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?