May 24th is the date on the letter from Msgr. Montini, appointing St Josemaria as His Holiness’ domestic prelate. Bl. Alvaro had made the petition to the Holy See.
Andres Vazquez de Prada makes mention of this in his well-known book as a way to explain how the founder was so serious about the secularity of Opus Dei:
"The case for secularity must have been very powerful in his eyes, since the year before it had even won out over his own humility in the matter of his appointment as a monsignor.
It all began when Don Alvaro, now the Procurator General of Opus Dei, after having consulted the other members of the General Council, requested that the founder be made a Domestic Prelate. Monsignor Montini readily picked up on the idea. The certificate of appointment was dated April 22,1947. Monsignor Montini, who had paid the fees involved in its issuance out of his own pocket, sent it with a handwritten note calling it "a new and solemn proof of the esteem and affection that the Holy Father has for the founder of Opus Dei".
The appointee was disinclined to accept this unsought and unwanted honor, and was on the verge of courteously returning the certificate, when Don Alvaro managed to dissuade him. For him to be called monsignor would make the secularity of Opus Dei more obvious, he pointed out, since religious-order priests did not receive that title."
Andres Vazquez de Prada, "The Founder of Opus Dei"
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