The socialist minister meets with Cardinal Pietro Parolin to insist on pressures on the Church and the future of the Valley of the Fallen, in a new offensive by the Government against Spain’s Catholic symbols.
The Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, traveled this Friday to Rome to hold a meeting with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See. The encounter aimed to “address various matters of interest in the relations between the Church and the State,” according to sources from the Ministry itself.
Behind the diplomatic language, however, everything points to the true purpose of the trip being to reactivate the Government’s plan to desecrate the Valley of the Fallen, an obsession of Pedro Sánchez’s Executive for years, which Bolaños now intends to push forward again with the Vatican’s endorsement.
The socialist minister had already met with Parolin last February to advance his negotiations with the Church, just when the Government announced its intention to “resignify” the Valley of the Fallen, an euphemism with which it seeks to transform a sacred place of worship and reconciliation into a space reinterpreted according to its historical memory ideology.
Although Francisco’s death caught them off guard and forced them to keep the basilica consecrated and allow the Benedictine community to continue its spiritual work in the enclosure, everything indicates that Moncloa has not given up on its desecrating plan, but is seeking ways to weaken the ecclesial presence and neutralize the religious meaning of the monument.
It should not be forgotten that the Government already achieved, with Parolin’s connivance, the irregular and capricious expulsion of Prior Santiago Cantera, who had become the main moral and legal obstacle to Moncloa’s plans. That decision, adopted in the final stretch of Francisco’s pontificate, was interpreted by many faithful as a surrender by the Vatican to the pressures of the socialist Executive.
However, following the death of Pope Francis and the arrival on the throne of Saint Peter of Pope Leo XIV, everything negotiated under the previous pontificate has been annulled. This new meeting in Rome will therefore serve to check whether the Holy See will maintain the line of submission and desecration inherited, or whether Leo XIV will decide to put a stop to the Government’s attempts to strip the Church in Spain of one of its most sacred places.
Despite the Executive’s attempts to impose its narrative, the Valley of the Fallen remains a pontifical basilica, a Catholic place of worship and a symbol of national reconciliation, guarded by the persevering prayer of the Benedictine monks and by the faith of thousands of faithful who refuse to accept its desecration.