Luis Valls and Opus Dei

In the early 1950s, Opus Dei began expanding, especially throughout Spain, while starting apostolic work in other countries and constructing its central headquarters in Rome. As an administrator, Luis Valls promoted and participated in various initiatives to secure the financial resources needed for this expansion: setting up residences, constructing student halls, and building Opus Dei’s central headquarters, for example. The financial needs of this expansion accumulated, and the vast majority of Opus Dei members at that time were students with little income and few opportunities to generate it. Luis took on this task with a great sense of responsibility. He felt these needs as his own, and resolving the financial difficulties faced by those leading each apostolate became one of his main occupations, to which he dedicated much time and applied a lot ingenuity to find solutions.

To this end, he approached several financial institutions as a client. His approach to Banco Popular Español, where his uncle Félix Millet was president, was on another plane, and he eventually focused professionally on the Bank, where he was appointed executive vice president in 1957. Talking about a bank in 1957 is not the same as a bank today: in 1974, despite various mergers, there were more than two hundred banks in Spain, not counting foreign entities and others such as savings banks.