Opus Dei spokesman aims to address misconceptions surrounding apostolate

Jack Valero, Opus Dei’s spokesman in the United Kingdom for the past 25 years, has just published “ El Opus Dei sin filtros. Por qué me hice de la Obra ” (“Opus Dei Unfiltered: Why I Joined the Work”).

In the book, he presents the apostolate founded by St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer in 1928 through the experiences and testimonies of some 20 members. “Opus Dei” in Latin means the “Work of God,” commonly referred to by members of the apostolate as “the Work.”

Valero has spent many years answering questions about this institution, which has nearly 100,000 members across almost 70 countries worldwide.

Speaking with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, he noted that “sometimes, answering the way I used to — ‘from the top down’ — makes it harder to explain” what it actually means to belong to the Catholic Churchʼs only personal prelature.

Thus, when he was offered the chance to write the book in late 2025, he decided to tackle the challenge “from the bottom up.”

“It is the people themselves who speak about their lives. Having done it that way, I think it is far more effective, because it’s more real. Or rather, it doesn’t explain everything to…