Rome: Two English members of Opus Dei ordained

Fr Soane and Fr Damian-Grint

Two Englishmen, a chartered accountant and an academic, were ordained last Saturday (4 May) in Rome as priests of the Prelature of Opus Dei.

The two men, Andrew Soane and Peter Damian-Grint, aged 48 and 49 respectively, were among 31 Opus Dei members from all over the world ordained by their Prelate, Bishop Javier Echevarría, at the church of Sant’Eugenio in Rome.

All 31, from 12 different countries, have come from the lay faithful of the Prelature and had professional careers before their call to the priesthood. Opus Dei has almost 90,000 members, over half of them in Europe, and operates in the five continents. The majority of members are married but there are also lay celibate members. Some two per cent are priests.

Andrew Soane studied Materials Science at Imperial College before training as an accountant with BDO Binder Hamlyn. He worked six years for them in London and later in Manchester. He then moved back to London, where he worked for 20 years on the governing council of Opus Dei in Britain, dealing frequently with the media as Director of the Prelature’s Media Office in Britain. He is the nephew of Fr Brendan Soane, who was well known to many British priests who have studied at the Beda College in Rome, where he served for many years till his death in the year 2000. His father Gerald Soane was the Grand President of the Catenians.

Peter Damian-Grint studied French at University College London and then for a doctorate at Birkbeck College. He has worked professionally in Oxford as a tutor, researcher and academic editor for 15 years, including at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and most recently at the Electronic Enlightenment Project, a project of the Bodleian Library to digitize letters and documents from the Early Modern period.

Bishop Javier urged the new priests to love Christ in the Eucharist “ever more” as the foundation of their priesthood. Drawing on ideas of Pope Francis, he called on them to “go out of yourselves to think only of the souls that will be entrusted to your pastoral care”, and never limiting themselves to being mere “administrators”.

He called on the congregation and all those listening to him to pray daily for priests. He said it was “a serious duty” of Catholics to pray daily for priestly vocations.

Quoting St Josemaría Escrivá he explained that they were being ordained “to serve, not to command, not to shine, but to give themselves in an incessant and divine silence, in the service of all souls.”

After the ceremony Fr Peter Damian-Grint said: “God makes you change your plans. Until now He has wanted me to be an academic, but at a certain moment I understood that his will for me was that I should be a priest.” Fr Andrew Soane recalls Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain: “I will never forget the silence in Hyde Park during the adoration to the Blessed Sacrament. I never thought that so many thousands could keep silent like that! It was then that it struck me that the people of God need priests.”

Source: Opus Dei