(ZENIT News / Rome, 09.10.2024).- Made public in a press release of the Holy See Press Office on Wednesday, October 9, was the appointment of Monsignor Alejandro Arellano Cedillo, Dean of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, as Plenipotentiary Pontifical Commissioner, Delegate of the Holy See, for the Torreciudad complex in Spain.
Days earlier, on September 25, the Bishop of Barbastro unilaterally raised the litigation to the Holy See on the so-called Shrine of Torreciudad, managed over time by the Opus Dei. After learning of the pronouncement, the Personal Prelature of the Opus Dei published a very detailed press release stating, among other things, the following:
“The Opus Dei has always shown its willingness to agree, within the margins it has considered endorsed by Civil and Canonical Law. This willingness did not find the corresponded that should be expected, after the Diocese’s refusal to reach any agreement except for acceptance on its own terms.
The Prelature has worked more than sixty years from Torreciudad for the Diocese and for the universal Church, and it is our desire that it continue to be so, with the same communion and trust that has always existed.
At the same time, we have full confidence in the study that the Holy See will undertake on this matter, and we are at its disposition to clarify whatever is necessary.”
Three days after the issuing of the initial press release, the Diocese of Barbastro issued a second press release, alleging that it is the object “of defamation” against the Bishop.
InfoCatolica has shown that since the Bishop of Barbastro has taken control of the Shrine, in just two years pilgrimages of the faithful have fallen by 66%.
The conflict of the Barbastro-Monzon Bishopric against the Opus Dei goes back to 2013. After the appointment of the Pontifical Commissioner, it is now for the Holy See to give the solution to the Canonical and Civil conflict over the property and management of this important venue of Marian devotion, linked to the history of the Founder of the Opus Dei.
