Opus Dei has been governed as a personal prelature since 1982, the first and so far only use of that canonical category in the Catholic Church. A personal prelature's jurisdiction rests on a specific pastoral mission rather than on a fixed territory, so Opus Dei operates worldwide while its members remain, for ordinary sacramental life, under their own local diocesan bishop. The prelature depends directly on the Holy See, specifically the Roman Pontiff and, since a 2022 reform, the Dicastery for the Clergy.
The prelate is proposed by an internal congress and appointed by the pope; Monsignor Fernando Ocariz Brana has held the office since 2017, governing from the prelature's headquarters on Viale Bruno Buozzi in Rome. Membership divides into several categories: numeraries are celibate members who typically live in Opus Dei centers and work full time for the prelature; supernumeraries, the majority, marry, raise families and hold ordinary careers while taking part in its spiritual formation; and a smaller number of priests and associates, alongside a much larger circle of non-member cooperators, complete the structure.
On July 22, 2022, Ad Charisma Tuendum moved oversight from the Dicastery for Bishops to the Dicastery for the Clergy and specified that the prelate would no longer be ordained a bishop, though he keeps the title Monsignor. Opus Dei's schools, universities and cultural centers, its corporate works, are legally independent institutions run in Opus Dei's spirit rather than owned by the prelature itself. Alongside this formal structure, former members and journalists have documented recurring allegations of high-control recruitment and secrecy in some of its residences and formation programs, allegations Opus Dei disputes.