Donostiarra at birth, has a family of Leitza and lives in Bilbao.

My parents went to San Sebastian to get a job, and that's why I was born and lived there, in the Casco Viejo. After several years working as a waiter in a cafe, the father returned to Leitza and opened the Basakabi hotel and restaurant. Today my two brothers are still in the hospitality world. He spent weekends and holidays in Basakabi, but he lived in Donostia with an aunt. At the end of high school, I went to Bilbao, to Sarriko, to study Economy. The political situation was very harsh, everything was right. Apart from economics, I learned many other things in college: I met people who were very committed to politics, to social issues -- and I stayed with that. I learned what it's like to be consistent in that environment.

Have you worked for years in the administration, in particular?

I started in the Department of Finance of the Provincial Council of Álava. Then, in '95, I was a public office. The Director of Culture. It was four very interesting years. When I finished, I was the director of a department for Spatial Planning, Housing and the Environment at the Provincial Council and I spent another four years in the Basque Government, with Xabin Intxaurraga in the Environmental Department. I also worked in politics with EA.

Why did you leave all that to start working at Opus?

There was a time when I needed a change. He had been working in the administration for many years, and he thought it was better to make a leap. My brain was asking for something else. I felt like I wanted to leave here for some time. At that time, two years earlier, I was proposed to set up the Communication Office of the Basque Country in Opus. Because I wanted to change and it was something different, I accepted. I was incredibly lucky. I took eight months of sabbatical and went to North America. I spent six months in Toronto and two more in the United States, watching how they work at the Opus offices.

When you started this profession, you also left politics active. Why?

I was at the EA executive in Álava, but in this new job, I had to work with different people, and I thought my political position had to be on a private level. However, my political thoughts have not changed for that.

If you followed, would you be from Bildu now? Curious, right?

As it happens to Rafa Larreina: he is also the numerary of the Opus and a Deputy of Amaiur in the Congress of Madrid. Maybe my case would be more spectacular.

Surely these are questions that have asked you many times: Why, when and how did you enter Opus?

Yes, they ask me a lot of times, of course, but it's normal. After all, with Opus it happens that it is a relatively new phenomenon within the Church and that produces morb. When I was young, I was a very normal boy. At that time, most of us lived in a Christian social environment. I started to get into a crisis that we've all had in life during the student era, and through Opus, I understood what Christianity was. There, I knew a different way of being a Christian. I entered provisionally at 18 years of age and five years later definitely, as the incorporation is normally carried out in five years. I did the numerary.

What is being from Opus?

Real Christianity enters your life and becomes a life project. This gave me clarity to understand the meaning of my life. The other day I read to Pedro Almodóvar the phrase: “I write and make films to fill the void of my life.” Filling that gap is the main challenge each has in life. Some people aren't very aware that they're entering a quick life or don't want to think, but then when life hits you, you need some kind of support to move on.

Reading your website, knowing you… it seems that we are talking about an NGO or a fundamental citizen movement of the Church, but on the other hand the image we have of Opus is much more negative. What's going on there?

When I started thinking it was the first step to start this communication work to know what people think of us. I spoke to 500 people from different backgrounds. After all these interviews, I saw that they do respect them, but they don't love us. And that's been, to a large extent, our fault. To us what happens to the whole Church, we are in the same bag. For many years they have given us firewood and we have been afraid to bring it out, but these times have passed and now we have to show a more majestic, more popular attitude. We have to show what we do and make ourselves known.

Are you an efficient community in the structure of the Church?

Cash? There are 4,500 bishops, of whom only 23 belong to Opus. only 0.1%. The Vatican, for its part, has also accounted for 0.1% of tourist arrivals in Opus. It is true that they have placed themselves in very important positions, but now, for example, the Jesuit Federico Lombardi is the spokesman for the Vatican, who came to replace the Navarro Valls of Opus, and nobody says “what power the Jesuits have”. I don't see that he's so heavy.

But talking about Opus is also talking about a lot of things that go beyond religion, right? Money, politics… Opus always comes in contact with money and the right.

If that were true, if I had seen it, I wouldn't belong to Opus. Things are not white or black. His first corporate work was in Bizkaia in 1951: Gaztelueta College. Prior to the outbreak of the war, Escrivá de Balaguer was in Madrid, where Opus had a student residence. Only the rich had the opportunity to go to study there. It was one of Bilbao that opened the school. The people around them, the Neguri people, went there, and that's why it's linked to that sector and that environment of society. But Bilbao or Euskal Herria is much bigger and the product we offer is for everyone, not just for them, for those who have money. If we started from scratch, I would do it in a very different way: a value-based project, but for everybody. But we're not beginners, and we have to do a great job of changing all of this.

You say you're a green dog at home, but also inside Opus, right?

[Laughing] I'm often told I'm different. We're all different.

