dictatorship. His sorrow would increase with the outbreak of the Second World War".

"At the end of the thirties, after having lived through the sad experience of the civil war, most Spaniards nurtured a well-founded prevention against communism. The same did not happen with Nazism: moreover, the official propaganda, for one reason or another, not only silenced the crimes of National Socialism, but also prohibited in Spain the publication of the pontifical document condemning it.

For this reason, our Founder had to speak out more than once against Nazism in his priestly ministry. Precisely because in some official Spanish circles the German regime was viewed with sympathy, he felt it his duty to warn those who were oblivious to the aberrations of that ideology: he criticized not only its totalitarianism, but also the persecution and discrimination against Catholics, Jews, etc., and the tone of paganism that characterized Nazi racism. He was lavish in making known the content of the pontifical document of condemnation, and in spreading it privately."

-PORTILLO, Á. del, Interview on the Founder of Opus Dei, Rialp, Madrid 1993, pp. 33-34.

Amadeo de Fuenmayor, Full Professor of Civil Law and Canon Law, affirms that Escriva's attitude, "condemning Nazism, was categorical," and provides an extensive list of "expressions referring to Hitler and his racist system, which we have heard from him on many occasions," including the following:

- "I abominate all totalitarianisms."

-Nazism is a heresy, apart from being a political aberration.

-It gave me joy when the Church condemned it: it is what all Catholics had in their souls.

-Everything that is racism is something opposed to God's law, to natural law".

-I know that there were many victims of Nazism, and I regret it. It was enough for me that there had been only one -for reasons of faith and, moreover, of people- to condemn that system".

-Hitler has always seemed to me to be an obsessive, a wretched man, a tyrant.

-URBANO, P., El hombre de Villa Tevere, place & Janés, Barcelona 1995, pp. 119-120.

Pedro Casciaro recalled:

"With regard to Fascism and Nazism, there was no case of confrontation, since Opus Dei began its stable work in Italy and Germany when those regimes no longer ruled. On one occasion I heard him [Josemaría Escrivá] speak with admiration of Cardinal Faulhaber, who had had the courage to publish some Advent conferences in the cathedral of Munich, during Nazism."

Testimony quoted in URBANO, P., El hombre de Villa Tevere, place & Janés, Barcelona 1995, p. 118.

source: www.opusdei.es