Cartagena Mayor seeks support from the Pope in bringing the Bishop back home

The Mayor also reiterated his demand that the Cathedral of Cartagena should be rebuilt

José López, the often outspoken Mayor of Cartagena who will shortly be handing over the leadership of the city council to Ana Belén Castejón of the PSOE party, is making the most of his last few weeks in office to voice his opinion that Cartagena is discriminated against by the regional government and other authorities in Murcia, and this week has announced that he will be seeking the support of none other than Pope Francis in two of his crusades to end that discrimination. 

Speaking at the presentation in the Town Hall of a book entitled “Murcia por una Mitra” (Murcia for a Mitre) by archaeologist Iván Negueruela (the director of the Arqua museum), Sr López announced that he will be sending the Pontiff a copy of the book along with a request that he review the procedures by which the seat of the Diocese of Cartagena was transferred “illegally” to the city of Murcia as long ago as 1291. Should he not receive the answer he hopes for, he added, he will consider taking the matter to the courts of the Catholic church.

The book in question shows how the move to Murcia was the result of a “cowardly” plot orchestrated by King Sancho IV for political and financial reasons, the Mayor maintains. 

It should be pointed out the Diocese of Cartagena was re-founded in 1250 following the Reconquista of south-eastern Spain from the Moors by Christian forces, and that after that the seat of the Diocese remained in the city for only 41 years. Since then 726 more years have passed, and it can be safely said by now that the headquarters of the Diocese are fairly well established in Murcia. 

In addition, Murcia boasts a functional Cathedral, whereas the equivalent building in Cartagena has been lying in ruins since it was bombed during the Civil War. This is another fact which José López constantly bemoans as a symptom of the regional government’s failure to pay sufficient attention to the second largest city in the Region, and during the presentation on Wednesday he also took the opportunity to reiterate his demands that the “Catedral Vieja” should be rebuilt. 

800 copies of the second edition of “Murcia por una Mitra” are to be sent to other leading members of the Catholic church, according to the Mayor, including former Pope Benedict XVI, all of the Cardinals, all of the Bishops of Spain and all of the parish priests within the Diocese of Cartagena, which effectively includes the whole of the Region of Murcia.

Not to be outshone, Iván Negueruela added that Cartagena currently possesses the only ruined cathedral in Spain, and lamented the fact that the transfer of the Bishop’s seat to Murcia has cost the coastal city an unimaginable amount of investment in infrastructures such as hospitals, museums and universities over the last seven centuries. 

Image: J. Albaldejo (Ayuntamiento de Cartagena)

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