In Navarre, the red carpet has always been put on Opus: the floor given when building the university, then aids, permits… Recently, UPN was ready to facilitate the opening of the research centre in Donapea.
I'll tell you one thing. Do you know that Gipuzkoa provides more money than Navarre to the University of Navarre in the Basque Autonomous Community? And with the centres, with the subsidies, there is no problem. It seems that in Navarre everything is different.

And how can one understand the segregation of students according to gender?

I'm not an expert. Now they have already begun to say that in public schools in the United States they have also started to distinguish girls and boys in order to achieve better results… I consider this a second-level debate. It is parents who have to have complete freedom to decide. Why not?

Aren't everyone in Opus's schools?

Not much less, not the family or the teaching staff. In Navarre there may be more University and Clinic and through them many families of Opus have arrived, but in Bilbao, for example, Opus may be no more than 5%. There are people because they are looking for values, perhaps a social esatus.

You're a numerary. What does this mean?

80% are supernumerary, can form families. This is the standard. And then there's the weirdest of us: the numeraries. In the same spirit, but we have full readiness to train supernumeraries out of work, to move to other territories or to carry out concrete work. Always on a voluntary basis, not orderly.

And is it hard to resist celibacy?

When I was young, when I was in Basakabi, I was going to the disco with my friends. A normal kid. I know that seen from the outside is hard to understand, but when Christianity enters your life and becomes your project, that means you stimulate your inner life and you end up establishing a certain personal relationship with God. In this relationship you see that she needs people to be offered in their entirety. And this situation gives you the freedom to be with everyone. I believe that this is the most coherent way of acting. I don't like the word celibacy. It looks like something terrible about the monastery that's been lost. Anyway, situations, people, relationships -- they don't look like 20 or 50 years old.

Are penalties (a tool used in the body to combat sexual temptations) and such penalties commonly used?

That's called mortification. However, the founder says that real mortification is in the small things of everyday life. For example, have a good mood back from work home. “The best mortification is sometimes a smile,” he said. It's a personal struggle, an effort to improve my personality, a struggle to make life easier and more comfortable for others. It's the hardest battle. To have a spirit of this kind, you have to strive hard and depending on nature you're going to fight one way or another.

Have you ever used it?

Yes, I have used it. And it's normal that people don't understand it.

And what have you learned?

It's a kind of training. A requirement that is made to oneself. In that sense, we must take it. I don't know if that's going to last, but the important thing is the other, the personal struggle that is made every day to get better.

The Pope has now spoken about the role of women in the Church. Are they secondary members?

We do not yet have a priestess, but otherwise they are on the same level. The important thing is to ensure the role and dignity of women in society and in the church. The participation of women is a relatively new issue in many areas of society and in the Church things are always moving much slower. I am clear that women are more than men. Women have a much wider frequency band. Men are simpler. They're more sensitive and they capture things more easily. Women know how to treat people of any age and in any situation, and that's noticeable in the world of work. They provide another more global point of view in the elaboration of proposals and decision-making. I have seen it many times, so it is very important that there are women in the decision-making places. That's my perception.

However, some of the Opus still think that the task of women is not to learn and work, but to stay at home taking care of their husband and children.

I have also heard that, but you have told me that for a long time.

We were told by a professor that I was studying at the University of Navarra, and I am not so old…

That is why I say to him that we have to improve a lot.

Don't some of the Opus members try to wash their mouths with soap in those cases?

This is happening in all the institutions. Communication must be made outward and inward. The outsider is much easier. Looking inwards, we're seeing where we have our lagoons, and Prelatura has already recognized it.

In the town of Ansoáin (Comarca of Pamplona), protests are held in front of the clinic practising abortions. In the previous one the archbishop also intervened. What do you think of that?

There are styles and styles. Some see these kinds of initiatives well and others prefer to explore other paths. Now, for example, I've met a person who has launched a project called Maternity. The aim of the aid is for pregnant women who are in difficulty or have been raped to have a child, and also to have to provide assistance on a permanent basis. That does seem to me to be an interesting initiative. I would never go to the clinic in Ansoin to protest, but I cannot hinder others. What I can do is talk and try to convince things to be positive, but nothing else. On the other hand, the issue is being presented in the press as if it were “Operation Opus” and that is not the case either. They say the University grants credits to its students for going there. It's nonsense.

What is the new Pope like?

Very good. As soon as I saw it, I thought I was a good communicator. In two months he has turned a lot of things around. With Benedict there appeared the pederastia, the Vatileaks, the theft of documents, the mafias… one after the other. He turns it around because he has grasped the axis of the message. It is very demanding of itself and very coherent. It doesn't have communication consultants, and the truth is, it's doing very well without anyone advising it.

Good for Opus?

Very good. She's a great woman.