Potes (EFE).- The singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat, Beato de Liébana Award winner in the 2023 International Cohesion category, has stated that living alone is worth it “to love and to be loved”, his main objective in his chores and relationships closer.
After receiving this recognition, he has assured that above all the reasons that have allowed him to be honored with this distinction, in a place “so beautiful and magical”, there is “something so simple and precious” such as love and affection. .
“It is an award with which they claim to highlight my contribution to culture and the defense of civic and humanitarian values. I am not going to discuss any of this because I no longer feel like going against it, things are going well for me as they are, ”she said.
Serrat has received the Beato de Liébana Award in the International Cohesion category, in an act chaired by the head of the Cantabrian Executive, Miguel Ángel Revilla, in the outer courtyard of the Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana, where hundreds of tourists have come .
Chef José Andrés, who was unable to attend to collect the award, has also received an award in the Understanding and Coexistence section.
He has confessed that, when he announced his retirement from the stage, he did not think that they would experience moments “as exciting” as today, nor that he would receive so many awards and distinctions.
“I must tell you that this matter has also given me a lot to think about because I don’t know if this is really happening to celebrate my retirement or to thank my contribution”, added Serrat, causing the attendees to laugh.
An ambassador of Cantabria
Revilla has assured that the singer-songwriter, who wins a “very important” award, is “a man loved by everyone” because he is a good person and a simple man.
The President of Cantabria has stated that the community is delighted that they have accepted this award because it represents a “support” for a small piece of land, but that it has to “sell”, position itself in the world and highlight all its attractions.
“You are now going to be an ambassador who I am sure you are going to speak well of this land, that you are going to keep that award and that you are going to return more times,” he told Serrat.
The president has thanked him on behalf of Cantabria because he “gives prestige” to the community with this Beato de Liébana Award.
The award is a bronze statue, the work of the Cantabrian artist Mercedes Rodríguez Elvira, which represents angel wings, very frequent in the iconography of Beato, which protect the Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana and the surrounding mountainous environment.
Serrat has been in Cantabria for a couple of days now, which he has taken advantage of to get to know the region and “rest a little”.
Grateful to time because “he has behaved well” and to the “wonderful” people of Cantabria, he doesn’t know if he will extend his stay but he believes that “there is always the possibility of returning.”
Before the act, the journalists have asked him if he would dare to do the Camino Lebaniego in the Jubilee Year that begins in April and the singer has responded joking about his physical conditions to face that walk.
“Well, on a motorcycle or if they take me on a stretcher too, but don’t ask me to do it like Mariano Haro, that is already a bit far from my possibilities,” he said.
The Monastery gets ready
The monastery of Santo Toribio has already been prepared to receive pilgrims, after the improvement works that were inaugurated this Tuesday, before the award ceremony, by the Minister of Tourism, Javier López Marcano, and the Bishop of Santander, Manuel Sanchez Monge.
The works have had a cost of half a million euros, which has been invested in repairing the roof and rehabilitating the public baths of the monastery, as reported in a statement by the Government of Cantabria.
“We want this Holy Year 2023 to be that of the people, that of the pilgrims and that of the roads as a formula for Cantabria to be better placed on the religious, cultural and natural maps of the whole world”, Marcano stressed at the inauguration .
The bishop expressed his joy that the Monastery “has been left in perfect condition to host an event that will have enormous repercussions throughout the world.”
Archive image of the Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana in Cantabria, which celebrates the Lebaniego Jubilee Year from April 16. EFE/Alberto Aja.