Spanish government retracts and withdraws 2 fines from the promoter of Rosario de Ferraz

The Government Delegation in Madrid rectifies and withdraws two fines of 1,200 euros each that it had imposed on the promoter of Rosario de Ferraz, José Andrés Calderón, referring to January 3 and 4, 2024.

At the beginning of this year, Calderón received two resolutions from the Government Delegation in Madrid in which the dismissal and archiving of two sanctioning files of 600 euros each were agreed.

In these files, the promoter of this prayer initiative that has been carried out since November 2023 on the steps of a church near the national headquarters of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) was accused of “disobedience to agents of authority” by interpret that he encouraged protests of an ideological nature and participated in them.

This statement was made despite the fact that the members of the National Police Corps present on the day of the events recorded in their reports that “the organizer José Andrés disassociated himself from the concentration against the Government at all times” and that “he disappeared from the place as soon as the aforementioned prayer is finished.”

In conversation with ACI Prensa, Calderón expresses his surprise that the fine imposed on him in relation to January 2, 2024 has not also been withdrawn, for the same reasons and the same amount.

Regarding that day, it should be noted that Calderón, at the end of praying the Rosary, told the attendees that he had received a warning letter from the Government Delegation regarding the occupation of the road, despite the fact that these subsequent actions are not related with the moment of Marian prayer.

Calderón denounced that the Executive wants to put an end to the Rosary, because “they are aware that prayers work”, he appealed to personal conscience to act after the prayer and stated: “We are going to continue praying with permission from the Government delegation or without him” before adding that “praying to the Virgin Mary for Spain can never be a crime or administrative offense.”

As can be seen in the recording he made OK DiaryCalderón left the scene and did not participate in the protests about which the Government Delegation warned.

How did Rosario de Ferraz start?

The one known as Rosario de Ferraz has its remote origin in the general elections held on July 23, 2023 in Spain. In November, the PSOE announced a pact with various political forces (communists, nationalists, heirs of the terrorist group ETA) that included an amnesty for those convicted of the attempted secessionist coup d’état in Catalonia perpetrated in 2017.

This decision generated a wave of protests and expressions of rejection, which were also carried out by several individual bishops, who described these agreements as “immoral” and denounced that, in them, those who “offended seriously and violently against coexistence, destroying a rule of law.” “They determine the future of a people with their currency.”

Shortly after, the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) published a text in which it expressed its concern about the social and political crisis in the country.

In this environment, since November 3, protest concentrations began to take place in the vicinity of the PSOE headquarters. On Sunday, November 12, a group of lay people decided to pray the Rosary at the doors of the Sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception, a few meters from the site of the protests, without mixing with them.

Soon the prohibitions on praying the Rosary began by the Government Delegation, which was responded to with a massive presence of people who, raising the decenaries in their hands, resisted the police action peacefully.

Subsequently, the call to pray was prohibited on several occasions, despite which, the Ferraz Rosary has been carried out uninterruptedly for almost 14 months.