CHURCH leaders in Spain have accused the socialist government of the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, of violating a new accord by restricting the religious character of a Civil War memorial site.
The Sánchez government, elected in 2018, has undertaken a £25-million project to “re-signify” the Valle de los Caídos, or Valley of the Fallen, which was constructed after the 1936-39 Civil War and contains the graves of 33,846 victims from both sides of the conflict.
The Spanish Catholic news website El Debate reports that the government has now designated only the main altar and nave of the monument’s pontifical basilica as “places of worship”. Its side altars, chapels, and sacristy are all to be “redesignated”, amid concerns over where clergy will vest for services or whether the sacrament can continue to be reserved.
The archdiocese of Madrid said in a statement that Church and Vatican representatives had agreed to the redevelopment provided that religious services at the basilica and a Benedictine monastic community, present since 1958, remained in place. It went on to say, however, that it felt that the government had gone beyond what was agreed.
“The Church has never encouraged the redefinition activities which the Spanish government wishes to carry out here,” the statement said. “Now the government is taking initiatives without notifying the Church — about issues which should be clarified in advance to ensure religious spaces and sensitivities are respected.”
Original government plans to close the basilica and remove the Benedictines were modified after talks in Rome between the Spanish Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
The remains of Spain’s former dictator General Francisco Franco (1892-1975) were exhumed from the basilica, which forms the centrepiece of the monument, 30 miles north-west of the capital in Spain’s central Sierra de Guadarrama region. The reinterment took place at the El Pardo cemetery, Madrid, with church approval, in October 2019.
In a communiqué in late March, the Madrid archdiocese said that church leaders were confident that the latest accord would ensure that the site remained “a refuge of prayer, reconciliation, welcome, listening, peace, and spirituality”.
The Archbishop of Oviedo, the Most Revd Jesús Sanz Montes, accused the Sánchez government of exploiting disputes over the Valley. “Using the dead to win lost battles and reopening the wounds we worked so hard to heal is irresponsible and evil”, the Archbishop said in a weekly letter. “It undermines coexistence in our Spanish society and easily provokes unwanted confrontation.”