Spain’s former dictator, General Francisco Franco, has been reburied at a Madrid cemetery with Church approval, despite protests by right-wing devotees and complaints by Catholic clergy.
The remains of Franco (1892-1975), who ruled for four decades after the Spanish Civil War, were exhumed on October 24 from a Catholic basilica at the Valley of the Fallen outside Madrid, and transported to the city’s El Pardo-Mingorrubio cemetery. Fr Santiago Cantera, prior of the Valley’s Benedictine abbey, blessed the coffin with holy water amid “Viva!” chants from the dictator’s family, who were refused military honours and a new state funeral after court rulings cleared the way for the reinterment.
