The Bishop of San Sebastián, Mons. Fernando Prado, has rejected the proposal of political groups to demolish the statue dedicated to the Sacred Heart located at the top of Mount Urgull for 75 years.
In a letter entitled Memory in the heartthe prelate has defended that, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of the creation of the diocese and the placement of the monument, “it is a conducive time to reaffirm the presence of the Sacred Heart in our city and, at the same time, from faith, trust the city of San Sebastián and all its inhabitants to their care and protection.”
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In reference to the demolition proposal of the monument in charge of communist and nationalist political groups, which allege that it is an “exaltation of Franco’s national-catolicism,” Mons. Prado has stated that this thesis is “difficult to prove from the historical rigor.”
The prelate recalls that the genesis and purpose of the monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in San Sebastián “respond to exclusively religious and popular motivation, outside of any political-partisan propaganda.”
ORIGIN AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE MONUMENT
Mons. Prado specifies in its letter that the origin of the monument dates back to 1926, when a family intake of the sacred heart in the houses motivated by the publication in 1925 of the encyclical was carried out in the territory of the current diocese of the publication in 1925 of the encyclical Which the first of Pope Pius XI on the social royalty of Christ in which the feast of Christ the King was established. “But devotion to the sacred heart and the idea of raising a monument in the city came from before,” says the bishop.
Thus, he says that, in the 18th century, two Jesuits spread this devotion “promoting more than two hundred brotherhoods”, and since then an altarpiece dedicated to the sacred heart in the church of Santa María del Coro is preserved. “The image is probably the oldest in the Sacred Heart of Jesus throughout the Peninsula,” says Mons. Prado.
During the pastoral government of Mons. Zacarías Martínez Nuñez in the Diocese of Vitoria (1922-1927), to which the current ecclesiastical constituency of San Sebastián belonged, the desire to “erect a monument to the Sacred Heart in Mount Urgull” belonged, as reflected in the Diocesan Bulletin.
When he said goodbye to the diocese to assume the Archbishopric of Santiago, Mons. Martínez wrote a felt letter in which he encouraged that the project of placing this image “between the sky, the earth and the sea, to attract the blessings of the top over the children of your Catholic country was not abandoned.”
With the arrival of the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1936), marked Anti-Christian character, the project was paralyzed. But in 1938, in the middle of the Civil War, “members of the Catholic Legion and the International Movement of the Apostolate of the Prayer of San Sebastián resumed the urgency of carrying out the idea of erecting the monument and thus told the ecclesiastical and civil authorities.”
However, it was not until 1944 when Mons. Carmelo Ballester reimpulsed the project that Mons Prado insists on his letter, “responded to the desire to offer a visible sign of the love of the heart of Christ to the entire province, at a time that needed to recover normality after years of fratricidal conflict.”
In 1945, the Plenary of the City Council unanimously decided to approve the erection of the monument, calling a project contest in 1947.
The blessing and inauguration was held on November 19, 1950 with a Mass presided by Mons. Jaime Font and Andreu, first bishop of the recently created Diocese of San Sebastián. The president of the Diputación de Guipúzcoa, Avelino Elorriaga, consecrated the province to the Sacred Heart and Pope Pius XII, sent a radio message from Rome that could be heard throughout the city.
After this historical tour, Mons. Prado reiterates in the letter that it is “incontrovertible data” from which three conclusions are deduced: it is a project prior to institutionalized Francoism, the initiative is born from believers and the people and “the non -propaganda and exclusively religious character of the opening ceremony itself clearly indicates the nature of the monument.”
“Therefore, affirming that the monument to the Sacred Heart of Mount Urgull is a monument for the ‘Francoist exaltation’ is a thesis that is hardly sustained by the history of the facts,” insists the prelate.
In the last paragraphs of his extensive letter, Mons. Prado adds that “in the current context, the proposed removal referring to Law 20/2022 of Democratic Memory is in danger of replacing a work of purifying Franco’s exaltations by the suppression of a legitimate spiritual and cultural heritage that, from an ideological bias, could attack against the religious freedom of the numerous Catholic community”.
At the end, the prelate invites “to the Donostiarras, without exception, to value this monument as a true living symbol of hope.”
Nicolás de Cárdenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish and journalist’s husband and father with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specialized in socio -political and religious information. I have worked more than 10 years in defense of human rights and I have accreditations in journalism and comprehensive communication. Since July 2022, I am a correspondent for ACI Press and Ewtn News in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.