PREMIUM
PACO REGO
@PacoRego
Sunday, 1 November 2020 - 16:56
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At the foot of the altar
, seated in a wooden chair that looks like a throne, Emilio Jesús, the parish priest of Valdepeñas,
pulls the calculator and, with a certain insolent tone, takes the opportunity to crucify the parishioners
who do not plow "enough."
To finish paying the high costs (1,100,000 euros) for the restoration of the church of Santo Cristo de la Misericordia.
The one that Don Emilio did not have when he publicly embraced the devotees during a mass.
Without stopping to point out who has given and who has not for the work
of the temple that he runs - closed for 35 years and whose complete restoration lasted 25 -, in which his face appears painted as an apostle together with real saints.
The priest, who
has been in the parish for 11 years
and is aware of a large part of the salaries and potential of his parishioners - "I know who gives and who does not give" - does not hesitate to make the behavior of marriages in which "work the two and they have not been able to put a receipt of 10, 15, 20 euros ... ».
As the punishment progresses,
Montes breaks up and takes out all his artillery
in the middle of a thick silence.
They are excerpts from the mass of more than one hour (Sunday, October 4) that the congregation uploaded to its YouTube channel.
Nobody gives credit to what happened there that morning
.
Upside down.
As the days went by, the anger of practitioners and non-practitioners grew worse.
"I want my six euros, he has called me filthy in the church,"
cries Luis, one of the offended.
Things got even uglier when someone discovered that in one of the frescoes of the restored church, sharing the scene with the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Annunciation,
the face of the priest himself immortalized as the Apostle Santiago appears
in the dome of the sancristy.
Don Emilio Jesús, during the sermon to reprimand his parishioners for not contributing enough money, according to him, to pay for the remodeling of the Misericordia church in Valdepeñas.
The temple, which was built in 1611 and closed for worship in 1984, has opened this month.
A
new star of Spanish ecclesiastical folklore
had been born
: Emilio Jesús Montes Romero, a 44-year-old from Jaen, whose transformation into an apostle - the work of the painter Óscar Patón - and
his
rapacity
to the parishioners has jumped
on social networks
this Tuesday
, turning the religious into a viral character and causing the division in La Mancha Valdepeñas, which he arrived, they say, with the fame of "singular man."
Contacted by
Crónica
, he has declined to speak.
There is everything in the Lord's vineyard in Valdepeñas.
Some call him "cool"
, "scoundrel."
Others call him a "good shepherd
.
"
Álvaro CG is one of the first.
«
Shameful that there is a priest with this man's face
.
It seems incredible that he does not know the passage in the Bible that talks about the church not being a place for merchants ...
If God exists, I hope he will give it a little touch
, although it will surely catch him entertained by forcing a parishioner with the little receipt », Álvaro is dispatched at the Valdepeñas Forum.
Óscar Patón is the young artist
from the controversial clergyman's pictorial scene.
Graduated in restoration, he
is 35 years old and has specialized in religious painting
.
We located him in his workshop in Ciudad Real,
"astonished by the controversy"
and
ready to stand up for his work and for the priest
.
-Don Emilio did not demand that I paint it, as many say, I was the one who proposed it, and he accepted.
-Why did you want to immortalize him as if he were just another saint?
-To place the work in time and in its context.
People who are not saints often appear in religious paintings.
- Was he happy with the result?
-When I saw him the first time, Don Emilio asked me to change some features, the beard, the hair, the eyes, so that he did not look so much alike.
He told me with humor that the way I had painted it reminded him of Pablo Iglesias ... And we laughed.
The commission for the complete work
- "I want to clarify that it is a mural", the artist points out -
was made three years ago
, and Patón took five months to shape it.
One month for the sketch and four months to paint the eight lunettes (faces of the vault) that make up the work.
"It's the first big job I did," and it got Óscar out of unemployment.
Before, he had painted
a poster for Holy Week in Ciudad Real
and
a small painting of the Virgin of Prado
that hangs in the cathedral.
Óscar Patón, architect of the painting of the parish priest in Valdepeñas.
"I was the one who proposed it," he says.
-Do you understand the commotion?
Frankly, no.
What Don Emilio wants is for Catholics to get involved in the parish.
Also, he is first to help.
Those who see him as a demon, however,
recognize his value, for example, in the worst weeks of the pandemic
.
"He did not miss a day at the hospital," says Maria, who works in the parish.
«
He was at the side of the sick, comforting them at critical moments
, administering extreme hunger so
that they would die in peace
.
He did what other priests did not want to do.
A commendable facet that has been
overshadowed by the many stories that speak of the religious and his "love of money."
Isabel, who presents herself as a Catholic, dismisses Montes as "surreal, typical of a Berlanga film."
"People are more afraid of him than devotion."
She does not.
She says that
when her father died, during mass, the priest “had the courage to pass the brush
, feeling
obliged to reach for the purse.
What a shepherd of God is that
", the woman ventures.
"And that ridiculing people for giving only six euros, with which they are falling ...", concludes Isabel, baptized in the church where Montes now watches from the dome.
The neighbors of nearby Carrizosa are
not surprised by what Don Emilio does.
There he garnered a reputation as a "pesetero"
, in the words of José, now retired.
"He did not administer any sacrament without asking for money."
What no one has forgotten are the
paintings in the church
of Santa Catalina with the
faces of children from Carrizosa carrying wings on their backs, like innocent little angels
.
"When the parents saw that, since the priest had not asked permission, the voices were heard in the sky and he had to withdraw them."
"The town is fine, but we better not talk about the priest," one hears people say in those La Mancha lands.
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