Madrid (EFE) Hospital Virgen de la Torre in the capital as a result of cancer.
Ordained a priest in 1972 after studying at the Comillas seminary and coming from a conservative family, De Castro began his journey as a priest in the parish of San Cosme and San Damián, in the Madrid neighborhood of Vallecas, which he never left.
At the beginning of the 1980s, he moved to the parish of San Carlos Borromeo de Entrevías, where, according to sources close to the priest, he became a “fundamental person” in the neighborhood for his help to the population. in danger of social exclusion.
De Castro focused especially on young people and people with drug problems and access to the labor market. Later, from 1990, he also became a reference for irregular immigrants who began to arrive in Spain.
The “red priest of Vallecas”, a label for which he became known but never liked, became a well-known face of social activism for his support for causes such as the fight against corruption, police brutality or for the improvement of life inside prisons, as well as different movements, such as the Vallecana association Mothers United Against Drugs.
Enrique de Castro and his confrontation with the archbishopric
In 2007, De Castro became even more relevant due to his confrontation with the Archbishop of Madrid, Rouco Varela, who demanded the closure of the parish of San Carlos Borromeo for not adjusting its practices to the Church’s liturgy.
The priests of the Vallecano parish not only welcomed ex-convicts, drug addicts, immigrants or street kids into their homes -and between the pews of the church if necessary-, but they also gave mass dressed in everyday clothes and in an assembly format. They accepted believers of any religion and distributed donuts instead of wafers at communion time.
The society turned to prevent the closure of the parish, a support that culminated in a mass mass attended by numerous media and public figures such as the journalist Gran Wayoming or the actor Willy Toledo.
This episode confirmed the hard position that De Castro had always had against the dogma of the Church and that was translated into works such as his book “God is an atheist” and in his position regarding some controversial issues such as abortion, the use of condoms or homosexual marriage, which he defended before some ecclesiastical hierarchies that were against all this.
The parish priest’s farewell will be held tomorrow, Thursday, February 16, at the Almudena crematorium, at 1:00 p.m., as reported by the parish of San Borromeo
