Spain says Vatican to help with discreet reburial of dictator Franco

A person walks by the Franco family burial space adorned with flowers in the Almudena Crypt, a cavernous late-19th century Catholic temple under Madrid’s Almudena cathedral, in central Madrid, Spain, Thursday Oct. 25, 2018.Hundreds of protesters in Madrid are urging government and Catholic church authorities to prevent the remains of the country’s 20th century dictator from ending in the city’s cathedral. Spain’s center-left government has promised to exhume this year Gen. Francisco Franco from a glorifying mausoleum, but the late dictator’s heirs have defied the plans by proposing for his remains to be relocated to a family crypt under the cathedral. (AP Photo/Paul White)

MADRID — The Spanish government said the Vatican has agreed to find ways to prevent the remains of late dictator Francisco Franco being reburied in central Madrid after they are exhumed from a glorifying mausoleum.

Relatives of Franco want to reinter his embalmed body in a family crypt under Madrid’s cathedral, a move that Catholic Church authorities in Spain said they can’t oppose because the sepulcher was purchased by the dictator’s heirs decades ago.

Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo on Tuesday said Vatican State Secretary Pietro Parolin “understood” during a meeting on Monday that while Franco’s remains need to be relocated to a place “with dignity,” the government “must guarantee in all Spanish territory that Franco is not praised.”

“The solution,” Calvo said, “can’t be the Almudena” cathedral in Madrid.  /kga