José Escrivá was a merchant and a partner in a textile company that eventually went bankrupt, forcing the family to relocate in 1915 to the city of Logroño, in the northern province of La Rioja, where he worked as a clerk in a clothing store.

"[14] During the Spanish Civil War, Escrivá fled from Madrid, which was controlled by the anti-clerical Republicans, via Andorra and France, to the city of Burgos, which was the headquarters of General Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces.

[15] After the war ended in 1939 with Franco's victory, Escrivá was able to resume his studies in Madrid and complete a doctorate in law, for which he submitted a thesis on the historical jurisdiction of the Abbess of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas.

"[14] According to some accounts, at the age of two he suffered from a disease (perhaps epilepsy[17]) so severe that the doctors expected him to die soon, but his mother had taken him to Torreciudad, where the Aragonese locals venerated a statue of the Virgin Mary (as "Our Lady of the Angels"), thought to date from the 11th century.

[citation needed] Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist, founder of "logotherapy", and a Nazi concentration camp survivor, met Escrivá in Rome in 1970 and later wrote of "the refreshing serenity which emanated from him and warmed the whole conversation", and "the unbelievable rhythm" with which his thought flowed, and finally "his amazing capacity" for getting into "immediate contact" with those with whom he was speaking.

For instance, the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote in an article of 1963 that Escrivá's The Way provided an "insufficient spirituality" to sustain a religious organization and that the book was hardly more than "a little Spanish manual for advanced Boy Scouts".

Although he missed the practices of the old rites, especially some gestures such as the kissing of the paten (a small plate, usually made of silver or gold, used to hold the Eucharist), he prohibited his devotees to ask for any dispensation for him "out of a spirit of obedience to ecclesiastical norms...

Referring to Escrivá, John Paul II stated in Christifideles omnes:During the Spanish Civil War he personally experienced the fury of anti-religious persecution and gave daily proof of heroism in a constant priestly activity seasoned with abundant prayer and penance.

[14]Pope John Paul II stated on Sunday, 6 October 2002, after the Angelus greetings: "Love for our Lady is a constant characteristic of the life of Josemaría Escrivá and is an eminent part of the legacy that he left to his spiritual sons and daughters."

The Pope also said that "St. Josemaría wrote a beautiful small book called The Holy Rosary which presents spiritual childhood, a real disposition of spirit of those who wish to attain total abandonment to the divine will".

According to critics like Luis Carandell[52] and Michael Walsh[50] a former Jesuit priest, he also adopted the use of the conjunction y ("and") joining his father's and mother's surnames ("Escrivá y Albás"), a usage which he says is associated with aristocratic families, even though that has been the legal naming format in Spain since 1870.

Defenders of Escrivá have also argued that the addition of "de Balaguer" corresponded to a practice adopted by many Spanish families that felt a need to distinguish themselves from others with the same surname but proceeding from different regions and consequently having different histories.

[56]Estruch cites, for instance, the fact that the first edition of Escrivá's The Way, finished in Burgos and published in Valencia in 1939, had the dateline Año de la Victoria ("Year of the Victory"), referring to Franco's military triumph over the Republican forces in the civil war,[57] as well as a prologue by a pro-Franco bishop, Xavier Lauzurica, which ended with the admonition to the reader to "always stay vigilant and alert, because the enemy does not sleep.

[46] Journalist Luis Carandell, however, recounts testimonies about how members of Opus Dei paid for the insignia of the Grand Cross of Charles III to be made from gold, only to have Escrivá angrily reject it and demand instead one encrusted with diamonds.

[68] In particular, the "technocrats" most associated with the "Spanish miracle" of the 1960s were members of Opus Dei: Alberto Ullastres, Mariano Navarro Rubio, Gregorio López-Bravo, Laureano López Rodó, Juan José Espinosa, and Faustino García-Moncó.

It is in fidelity to our people’s Catholic tradition that the best guarantee of success in acts of government, the certainty of a just and lasting peace within the national community, as well as the divine blessing for those holding positions of authority, will always be found.

[36] In another essay, published the following year, von Balthasar characterized Opus Dei as "an integrist concentration of power within the Church", explaining that the main objective of integrism is "imposing the spiritual with worldly means".

[75] Some critics of Opus Dei, such as Miguel Fisac[27] and Damian Thompson, have argued that the group has always sought "advancement not only of its message but also of its interests",[76] and that it has consistently courted those with power and influence, without maintaining a coherent political ideology.

[95] According to historian Ricardo de la Cierva (a former Minister of Culture in the Spanish government) and to architect Miguel Fisac (who had been close to Escrivá and member of Opus Dei from 1936 until his departure in 1955), Escrivá's request for the title might have been part of an unsuccessful attempt to take control of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), a Catholic religious order which required its leading members to be of noble birth and to which his deputy in Opus Dei, Álvaro del Portillo, already belonged.

[99] In this way, its work complements that of the dioceses, and in some cases even takes the form of a more direct collaboration: for example, when priests of Opus Dei assume pastoral care of parishes at the request of the local bishops.

[60] His cause for beatification was introduced in Rome on 19 February 1981 on the strength of the apparently miraculous cure in 1976 of a rare disease, lipomatosis, suffered by Sister Concepción Boullón Rubio, whose family had prayed to Escrivá to help her.

On 9 April 1990, Pope John Paul II declared that Escrivá possessed Christian virtues to a "heroic degree", and on 6 July 1991 the Board of Physicians for the Congregation of the Causes of Saints unanimously accepted the cure of Sister Rubio.

By way of a letter dated 15 March 1993, the Postulation for the Cause received news about the miraculous cure of Dr. Manuel Nevado Rey from cancerous chronic radiodermatitis, an incurable disease, which took place in November 1992.

Woodward declared that, of 2,000 pages of testimonies, about 40% are by either Álvaro del Portillo or Javier Echevarría Rodríguez who, as successors of Escrivá at the head of Opus Dei, would have the most to gain from the Catholic Church recognizing that organization's founder as a saint.

[105] Critics of the process also questioned the fact that some of the physicians involved in the authentication of the two "scientifically inexplicable cures" achieved through the posthumous intercession of Escrivá, such as Dr. Raffaello Cortesini (a heart surgeon), were themselves members of Opus Dei.

The dissenters were identified as Luigi De Magistris, a prelate working in the Vatican's tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, and Justo Fernández Alonso, rector of the Spanish National Church in Rome.

[125] The Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, who was appointed cardinal by Pope John Paul II (but died in 1988 before his investiture), dismissed Escrivá's principal work, The Way, as "a little Spanish manual for advanced Boy Scouts" and argued that it was quite insufficient to sustain a major religious organization.

"[citation needed] Sebastiano Baggio, Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, wrote a month after Escrivá's death: "It is evident even today that the life, works, and message of the founder of Opus Dei constitutes a turning point, or more exactly a new original chapter in the history of Christian spirituality."

"[126][127] The "absolutely central" part of Escrivá's teaching, says American theologian William May, is that "sanctification is possible only because of the grace of God, freely given to his children through his only-begotten Son, and it consists essentially in an intimate, loving union with Jesus, our Redeemer and Savior.

Pope John Paul II made the following observation in his homily at the beatification of Escrivá: With supernatural intuition, Blessed Josemaría untiringly preached the universal call to holiness and apostolate.