The issue is no longer solely the Valley.
The issue is the way
authority is exercised. And when in the government of the Church legal,
institutional, and prudential boundaries are crossed, what is at stake
is not a specific decision, but the very suitability for the position.
In the case at hand, it was Cardinal José Cobo Cano who signed the “agreement” proposed by Minister Félix Bolaños on the future of the Valley.
It was not done by the Benedictine community responsible for the
temple.
It was not done by the Spanish Episcopal Conference. It was not
done either, as far as is known, by the Secretary of State of His
Holiness, even though the cardinal himself later maintained in public
appearances—as reported by the newspaper El País—that there would be a
direct agreement with the Holy See. It was not the fruit of a collegial
deliberation. It was a personal signature.
But the most worrying thing is not only who signed, but how it was
done. In a matter of this complexity and institutional gravity, the
usual procedures of consultation, deliberation, and contrast that
characterize the ordinary action of the Church in sensitive matters were
circumvented.
There was no prior integration of the directly affected
community. There was no knowledge or debate within the episcopate. There
was no institutional transparency. The agreement was not known through
official communication, but because one or some of the actors who had
filed an appeal accessed the judicial file and found the signed text
there.
And the content of the agreement explains the magnitude of the
scandal. It states that within the temple, only the altar and the
adjacent pews would be strictly destined for worship, leaving the rest
of the available space for interventions promoted by the Government. In
practice, this opened the door to political and ideological actions
within the Basilica itself, reducing the sacred space to a minimum
perimeter.
After the signing, the Government published the public tender
for the political and ideological resignification of the Valley,
expressly including the interior of the temple in the terms provided in
the text signed by the cardinal. It is not a minor detail: the Executive
did not formally activate the procedure until it had that signature,
which apparently gave it coverage to act within the Basilica. The
cardinal’s personal authorization was the condition that allowed the
Government to take the step.
Here an especially grave element is added. If, as is evident from the
very legal configuration of the temple, the Archbishop of Madrid lacks
direct competence over the Basilica and over the monastic community that
governs it, then offering that coverage to the Government implies more
than an internal imprudence: it means having generated in the civil
power the appearance of an authorization that could not be granted.
Acting in that way, knowing from the beginning that the necessary
competence is not possessed, not only overflows the internal limits of
the Church; it also introduces a dimension of institutional disloyalty
toward the Government itself, to which a non-existent capacity for
disposition is presented.
Reducing the sacred space to a minimum perimeter and considering the
rest of the temple susceptible to governmental intervention is not a
technical nuance. It is a profound redefinition of the concept of sacred
place.
The Code of Canon Law does not understand the temple as a
fragmentable surface according to political opportunity criteria. The
consecrated space is destined for worship in its entirety and protected
by a specific legal regime that excludes its use for purposes alien to
its religious nature.
What was signed by the cardinal substantially
contradicts what is provided in the canonical order for consecrated
temples, by effectively admitting the implementation of non-liturgical
actions of a political nature within it. To this is added the
inviolability of temples recognized in the Church-State agreements and
the constitutional protection of the religious freedom of the faithful.
Moreover, the Benedictine community had filed a
contentious-administrative appeal in defense of the temple and its legal
regime. From that fact, it is deduced that there was no shared
ecclesial position nor real consent from those who have direct
responsibility over the Basilica.
In the penultimate Plenary Assembly of the Spanish Episcopal
Conference, the episcopate unanimously supported the mediation work of
Cardinal Cobo. However, in the last Plenary Assembly, after the signed
“agreement” became known, the position changed radically.
The general
secretary and spokesman of the CEE, Monsignor García Magán, declared to
the media that in the Valley matter they had not been mere figureheads,
that the cardinal Cobo should be asked directly, and that they knew
nothing. It was not diplomatic ambiguity. It was an explicit distancing.
The assembly body of the Spanish bishops that months earlier had backed
the mediation completely disassociated itself from the signed content.
Despite all this, after the awarding of the winning project of the
tender, the cardinal publicly expressed his approval. And he did so in a
context in which the legal defense of the sacrality and integrity of
the Basilica was public, known, and formally articulated in court. The
legal opposition was not hypothetical or future: it was already in
place.
Even so, the cardinal did not adopt a position of prudent
reserve. He expressed his explicit support for the project that
developed the terms of the signed agreement. It was not silence or
ambiguity: it was a clear stance. The collaboration with the
Government’s pretensions was not episodic; it was direct, persistent,
and consistent with the initial decision.
Here emerges the core of the problem: the confusion between mediation
and authority, between personal initiative and real competence. To
mediate is not to dispose. Mediation does not grant jurisdiction to
legally commit third parties without express mandate.
The Archbishop of
Madrid does not have direct competence over the monastic community of
the Valley nor authority to unilaterally redefine the internal status of
a temple with a singular regime. Respect for law and procedures is not
bureaucratic formalism: it is the guarantee against arbitrariness and
abuse of authority.
Canon law requires that those who govern be adorned with solid faith,
prudence, wisdom, zeal for souls, and other human virtues that make
them apt for the ministry. They must enjoy a good reputation and watch
over common discipline, avoiding abuses. Prudence implies not offering
non-existent legal coverages. Pastoral zeal requires safeguarding the
sacred. Human virtues include scrupulous respect for procedures and
awareness of one’s own limits.
In any good administrator—and all the more so in a high hierarchy of
the Church—respect for procedures and the prevention of arbitrariness
and abuse of power are essential. Dispensing with them in a matter of
this magnitude is not a mere strategic blunder; it is a way of
proceeding that compromises institutional trust.
Nothing obliged the cardinal to act this way. There was no collegial
mandate. There was no recorded consent from the responsible community.
There was no urgency that justified circumventing ordinary channels or
granting the Government an authorization that could not be given. The
decision was personal. And the consequences—judicial appeal, episcopal
distancing, public controversy—are also personal.
Governing Madrid requires more than initiative. It requires clear
awareness of one’s own and others’ legal limits, respect for law, and
the ability to act with prudence in matters of maximum sensitivity. When
those principles are ignored in a case that affects the very heart of a
temple and the religious freedom of the faithful, the issue ceases to
be circumstantial.
Reasonable and prudent leadership, in the face of the evidence of an
initial error of such magnitude, would have chosen another path: to
rectify publicly, recognize the lack of integration, and apologize to
the directly affected parties. That would have been the response
consistent with the prudence demanded by episcopal government and with
the responsibility imposed by the magnitude of the matter.
However, the
opposite happened. Far from correcting the course, the decision was
upheld, support for the Government-driven project was reaffirmed, and
when the scandal was already undeniable, the focus was shifted to the
Secretariat of State of His Holiness, suggesting that the ultimate
responsibility lay with it. Persisting in the error, reinforcing it, and
finally diverting the burden to another institutional level is not a
sign of strong governance; it is an unjustifiable blunder.
In view of the facts, the question can no longer be evaded or reduced
to mere circumstantial controversy. It is formulated naturally in
ecclesial circles, in discreet conversations, and in public reflections.
It is not an isolated whim or rhetorical exaggeration: it is the doubt
that is beginning to make its way among the faithful and members of the
clergy.
And that doubt is as simple as it is grave: Is Cardinal Cobo
truly suitable to govern the Archdiocese of Madrid?
