Francisco Fernández Carvajal, author of ‘Hablar con Dios’ and former editor-in-chief of ‘Palabra’ magazine, dies’

Francisco Fernández Carvajal, one of the most important spiritual authors in the Spanish language in recent decades, has died in Madrid at the age of 88.

This priest of the Opus Dei prelature was for more than ten years editor-in-chief of the magazine Palabra, the predecessor of Omnes and is the author of the meditations known as Talking with God. 

A native of Albolote, Granada, Fernández Carvajal received a degree in History from the University of Navarra and a Doctorate in Canon Law from the Angelicum in Rome. In 1957 he requested admission to Opus Dei and was ordained a priest in 1964. 

In his first years of priesthood, he developed his pastoral work in Barcelona in different tasks. At the beginning of the 1980s he moved to Madrid and began to work for the magazine Word, He worked for more than ten years and published dozens of interviews and articles of an informative and formative-pastoral nature.

Throughout his life, he developed a varied pastoral work within the Prelature of Opus Dei He was, among other things, chaplain of the Orvalle school, or confessor in various parishes, such as La Visitación de Las Rozas, until his health allowed him to do so. 

His best known work, Talking to God, edited by Word, is a set of more than four hundred and fifty meditations for each day of the year and has been translated into English, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Romanian, Slovak, Polish, Russian and Hungarian. 

Other works of his have also been published by this same publishing house, with numerous reeditions: Life of Jesus, The Gospel of St. Matthew, The Gospel of St. Luke, La Tibieza, Children of God (in collaboration with Pedro Beteta), Stay with me, Ascetical Index of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, As you wish (meditations on the Passion), The day I changed my life.

His work Anthology of texts, for prayer and preaching, with more than seven thousand quotations from the Holy Fathers and other ancient and modern authors. His latest book, The passage of Life, was released in 2018.