the legacy of the bishops of Cordoba

The pontificate of Demetrio Fernandez will continue for a while, until he reaches the age of 75. There will be no vicar to prepare the succession, and perhaps it is time to look back and reflect on the previous prelates, who, in one way or another, have shaped the map of the Church of Cordoba.

In a century, the oldest is Adolfo Perez Muñozwho between 1920 and 1945 played the leading role in the longest ministry of recent times in the Church of Cordoba. It was a time when resignation due to age did not exist, so he died in office shortly before his 80th birthday.

It was a turbulent time, marked by Civil warbut also previously because of social unrest, because tension, complaints about the poverty in which a large part of the population lived and also a certain discontent with the work of the Church, were growing.

This is why he created what is still called the San Rafael del Señor Obispo Schoolto educate poor children, which was located in the same episcopal palace and is now in Fuensanta. He also created social housing, especially in the Ollerias districtwhich will bear the name of Mgr Pérez Muñoz for years.

At the time, the monument was erected to Sacred Heart of Jesusbut he soon had to face tensions that ended in the civil war he saw coming. These were years in which many priests were assassinated and the bishop defended the military uprising, while asking forgiveness for those who attacked the Church and invoking national reconciliation, contrary to the criteria of the regime.

Shortly after his death, it happened Fray Albino González Menéndez-Raigada (1881-1958), Dominican who left the deepest mark as a bishop in recent centuries in Cordoba. In his early years he met the poverty and suffering and understood that it was his harvest as a prelate. His traces are still visible on the street plan and on the plan of the diocese, especially of the capital Cordoba.

Parishes

Because if there were people living in inhuman conditions, he was able to work with the public authorities to find a solution. Thus were born the new neighborhoods in which modest and decent homes were built, among which the South SectorCañero (on land offered by the rejoneador) and the one that bears his name.

He also built new parishes there, numbering more than thirty, as well as markets, cinemas and sports facilities, because he also saw aid as social promotion.

The city remembers him with two monolithsin the neighborhood of his name and in the Plaza de Cañero, also with an avenue next to the Guadalquivir and above all with a memory in the city and in many institutions, including the Typografía Católica printing house.

When he died in 1959, he replaced him Manuel Fernandez-Conde (1909-1970), who was the last bishop of Cordoba to lead the diocese until his last breath. He had been ordained prelate by Pope Saint John XXIII in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and from there he arrived in Cordoba.

He is remembered for his kindness and dialoguerand the truth is that part of his work took place in Rome, because he had to attend the sessions of the Second Vatican Council, which he had to begin to implement in his diocese before death surprised him in the first days of 1970.

The city and the Church were already different after an interregnum that ended with the appointment with the arrival as bishop of Jose Maria Cirarda Lachiondo (1917-2008) in 1972. If the era was one of novelties, he did not fail to notice them and even to play a role in them.

During his years, José María Cirarda closed the Cordoba Seminarfaces the secularizations mass of priests after the Council and learned first-hand how the Church became involved in the struggle for democracy and in the workers’ movements. During his years, many of his priests began to be very close to the neighborhood movements and political positions close to the left.

He is remembered for walking the streets a lot, in a small car with which he traveled, but also in the creation of new parishes that served the neighborhoods with which Cordoba grew up. Almost always in very modest conditions or on the ground floor of buildings.

It was a short episcopate, that of the double transition of the Church and of Spain after the death of Francwhich ended with his appointment as Archbishop of Pamplona.

Then the Holy See entrusted the chair of Osio to the last Andalusian who had occupied it until now, a priest of late vocation who had been parish priest of the Savior in Seville and until then bishop of the Canary Islands. José Antonio Infantes Florida He arrived in Cordoba in 1982 and did not hesitate to restore part of what had been lost in previous years.

Thus, he recovered the seminary of San Pelagius and the priests no longer needed to train in Seville and he also cared a lot about the priests and their remuneration. From this time is the box from which the minimum living wagethe modest salary they receive.

In his interpretation of the changes in the Church, he wanted to give priority to the laity, at a time when the Church was still flourishing and the majority participated in worship and activities. None of their predecessors had disdained them and all had approved the birth of those who formed themselves, but in their years the movement of the brotherhoods It is acquiring great strength, like what is happening throughout Andalusia.

He was also concerned with heritage and culture, and of his time he is the Diocesan Museumwhich was installed in the Episcopal Palace, at that time with a different use since it moved to the seminary building. There were works from disused churches or other temples still open for worship.

The Church of Cordoba was then partially marked by the presence of Cajasurthe savings bank that the Cabildo Catedral had founded in the 19th century, as a financial institution for the underprivileged classes, but which, in recent decades, had already spread as an institution with a social, cultural and economic weight very strong.

At its head was the priest Miguel Castillejo, and the prelates of the last years of the 20th century and the first of the 21st have been partly observed for their relationship with the figure. Infantes Florido worked in harmony with him, but it was not the same with his successor.

When he presented his resignation, the new bishop was Javier Martínez, protagonist of a very short period, only seven years between 1996 and 2003, and also quite eventful. Not only was there a lack of understanding with the box founded by the Church and with its president, but it was also the star of a notorious controversy with the brotherhoods when it cancelled an electoral process in Grouping of brotherhoods and imposed a board of directors. He also insisted on discouraging new business projects.

During his seven years, he led the Church’s Jubilee in the year 2000, with a strong display of muscle in the arenas, and remained forever the Mother House of the Redeemerwhich has been welcoming homeless people since then, even though there was no connection with many movements. Yes, the more recent ones have come out stronger, like Neocatechumenal Way.

At the end of his term as Archbishop of Granada, he assumed the diocese of Córdoba. Juan Jose Asenjo Pelegrinawho took office in the autumn of 2003 and took up the challenge of resolving the outstanding issues. During his time, he cared for heritage with work in many churches and the Cathedral, but he also restored the Episcopal Palacewhich was in very poor condition and which was beginning to take on more importance in the life of the Church, as is the case today.

He defined a new relationship with Cajasur, which went through the departure of Castillejo: if the historic president had taken advantage of the law of the State to escape the intervention of the Junta of Andalusia, then in the hands of the PSOE, the unexpected victory of José Luis Rodríguez In the 2004 elections, Zapatero created a new scenario that ended his long term in 2005, replaced first by Juan Moreno and then by Santiago Gomez Sierra.

His period was full of activity: he created new parishes and regulations for the administration of sacraments of initiation, he inaugurated the magazine “Iglesia en Córdoba” to talk about current events in the diocese and updated the regulatory framework of the brotherhoods, which he treated with esteem, but also insisting that they preserve their most authentically Christian aspects. It was to him that the brotherhoods did not have to pay to install a penance station in the Cathedral.

Although in 2008 he was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Seville, he continued as Apostolic Administrator until the arrival of Demetrio Fernández in 2010 to open a new and much longer stage in which the shepherd sought to know all his sheep, with numerous pastoral visits, but also for the struggle to insist on the catholicity of the Mosque-CathedralHis position in the face of attacks on life and on the Christian concept of the family and society has also been firm.