Pope Francis Accused Opus Dei and Allies of ‘Mafia-Like’ Tactics in Bombshell Letters

El País printed two letters, from 2023 and 2024, in which Francis told Bishop Ángel Pérez Pueyo his intervention against Opus Dei was “total.” On Saturday the Virgin of Torreciudad goes home.

Pope Francis during a general audience in St. Peter’s Square in 2023.

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In the months before his death, Pope Francis told a Spanish bishop not to give in to Opus Dei and accused the people working against him of “mafia-like intrigues,” according to two handwritten letters the Madrid daily El País published Thursday.

The letters went to Bishop Ángel Pérez Pueyo of Barbastro-Monzón, in northeastern Spain.

The first, dated July 13, 2023, ends with an order in the pope’s Argentine Spanish: “¡No cedás!” Don’t give in.