NEW OPUS DEI PRIEST ORDAINED FOR ENGLAND

BY SIMON CALDWELL
A FORMER journalist has been ordained a priest for Opus Del, a personal prelature of Pope John Paul II.
Fr Joseph Evans, 35, received ordination at the hands of Bishop Javier Echevarria, (see left) the prelate of the organisation, at the Church of San Eugenio, Rome.
Fr Evans, who comes from Putney, London, becomes one of 16 British Opus Del priests among 1,800 in 60 countries.
Educated at the Salesian College, Battersea, he studied French and Portuguese at Kings College, London, before working as a journalist in London and then Manchester.
In 1992, he became director of Greygarth Hall, the Opus Del university residence in Manchester, and also landed a job as the "Students' Corner" columnist with The Catholic Times.
Fr Evans went to Rome in 1997 to study at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross and later to Spain, where he was ordained deacon.
He was among 24 priests from 13 countries to be ordained a priest for Opus Dei at the ceremony earlier this month. Fr Donncha 0 hAodha from Oranmore, near Galway, in the Irish Republic, was ordained at the same time.
Fr Evans is likely to return to Britain next year after he completes his doctoral thesis.