Javier Castro-Villacañas
, whom we appreciated so much
, has died like lightning .
He was one of us.
Lawyer, writer and journalist, he came to EL MUNDO, through the door of his
Chronicle supplement
, to help us describe the noble gesture of a friend, Professor Jesús Neira, who interceded for a woman who was being mistreated in public and ended up in coma from a punch from the aggressor.
It was in 2008 and Javier knew how to narrate from close proximity the courage and empathy of the friend, whose family trusted him to transfer what happened to the media.
Since then he has never stopped collaborating.
Always without fear of power, as republican as he was, to which his books on the monarchy attest
.
Now he was preparing one of Felipe VI;
with the father he had been implacable.
Candid and curious at the same time, Castro-Villacañas
has lived full of intellectual concerns that transcended his studies in Law and Journalism
.
He has been a good man, and friends.
He was only 58 years old and really wanted to move on.
Only two weeks ago he confirmed an appointment with the 'family' of Crónica of him, the supplement to which he gave so much.
Always with good intentions and ready for the challenge of telling what has not yet been told.
"Better wait for February... I'm screwed at Puerta de Hierro...", he promised days ago, convinced that "I'll get out of this".
But his farewell voice, painful for those who heard it like lightning, announced to his friends a few hours ago that the time for a serene goodbye had arrived.
The cancer was fulminating.
The son of a cult Falangist, he was the grandson of an exiled Republican colonel... and both personalities marked his life.
A convinced Republican, he was critical of the monarchy and detested far-right racism
.
A friend portrayed him like this: "Happy, sarcastic, playful, he said that journalism had allowed him to be nocturnal...
His favorite place was the departure of the bands from the Plaza de Todos in Pamplona on July 7"
.
His wife is Chilean and his two children are from both shores, "who seem to have come out of the Constitution of Cádiz, Spaniards from both sides of the ocean," a friend wrote recently.
His last job at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he had a position as a management technician and where he was also a legal adviser (just like at Canal*), was in the communication office.
He entered the university institution in the 90s, in the Gustavo Villapalos team,
which hired him for the Rectorate.
He was
the founder of the Generación XXI magazine
and
professor of Constitutional Law at the Camilo José Cela University
in Madrid, director of the Information Services of Radio Intercontinental in Madrid from 2002 to 2004. He was also director of the Information Services of CITY FM Radio and of the Claves de Actualidad program on the same station from 2004 to 2009. Lecturer and columnist, he is the author of a biography on the figure of José María Gil Robles in the Cara & Cruz collection of Ediciones B (2004), from the book El failure de the Monarchy on the crisis of "juancarlismo" edited by Planeta (2013), from the book
Miguel Blesa, the lobo of Caja Madrid
about the financial crisis of what was the fourth banking institution in our country, La Esfera de libros (2014) and the book
The pillage of the middle classes
, where the pillage and collapse of the middle classes in our country during the last economic crisis are analyzed. Stella Maris (2015).
He has directed and presented the program
Punto de Encuentro
on Cope Madrid and
Claves de la semana
on Radio Inter.
He has directed the Club de la Vida Buena-CVB magazine on tourism, gastronomy and travel and the online station CVB Radio.
He currently collaborates in the digital newspaper El Español and since 2008 in EL MUNDO, his newspaper.
The burning chapel of Javier Castro-Villacañas will be in room 2 of the La Paz Funeral Home (Tres Cantos), starting at 11:00 a.m. this Saturday.
The burial will be this Sunday, January 8 at 12:00 in the morning in the La Paz cemetery (Highway from Madrid to Colmenar, Exit 20 700, 28100 Alcobendas, Madrid).
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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