In the collective imagination and in numerous sociological analyses, Opus Dei is often associated with a predominantly urban pastoral ministry focused on educated sectors of the middle and upper classes. However, the historical reality of enclaves such as the prelature of Yauyos, in the Peruvian Andes, directly challenges this stereotype.

To delve deeper into this fundamental chapter of 20th-century religious and social history, we spoke with historian  Santiago Martínez Sánchez , a researcher at the University of Navarra (UNAV) and author of key works such as  Parish Priests, Bishops, and Opus Dei (2025). Throughout this interview, Martínez Sánchez analyzes how Opus Dei moved from the major cities to the harshest geographical and existential peripheries of Peru, combining rigorous sacramental care with human development, technical education, and the creation of an indigenous clergy living in conditions of extreme poverty.

In the collective imagination and in many sociological analyses, it has been repeatedly asserted that Opus Dei’s pastoral work was primarily oriented toward urban or educated sectors. However, the history of Yauyos demonstrates a radical integration into extremely impoverished rural areas, lacking communication routes and located at high altitudes. From a historical and transcendent perspective, how can we explain this apparent contradiction between focusing on the capital cities and venturing into the harshest geographical and existential peripheries of Peru?

Opus Dei is interested in both urban (supposedly educated and wealthy) and rural (supposedly poor) social strata. It is true that the Work emerged in urban environments: it arose in Madrid in 1928, spread to other Spanish cities in the 1940s, and, after the Second World War, to the capital cities of countries on various continents. This explains why these analyses have some merit.

However, something that is only now beginning to be studied is being overlooked, and it necessarily changes that categorical narrative about its exclusively urban and supposedly elitist nature. Because from these cities, Opus Dei expands into rural areas with varying degrees of intensity, more or less strong depending on the country.

The example of Spain is clear: between 1928 and 1950, Opus Dei maintained a purely urban presence, which, from the 1950s onward, spread throughout rural Spain. I analyzed this in great detail in my book,  Parish Priests, Bishops, and Opus Dei , published in 2025. In Peru, exactly the same thing happened, except that the chronological difference was much smaller: the first members of Opus Dei arrived in Lima in 1953 and in the highlands of Yauyos in 1957.

During the decades of post-conciliar theological ferment in Latin America, the concept of the “preferential option for the poor” was frequently associated with sociopolitical narratives or class struggle. In light of the archives and the pastoral work carried out in Yauyos, how did the first priests of Opus Dei articulate a response that embodied this same evangelical predilection, but from a radically different paradigm, based on human elevation through work and grace?

In 1957, Opus Dei received a commission from Pius XII to evangelize the people of Yauyos and Huarochirí in the central Andes, an incredibly poor region. The founder and his advisors were fully aware of its poverty, hardship, and difficulties. Going to that neglected Andean world was neither a mistake nor a coincidence. Opus Dei wished to contribute to the urgent pastoral needs of the Church in Peru, driven primarily by a shortage of clergy, and it did so fully aware of the challenges it faced.

The Spanish priests who arrived in Yauyos from 1957 onward shared the love for the poor that Marxist-influenced liberation theology always claimed to possess. In their case, this predilection manifested itself in living as poor as the poor, being among those communities lacking even the most basic necessities, bringing them the sacraments and spiritual solace, striving to understand their mentality, and undertaking initiatives of all kinds to materially develop those Andean communities, without falling into a closed or exclusionary activism that neglected the main objective, which was to strengthen their faith. As you say, they tried to reconcile grace and work, yes. And for me, it’s a mystery how so much serious analysis of that—apparently—tremendous “Opus Dei elitism” so blithely ignores this.

At a recent conference at the PUCP, he addressed the figures of the first two bishops of Yauyos, Ignacio de Orbegozo and Luis Sánchez-Moreno, highlighting their very contrasting personality profiles—the bold and affectionate doctor versus the methodical and systematic jurist. To what extent did this diversity of character enrich a single ecclesial project, and what role did their intense closeness to their presbytery play in such extreme geographical and human circumstances?

