Javier Echevarría Rodríguez

Javier Echevarría Rodríguez (14 June 1932 – 12 December 2016) was a Spanish Catholic bishop who served as the head of Opus Dei from 1994 until his death. He held doctorates in both civil and canon law. Pope Francis lauded his "constant service of love to the Church and souls", underlining his "fatherly testimony of priestly and episcopal life".

Formation Echevarría Rodríguez was born in Madrid, Spain,

Echevarría was appointed the Secretary General of Opus Dei in 1975, He "helped steer Opus Dei toward a period of normalization after the controversies surrounding the canonization of Escrivá in 2002 and then the turbulence of the Da Vinci Code."

Echevarría Rodríguez served as the chancellor of the University of Navarra in Spain, the University of Asia and the Pacific in the Philippines, and various other universities under the spiritual care of Opus Dei.

He participated in the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for America in 1997 and of Europe in 1999, and also of the General Ordinary Assembly of 2001 and 2005. On Tuesday, 18 September 2012, he was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to serve as one of the papally-appointed Synod Fathers for the October 2012 13th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization.

On 9 July 2005, Pope Benedict XVI greeted Echevarria on the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination, expressing his "esteem and affection":

Governing your Prelature and contemplating in it the action of God’s grace, you never cease exhorting its members—with your example, with your writings, with your words and your pastoral trips—to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose (Acts 11:23).

When you foster the eagerness for personal sanctity and the apostolic zeal of your priests and lay people, not only do you see the flock that has been entrusted to you grow, but you provide an effective help to the Church in her urgent evangelization of present-day society.

In the terrain of culture and the sciences, you strive to spread the Christian message in all environments, as is clearly seen in the recently established Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.

You bear in your heart the defense of life, the family and marriage, and the formation and pastoral care of young people.

Javier's remains were buried inside the crypt of the Prelatic Church of Our Lady of Peace in Rome, next to his predecessor, Álvaro del Portillo.

Works He wrote works on spirituality such as: Memoria del beato Josemaría – reminiscences of Blessed Josemaria "To all who received Him, He gave the power to become sons of God" (Jn 1:12). For a Christian, this is not just a way of speaking or calling. Awareness of divine filiation is rooted in a divine gift that transforms a person from within. St. John puts it this way: "See what love the Father has for us, that He has called us sons of God, and so we are!...We are truly children of God" (1 Jn 3:1–2). St. Josemaria concludes that "whoever is unaware of this is unaware of his innermost truth;" he has not yet discovered the deepest reality of his being, nor the meaning of his existence on this earth. The secret of the apostolic zeal of a disciple of Christ is rooted in his love for the Master. This is what moves him to give his life for others, to spend it in helping them know the divine Word and to live according to the imperatives of the Love of God. His zeal for souls is born from a love for Christ, which like all true love, implies identification with the person loved. On 10 October 2012, during the Seventh General Congregation of the Synod of Bishops he offered this intervention: