“We will not stop until we see the Valley of the Fallen and its Benedictine community free of all danger.” The Francisco Franco Foundation (an entity in the process of being dissolved under the Democratic Memory Law) sent a letter to the Cardinal of Madrid, José Cobo, asking him to get involved in “the active defense” of the permanence of the Benedictine monks of Cuelgamuros.
After failing in their attempt to be received by the Pope and the Nunciature, the heads of the Francisco Franco Foundation begin their letter by thanking Cobo for a few words on the “inviolability of the temple” to support the idea that the Cardinal of Madrid shows in favor of maintaining the current status of the Valley, a recurring theme in recent times in relations between the Church and the government. At the beginning of July, Moncloa activated an interministerial commission to decide on the future and resignation of Cuelgamuros and thus comply with the Democratic Memory Law.
For the Francoist foundation, “what is supposed to be done from a legal point of view cannot be done in the Valley of the Fallen”, because it conflicts, they say, with the Church-State agreements, which have the status of an international standard, and with the Vienna Convention. “We want to be the hope of all the faithful, very concerned about the future of the Valley of the Fallen”, adds the letter, which also wants to “remind the Hierarchy that it is the bishops who are actively legitimized in the defense of the temple, the Benedictine community, the children of the school and all the faithful who urge its defense.
“We cannot allow the Pius popes to be monks of the Valley either.
In its writings, the Franco Foundation assures that there is a “great movement of people, of all kinds, who have come forward to defend the Valley of the Fallen, both in Spain and abroad (…) we are referring to the Internet” and warns: “We will not stop until we see the Valley of the Fallen and its Benedictine community free of any danger and we have already set an example of how to defend it because of the future importance it has above the whims of anyone.”
“In purity of doctrine, the Valley cannot be touched,” the note ends, adding some curious postscripts, encouraging “everyone” to go to Cuelgamuros, “which is a marvel,” and assuring that they themselves have brought to visit the Valley “to the radicals positioned by the physical disappearance of the Valley,” who, after a happy “conversion,” “from anti-Valley radicals have become fervent defenders of it.”
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