Yes, in my opinion, that dual, commanding  and  organizational character   was a blessing—if one can put it that way—for that young prelature of Yauyos. Of course, the former was also an organizer, and the latter was also close to the clergy. Certainly, Orbegozo’s strong charisma and Sánchez-Moreno’s great organizational skills complemented each other and gave their prelature greater stability.

For Ignacio de Orbegozo, caring for his priests was a priority from the very beginning. Despite the distances or the pastoral workload, he never excused them from making a monthly retreat together. He wanted them to live in pairs, not alone, even though at first he only had five priests and the temptation to scatter them was strong. Bishop and priests would meet, pray, eat, and enjoy each other’s company: he would play soccer with them, hunt partridges, fish for trout, cook, and wash the dishes for them. Luis Sánchez-Moreno tried to maintain this style, although without as much interaction with his presbytery.

A clergy that is attended to, cared for, and listened to by its bishops is fundamental to the perseverance of every priest, and it certainly was for all those who lived in Yauyos under such harsh conditions. Moreover, this priority given to the clergy is part of something more general that both bishops learned in Opus Dei: caring for each person. Without this care, that clergy would have quickly disintegrated, as happened in other places, but not there.

In Yauyos, spiritual work was not conceived in isolation from material work: the construction of roads, dams, and schools, along with initiatives like Valle Grande and Condoray. As a historian specializing in 20th-century religious development, how do you assess this symbiosis between sacramentality and rigorous community development in the face of the risk of mere paternalism or the secularization of the Church’s mission?

The dualism that has pitted body against spirit, reason against will, and grace against sin throughout the history of the Church has typically led to dead ends. We also see this one-sided choice between matter and spirit, between spiritual and material well-being, in the 20th century and in today’s world.

However, the teachings of Jesus Christ proclaim both love for God and love for neighbor, and the symbiosis you speak of seems consistent with them. Nevertheless, the Church’s transformation into an NGO or the exclusion of alleviating the needs of others from Christian identity are constant dilemmas in this two-thousand-year history. That is why I highly value this marriage of spirituality and carnality, as something rooted in a very ancient and fruitful tradition.

The founder of Opus Dei was well known for his concern about the profound social inequalities in Peru, and he firmly advocated for the creation of a seminary to foster a native and indigenous clergy. Looking back, how decisive was this Roman directive in ensuring the consolidation, survival, and maturity of the local Church in the Peruvian Andes?

Escrivá de Balaguer’s advice was extremely important and very wise. Moreover, this advice fits within the Church’s tradition of establishing seminaries—seedbeds—for priestly vocations, whose sacramental action makes Christ present in the world. And so, the seminary that began in the Prelature of Yauyos in 1963 ordained its first priests in 1978, and since then, many dozens have received priestly ordination.

Today, the universal Church continues to face the challenge of evangelization in contexts of profound resource scarcity and accelerated cultural transformations. What key aspects of the historical experience of Yauyos—read from our present perspective—do you consider still relevant and capable of inspiring pastors and lay people who today face the mission on the frontiers of geography and faith?

If the “profound scarcity of resources” refers to “human” resources, particularly priests, I would say that these are lacking in Europe and America and abundant in the local churches of Africa and Asia. Although the Church continues to grow globally, it is aging in the West, and in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking America, an incredibly powerful substratum of popular religiosity still remains. Undoubtedly, the challenges you allude to are immense globally, but there are also hopeful elements even in highly secularized contexts, such as the great thirst for meaning felt by so many today, which neither sex, nor power, nor wealth can satisfy.

The Yauyos experience offers two important lessons, in my opinion. The first is that the unity of pastors in a territory is fundamental, and therefore it is essential that the bishop care for his collaborators, his presbytery, not with words but with gestures that reveal his closeness to them is genuine. The second is that the identity and mission of the Christian embraces both the encounter with the supernatural and human development—particularly of the most needy—and therefore, the disruption of this twofold reality is contrary to the message of Jesus.