The 90,000 lay members and roughly 2,000 priests of Opus Dei, a worldwide Catholic organisation which is currently the church’s lone personal prelature, learned on Tuesday that Pope Francis has changed canon law in a way that may somehow affect them, though it is unclear exactly how the changes to canons 295 and 296 of the Church’s universal law will affect either Opus Dei or any other similar future outfit.
The motu proprio containing the amendments appeared in the daily bulletin from the Press Office of the Holy See on Tuesday, with no prior announcement and little in the way of explanation. The text of the motu proprio states that the changes are intended, in part, to apply the broad reforms of Praedicate evangelium, Pope Francis’s 2022 reorganisation of the Vatican, to the institution of personal prelatures.
