The history of the Benedictine community that the Government promised to expel from Cuelgamuros | Spain

The socialist government foured with the Church. The agreement with the Vatican It will finally allow the Benedictine community to remain in the Arcagamuros Valleyformerly known as the fallen, despite the recurring promise in the last five years of expelling them from the monument as an essential element of the resignification of the complex that the Executive intends. Sources from the Ministry of Presidency directed by Félix Bolaños, the person in charge of these negotiations, say that « there was no alternative » and indicate as « counterpart » the permission to launch an international competition of ideas to remodel the complex, as well as the relay of the prior, Santiago Cantera, and the exit of two other profranquist monks.

However, in the Pope’s last interview with President Pedro Sánchez, Last October, what was transmitted from Moncloa was that they were working to resolve two issues: that the Spanish Church faced the Compensation for pedophilia, and the eviction of the Benedictines of Cuelgamuros to comply with the provisions of the Democratic Memory Law. Finally, the monks stay and asked this Thursday in case they had unbridled the payment of compensation, sources from the Ministry of Presidency were limited to saying that these negotiations « go for a different channel and have nothing to do with the agreement on Cuelgamuros. » The bishops have been warning for months that they will not collaborate contributing money and will continue to « repair » those affected through their internal processes. More than a hundred victims that they have come to these ecclesial processes deny that the Church is doing it. Testimonies collected by this newspaper They point to seven monks from the Benedictine community in Co -Camamuros until the seventies for sexually abusing them when they were children.

A Francoist decree created in 1957 the so -called Foundation of the Santa Cruz del Valle de los Fallen to « beg God for the souls of the dead in the National Crusade, impetrate the blessings of the Most High for Spain and work for the knowledge and implementation of peace among men on the basis of Christian social justice. » The Benedictine community assumed those tasks by an agreement signed in May 1958. The Democratic Memory Law (2022) said “extinguished” said foundation “for being incompatible its purposes with constitutional principles and values”. The extinction, according to the text, depended on a royal decree that has not yet been approved. Already before the law, in 2020, the then first and responsible vice president of democratic memory stated that the presence of the Benedictines in Cockam was « incompatible » with the plans to resignify the monument. Different government members over the past five years said they had « won their expulsion from the valley. The current Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, thus responded last May to El País:

« Is there any possibility that the Benedictines stay in Cuelgamuros? »

« We want them to leave. » We are talking to them and ecclesiastical authorities. It must be a lay center that serves to explain the war and what came later. It is not possible to stay.

« How have they taken it? »

« They don’t want to leave, there is some resistance, but there was also for exhuming the remains of Francisco Franco and in the end justice endorsed. »

Torres abounded in it a few months later in the Senate: “In relation to the resignification of Co -Camuros, the Benedictine monks, because the law of democratic memory is sent, they cannot be in that location. And so we will do so, because it is also the result of the Constitution itself. The times of identification of the State with a certain confession have been overcome. Moreover, I am convinced that the position of the Catholic Church It will be reinforced with cooperation to relocate the Benedictine monks, for the same reasoning according to which society would not value this positively if the process were put in the process. ”

This newspaper has attended to Masses in the Cazgamuros Valley in which attendees were asked to pray « for the unity of Spain » and against « the general apostasy, the law of abortion, gender legislation and gay marriage. » Santiago Cantera, the prior who He was about to be arrested on the day of exhumation of Franco’s remains, to which he opposed at all times, has just been relieved and waiting for a new destination. According to sources from the Episcopal Conference, he had exhausted his term of three trienniums and therefore could not renew. The San Benito rule, which governs the community, does not specify that practice. Cantera had been in the position since September 2014. The Benedictines were divided into the vote after the resignation of the previous Abad, Anselmo Álvarez, who had a decade in the position, so finally they appointed him a prior administrator, a lower range. The rule of San Benito does, it says, about the priors: « Many times it happens that by the choice of the prior serious scandals are born in the monasteries, because there are some possessed of the evil spirit of pride. » In his youth, quarry was candidate twice, In general and European elections, for a Spanish phalanx branch.

Anselmo Álvarez, his predecessor at the head of the abbey, wrote a report in which he assured that « none » of the prisoners who worked in the construction of the monument did so forced. His first 20-N, anniversary of the dictator’s death, as Abbot in the monastery, in 2004, said: « The memory of the fallen brings together this altar to many who want to come to pray so that the sacrifice of one and the other has served the salvation of Spain. » In that and other homilies, political opinions have already slipped, calling to ignore the law – ”it is necessary to obey God before men” – and predict a change of government: “sooner or later, in Spanish society an unstoppable clamor will be lifted in demand for reparation for the infinite moral damage caused in the family and in society, in the moral and social order, in the honor and in the honor of the Spaniards.” In 2007, he abounded in nostalgia: « What the times have brought us immediately past has not been only some changes in the government regime of our society, but the threat of the historical and spiritual bankruptcy of our nation. » Those are the profiles and statements of those responsible for the Benedictine community of the Valley in the last 20 years.

The Government states that the plan to resignify the monument will affect part of the basilica, which will have an independent door for those who want to visit the complex, not go to Mass, and walk against the crypts where more than 33,800 people lie, the equivalent of the city of Teruel. The Archdiocese of Madrid has assured in a statement that « the only thing definitely agreed has been the permanence of the Benedictine community and the non -desacralization of the basilica, as well as respect for all religious elements located outside it. » « Any other aspect related to resignification, » they add, « it is the exclusive competence of the Holy See and the Government, which are the parts that have carried out the negotiations. In relation to the interventions within the temple, they will be studied respecting the liturgical criteria and the end for which the basilica has been erected. »

It is not the first time that the PSOE gives to the Church. « We are not anticlerical, but lay. We will repeal the agreements of the Holy See « Pedro Sánchez promised in 2014. The review of these agreements appears and disappears from the socialist electoral programs. In the 2016 generals, the commitment to “denounce the agreements of Spain with the Holy See” and “Update in the Constitution the principle of secularism according to the interpretation of the Constitutional Court and suppress the reference to the Catholic Church” appears. The political resolution of the last Congress of the PSOE, of December of last year, says: « Our will is to culminate a lay educational system with religion outside school hours when the agreement on educational and cultural matters signed between the Spanish State and the Holy See. » Something similar has happened with the fiscal bull of the Church. The Government agreed in 2023 with the Episcopal Conference The end of the exemptions that affected the tax on constructions, facilities and works and the tax for special contributions, but the Church remains without paying the IBI for the properties that generate benefits and other taxes. It was also a socialist executive who, far from promoting the « self -financing » of the Church that promises in its programs, made the Spaniards pay in 2007 34% more to the Catholic organization. Until that date, no other government, nor those of José María Aznar, had given the bishops so much moneydespite the promises made by Vice President María Teresa Fernández de la Vega – « we have reached a point where the contributions of the State to the Catholic Church, which have gone to more every year, will have to go less, » he said in 2005- or by Minister Jesus Caldera – « That the financial statement to this religious confession will have to end one day » -.