Julián Herranz Casado

Julián Herranz Casado was born in Baena, Spain, on 31 March 1930 and joined Opus Dei in 1949. A doctor of medicine (with a specialization in psychiatry) and of canon law, he was ordained a priest on 7 August 1955 and entered the Roman Curia in 1960, serving on Vatican II commissions as a young official. Professor of canon law at the University of Navarra, he became in 1984 Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Code of Canon Law, and was consecrated a bishop by John Paul II on 6 January 1991.

On 19 December 1994 John Paul II raised him to archbishop and President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts — the Church's chief canon-law interpreter, serving until February 2007 — and also (1999–2010) chaired the Curia's disciplinary commission. John Paul II created him a cardinal on 21 October 2003, with the deaconry of Sant'Eugenio. In 2012 Benedict XVI appointed him to chair the three-cardinal commission investigating the Vatileaks leaks. On Opus Dei's supposed secrecy he told Time: it has “no hidden agenda. The only policy is the message of Christ.” His motto is Domine ut videam — “Lord, that I may see.”