BY Ian Dunn | May 11 | 
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Cardinal Nichols to offer thanks for Bishop Álvaro del Portillo’s Beatification
Archbishop of Westminster to celebrate Mass tomorrow night on feast day of first successor of St Josemaría at the head of Opus Dei
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, will celebrate Mass at Westminster Cathedral tomorrow night in thanksgiving for the Beatification of Bishop Álvaro del Portillo.
Bishop Álvaro, (1914-1994), first successor of St Josemaría at the head of Opus Dei, was Beatified in Madrid, Spain, (above) in September last year. He is the second member of Opus Dei to be raised to be Beatified.
Bishop Alvaro was born in Madrid and met St Josemaría Escrivá in 1935, becoming one of the first members of Opus Dei which had been founded only seven years before. Trained as a Civil Engineer, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1944. From then on he spent his life working closely with St Josemaría as well as taking on various assignments for the Holy See, especially during the Second Vatican Council. After the founder’s death in 1975 he took over at the head of Opus Dei.
In 1982, when Opus Dei was established as a personal Prelature in the Church, he became its first prelate, and was ordained a bishop in 1991 by Pope St John Paul II.
Blessed Alvaro loved Britain having spent prolonged periods in London from the 1950s onwards. He accompanied St Josemaría every summer between 1958 and 1962, and came again several times in the 1980s. He often mentioned that his Mexican mother had been at school in London for a time. His feast day tomorrow was fixed by Pope Francis to be celebrated on May 12.
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