Venerable Álvaro del Portillo

Álvaro del Portillo y Diez de Sollano (11 March 1914 – 23 March 1994) was a Spanish Catholic bishop and engineer who served as the prelate of Opus Dei between 1982 and 1994. Church leaders Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Carlo Caffarra have praised Portillo as a faithful servant of God. John Paul II referred to him as a "good and faithful servant" while Caffarra dubbed him a "disciple of Christ". His cause of sainthood commenced on 21 January 2004 after being titled as a Servant of God. The confirmation of his heroic virtue on 28 June 2012 allowed for Pope Benedict XVI to name him as Venerable. He was beatified on 27 September 2014 in Madrid in a Mass that Cardinal Angelo Amato presided over on the behalf of Pope Francis. Alvaro del Portillo was born in Madrid on 11 March 1914. He was the third of eight children to the devout Ramón del Portillo Pardo and Clementina Diez de Solano Portillo; the couple had married on 11 January 1908. He was baptized on 17 March in the parish of Saint Joseph. He studied civil engineering and after obtaining his doctorate at the University of Madrid taught at its School of Engineering. He briefly worked with the Bureau of Highways and Bridges in the provinces crossed by the rivers Júcar, Duero and Ebro. He received his Confirmation on 28 December 1916 from the Bishop of Siguenza Eustaquio Nieto y Martín and went on to receive his First Communion on 12 May 1921. In 1935, he joined Opus Dei and was subsequently ordained to the priesthood on June 25, 1944 by Bishop Leopoldo Eijo y Garay of Madrid as one of the first three men ordained for Opus Dei He continued his studies to obtain a doctorate in Philosophy and Letters in history in 1944 from Central University of Madrid, with a dissertation entitled Discoveries and Exploration on the California Coast. In 1948 he earned a Doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of St.