Roman Catholic Saint. Founder of the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer was born in Barbastro, the second of six children. Receiving his education in Logroño and Zaragoza, he was ordained priest on March 28, 1925. Moving to Madrid two years later to undergo studies in law at the local university, while participating in a retreat on October 2, 1928, he came up with the idea of the Opus Dei - the Work of God - a lay movement through which Catholics could sanctify themselves without abandoning secular life. Going into hiding during the Spanish Civil War, he resumed his studies at the end of the conflict. With the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, attached to Opus Dei, founded on February 14, 1943, Escrivá moved to Rome three years later. Earning a doctorate in theology from the Lateran University, he was appointed consultor to two Vatican congregations and named honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology. Pope Pius XII granted Opus Dei official recognition on June 16, 1950. By the time of his sudden death in 1975, it was present already in five continents and had more than 60,000 members from eighty different nationalities. Awarded the Grand Cross of Alfonso X the Wise, the Gold Cross of St. Raymond of Penafort, the Grand Cross of Isabel the Catholic, the Grand Cross of Charles III, a doctorate 'honoris causa' from the University of Zaragoza and the Gold Medal by the city council of Barbastro in 1975, he petitioned for and was granted by the Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco, the title of Marquis of Peralta in 1968, which he eventually renounced in 1972 in favor of his brother. Clasping in his hands the same cross that Saint Pope Pius X held on his deathbed during his lying in state, his body was interred inside a black marble sarcophagus in the Opus Dei church in Rome, where it was eventually moved under the main altar and placed inside a silver casket. Beatified on May 17, 1992 by Pope John Paul II, the same Pontiff declared him saint on October 6, 2002. His liturgical feast day is held on June 26.