The brotherhoods and brotherhoods of Andalusia seem contradictory, like Andalusia itself. Here is the influential Brotherhood of the Macarena: very Sevillian but "presided over" by a man from Santander –the Big Brother–, a position that carries the honorary presidency of Real Betis, although most of the Big Brothers have been...Sevillistas and in their Lively basilica rests, in a prominent place, General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, one of the soldiers of the civil war who showed less charity and Christian compassion with the vanquished.
“I am going to go in to see the Virgin. It would be like walking past your mother's house and not going up to kiss her." Francisco Gallardo is a Macareno and the day he started the taxi, 22 years ago, he was neither calm nor did he know the address that a priest asked him for. The understanding man showed him the route and gave him a picture of the Virgen de la Macarena, which he still carries and shows. "And in 22 years nothing serious has happened to me." He parks the taxi and enters this minor Basilica of the Macarena, one of the few in Spain that can boast of officiating four daily masses. And there are four cats...
“Power that be? We have a very big influence. We are talking about a brotherhood with 16,247 brothers and 18 employees, with a virgin who has reached 117 countries, which we can already imagine what it means for Seville and in whose procession at dawn on Good Friday 3,700 Nazarenes leave...
José Antonio Fernández Cabrero is the Big Brother of the Macarena, the first non-Andalusian since the foundation of the entity, back in 1595, always by direct election. A power within the ecclesiastical power. Fernández Cabrero was re-elected for another four-year term in November 2021. A modernity: there is a limit of two "mandates."
Brotherhoods and brotherhoods have ended up being a space between social, spiritual and festive in Andalusia, where the best and the worst of each house, of each Catholic house, come together. And with a tangible social force: the Brotherhood of the Macarena is the third entity by members of Seville and its museum the third, ahead of the Fine Arts.
-Imagine that I want to be Macareno. What requirements would they demand of me?
-Have a more or less orderly life. Second: not hold any political office. And that a life not exactly of virtue but of order is recognized, and that believes in the concepts of the church, human values...
– And who decides that?
-All candidacies are submitted to the Archbishop's Palace. To the archbishop and a team that validates the process.
As I think about it, another subject comes to mind, very popular on Google: when will the remains of General Queipo de Llano (famous for his relentless speeches with the "reds" and the repression in Andalusia) be transferred from a chapel in the basilica during the civil war)?
Big Brother must have smelled the question by now.
- There will be no transfer. We already touched the tomb of Queipo at the time and it was stripped of all vestiges that had to do with the law of historical memory. He removed from the tomb the yoke and the arrows and all exaltation, we remove them so that they do not complicate our lives any more and be in accordance with the law. The former president of Andalusia, Susana Díaz, had on her table a report prepared by members of her party and independent experts that says that there is nothing in Macarena that contradicts historical memory. And Juanma Moreno now neither. Why? Because they have no legal basis. Queipo or General Bohórquez –another more discreet but equally controversial tomb, auditor of the courts of war– were Elder Brothers, elected, and the decisions were then made due to their status as benefactors: we owe the land to the efforts of Queipo and the building to those of General Bohórquez.
-Chapter closed?
Yes, chapter closed.
The Brotherhood looks, of course, forward. For the first time in five centuries, among the 15 brothers of the governing board there are women, two, who already exceed 30% of the membership. And in the charitable dimension, the Macarena is unbeatable. Fernández Cabrero won re-election on the street with a program with a strong social accent, which is reflected in 24 areas, including immigration aid, with 60% Muslim beneficiaries and 30% Latinos.
-La Macarena votes for Vox?
-Of the elections, zero. Here the only political party is that of the brothers.
People enter and leave the basilica of the Macarena, the beautiful virgin, tourists and Sevillians, some pray and others do not.
