Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri

Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri Fernández de Heredia (12 December 1916 – 16 July 1975) was a Spanish Catholic professor and a member of Opus Dei. She was one of the first women to join Opus Dei, after meeting the founder Josemaría Escrivá in 1944. She helped start Opus Dei in Mexico and also collaborated directly with Escrivá in Rome. Her beatification was celebrated on 18 May 2019 in Madrid.

Life Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri Fernández de Heredia was born in Madrid on 12 December 1916 as the fourth of four children (and the only daughter) to Manuel Ortiz de Landázuri, a military officer, and Eulogia Fernández-Heredia. Her three elder siblings were Manuel, Eduardo, and Francisco, who died in childhood.

Crisis struck the nation with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in the mid-1930s. When her father was taken prisoner and condemned to execution, Ortiz de Landázuri accompanied her brother, Eduardo, and their mother to bid a final farewell, just hours before his death. It was after this, in 1937, that she relocated with Eduardo and their mother to Valladolid where her elder brother Manuel resided; she remained there until the civil war ended, just a few months before the outbreak of World War II.

Beatification In 2001 the Opus Dei prelate Javier Echevarría Rodríguez started the steps needed to launch the beatification process. The forum for the diocesan process for the cause was transferred on 30 March 2001 from the Pamplona-Tudela diocese to the Madrid archdiocese at which point the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on 3 November issued the "nihil obstat" (no objections) edit to begin the cause and to title her as a Servant of God. Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela opened the diocesan process on 18 November and later closed it on 18 March 2005. From 2002 to 2003 there were 66 sessions held with 32 witnesses from Madrid being called to provide evidence and interrogatories while another week-long session in mid-2003 in Mexico saw 22 witnesses giving evidence in support of Ortiz de Landázuri's virtues in 37 sessions. Cardinal Lluís Martínez Sistach presided over the dioscean process for confirming the miracle from 25 May 2007 until 16 January 2008 investigated. The C.C.S. validated this process on 24 October 2008 and a medical panel of experts later confirmed that the healing in question was indeed miraculous at their meeting held on 5 October 2017. The medical board also examined the diagnostic process of the ailment and the healing in just a few hours without treatment. The experts declared the occurrences not explicable from a scientific perspective. The postulation later drafted a Positio for the miracle which was submitted to the C.C.S. on 2 January 2018 before the theologians also issued their assent to the miracle on 1 March. The theologians determined the relationship between the healing and the invocation of Landázuri. The C.C.S. also confirmed the case on 5 June determining that it should be acknowledged as a miracle and passed to the pope for his approval. Pope Francis approved a decree recognizing this miracle on 8 June which allowed for Landázuri to be beatified. The beatification was held in Madrid at the Palacio Vistalegre on 18 May 2019.

Landázuri was the first lay member and the first female member of Opus Dei to be beatified.

The current postulator for this cause is Fr. Antonio Rodríguez de Rivera.