Courtney McGrailMonsignor Fernando Ocáriz Braña has been named as the new prelate of Opus Dei. The body’s former Auxiliary Vicar thus becomes the third successor to Saint Josemaria, and replaces Msgr Javier Echevarría, who died on December 12.
Msgr Braña was born in Paris in 1944 to a Spanish family in exile. He graduated from the University of Barcelona in 1966 and received a licentiate in Theology from the Pontifical Lateran University in 1969 and a doctorate in Theology from the University of Navarre in 1971, the year he was ordained a priest. As a theology student in the 1960s, he lived in Rome alongside St Josemaría.