Spanish bishops face protests over ‘resignification’ of Franco-era monument

The gigantic cross that looms over the entrance of the Cuelgamuros will remain, and the basilica underneath it will remain a place of worship administered by Benedictines.

An angry crowd gathered outside the headquarters of the Spanish bishops’ conference during its spring plenary meeting to protest against an agreement between the Spanish government and the Vatican about the future of the Cuelgamuros monument.

Commissioned by the Spanish dictator Franciso Franco, the monument northwest of Madrid celebrates his victory in the Spanish Civil War. The protesters, organised by the right-wing movement Hazte Oir (Make your Voice Heard), shouted insults and called the bishops “traitors” as they came and went from the meeting.

On 4 April the Archbishop of Madrid Cardinal José Cobo said the Vatican and the Spanish government had reached an agreement about the “resignification” of the site. The monument is the entrance to a cemetery, previously known as “The Valley of the Fallen”, that houses the remains of over 33,000 victims of the civil war in a mass grave. Until 2019 it also contained the tomb of Franco himself.

Under the terms of the “resignification”, the gigantic cross that looms over the entrance will remain, and the basilica underneath it will remain a place of worship administered by a Benedictine community, though the monks, under the guidance of the Abbot of Solesmes, have elected a new superior, replacing Fr Santiago Cantera who had led the community since 2014 and opposed the exhumation of Franco’s remains. The Spanish bishops will be consulted on any alterations to the fabric of the basilica.

The changes required agreement between the Spanish government and the Vatican because the site is a national monument. They were confirmed in February at a meeting in Rome between the Spanish minister of the presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, with Cardinal Cobo acting as an interlocutor.

Under Spain’s 2007 Historical Memory Law, monuments glorifying Franco’s dictatorship are banned. Previous proposals for the Cuelgamuros site included turning it into an educational centre.

Addressing the opening of the bishops’ plenary meeting, the conference president Archbishop Luis Argüello of Valladolid said the time when Spaniards could say “I’m Catholic because I was born in Spain” was over.

He said the Church could “no longer take for granted that Spanish people are converted or initiated into the Catholic faith in the society of today”.

A recent survey from the US-based Pew Research found that 35 per cent of adults who said they were raised Christian now describing themselves as religiously disaffiliated. This makes Spain the country with the highest proportion of religiously disaffiliated people in Europe.

Argüello said it had never been possible “to be a Christian alone”, hence the importance of promoting communities where people experience “holistic formation of the heart”.

He emphasised the role of apostolates like the youth movement Hakuna to “make an impact” on participants, but said they faced the difficulty of “transforming an emotional experience into virtue”.

A new virtual museum asks: how should we remember the Spanish Civil War?

View from Alicante

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