Father José Luis Soria, RIP: St. Josemaría Escrivá’s Saintly Doctor

National Catholic Register, 20 October 2022

The Opus Dei priest, a medical doctor who was at St. Josemaría’s bedside when he died in Rome in 1975, was widely regarded as a canonizable saint himself long before his death earlier this month in Vancouver.

“A canonizable saint.” 

That was a widely shared judgment upon the death of Father José Luis Soria, an Opus Dei priest who died in Vancouver on Oct. 3. 

“Canonizable” is the key. Opus Dei’s raison d’être is that ordinary people can become holy — saints in heaven — in the most mundane circumstances, attracting no particular attention from the world. Being a saint is rather the default position from their members. A “canonizable” saint is something different, one who attracts widespread attention for his holiness.  

One story making the rounds about Father Joe — as he was universally known — was that Archbishop Michael Miller of Vancouver was once asked why there were no canonized saints from his diocese. “Because Father Soria has not died yet,” Archbishop Miller replied.  

At age 90, Father Soria’s death was long expected, and even a desired blessing. After two strokes in 2014, he was unable to continue his rather intense ministry of preaching, confessions, spiritual direction and travel. In recent years his physical diminishment advanced and it was difficult for him to move and speak.  

Father Soria was best known in Opus Dei for the first half of his life. His mother was one of the first married women (“supernumerary”) to join Opus Dei, not long after it was founded by Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá in 1928. Growing up in Valladolid, Spain, Soria studied medicine there. He joined Opus Dei as a celibate member (“numerary”) in 1949, aged 17. Having qualified as a medical doctor, he moved to Rome in 1953 to study for the priesthood, and was ordained in 1956.  

Given senior positions in central offices of Opus Dei, for 20 years (1956-1976) he also served as Escrivá’s personal physician. He thus lived in close proximity to the future saint for reasons both of governance and medical care. 

He was with Escrivá when the Opus Dei founder suffered a sudden heart attack in June 1975 and tried to revive him. 

“After an hour and a half of vain efforts by a small group, some of them also physicians, I closed his eyes with my fingers,” Soria would later write. 

“In Opus Dei, he became a master of the interior life and a historical reference point for all. He was a great witness to the life of the founder,” preached Msgr. Antoine de Rochebrune, vicar of Opus Dei in Canada, at Soria’s funeral Mass Oct. 14, imagining a “reunion in heaven” between patient and doctor, founder and follower. 

In 1976, at age 44, Father Soria was sent to Canada, where he would work in Opus Dei apostolates for the second half of his life. While Opus Dei was first established in Canada in the 1950s, it has relatively few numerary male vocations, so leadership was often sent from other countries. Soria was the vicar for Canada from 1977 to 1984.  

It was after that service that another missionary phase of his life began, traveling monthly to Alberta and British Columbia to plan the seeds of Opus Dei in western Canada. After 13 years of frequent travel, he moved permanently to Vancouver in 1997, where he lived for 25 years, becoming such a beloved part of the local Church that Archbishop Miller granted him the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal in 2020. It was a recognition not only of the patriarch of Opus Dei in western Canada, but his fatherhood to many priests in Vancouver. 

Why the extraordinary esteem for Father Soria, given that the last 25 years of his life were absolutely routine, following the highly regulated, inflexibly scheduled life of an Opus Dei priest? 

Three aspects of his priestly witness come to mind: humility, serenity and preaching. 

Father Soria had extraordinary natural gifts and was, to use a favorite Opus Dei term, a man of great refinement. One of his priestly brothers told me that had he not become a priest, he would have certainly been one of Spain’s most senior ambassadors. Either that or perhaps minister of health. 

His work in Canada was not so exalted, preaching for years in various parishes and retreat houses, often having to put up with makeshift arrangements and, lacking a permanent Opus Dei center in the cities he visited, taking his meals in with families in sometimes chaotic circumstances. He embraced all of this, not thinking himself above it all, or appealing to his closeness to St. Josemaría for special treatment.  

As my family was one of those who occasionally hosted Father Soria, we saw his unusual serenity. It is easy enough for a priest to be serene in the sanctuary, another thing in a family home. Yet he was calm amidst the disruptions of family life, and carried dice in his pocket to entertain children with one of his favorite magic tricks. 

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