They ask for prayers for Spanish priest of Opus Dei Ignacio Belzunce

The Spanish priest of Opus Dei Ignacio Belzunce, 54, is hospitalized in serious condition after a bicycle accident on December 25.

On Christmas morning, the Navarrese priest, chaplain of the Orvalle school in Madrid, suffered a serious fall when he was riding a bicycle in the Fuencarral-El Pardo area, on the outskirts of the capital, on a path to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Valverde.

The emergency services reported that the priest lost control on a descent, skidded and fell from the bicycle, hitting his head, which caused a head injury.

Two witnesses who were nearby alerted the emergency services. Upon arrival, members of the Samur-Civil Protection found Father Ignacio Belzunce in a coma.

Given the seriousness of the situation, they proceeded to intubate him and he was urgently transferred to the La Paz Hospital in Madrid. Doctors confirmed that the priest, an experienced cyclist, suffers from a very severe brain injury that presents many small brain hemorrhages.

Father Ignacio and little Maria

Father Ignacio Belzunce was chaplain at the Montealto girls’ school in Madrid for 12 years, also linked to Opus Dei, the scene of a tragic accident that occurred in November 2021.

A mother from school, while trying to reverse to park her car, accidentally drove forward, running over three girls. Two of them were hospitalized in serious condition and the youngest of them, María, only 6 years old, died instantly.

María’s mother was able to hug her daughter and say goodbye before she died. Then, he got up to go hug the woman who had run over his daughter, as a sign of forgiveness, a gesture that moved all the witnesses to the tragic accident.

Father Ignacio said that when he found out what had happened he came out “immediately”: “I knelt next to little María and took her hand and made the sign of the cross and began to pray,” he said in an interview with the newspaper. The World.

Days later, María’s parents wrote a letter in which they asked the woman who was driving the car “to abandon herself in the Lord to realize that she is not to blame and that although it is incomprehensible, Our God has allowed it to obtain goods. older.”

According to the autopsy, María died from a head injury and several fractured ribs. Various Catholic platformsfamily and friends of the priest have started a prayer chain for his recovery, especially asking for the intercession of little “Mariquilla”.