[Gocamino] Santiago updates

[blaroli at aol.com]

Hello you all,

The young man who climbed the Holy Door Wednesday night did considerable damage to it, since he used the stone relieves by the sides of the door to pull himself up and as foot holds.. Some of the pieces broke and fell down, but, reportedly, the fallen pieces were collected with care by the police and the firemen that attended the incident and will, presumable, be replaced.  The carved stone figures are attributed to Maestro Mateo himself and his apprentices.

Some onlookers report that the young man, visibly distraught, was hugging the statue of the apostle as a pilgrim atop the door with such force and intensity that at times it seemed that both he and the statue would crash down.

While the young man refused to yield his posture he was reached by firemen through a cherry-picker and brought down.  Once on the ground he was given an injected sedative and rushed to a hospital where he remains.

The young man, from Barcelona, presumably wanted to emulate what St. Francis did when he divested himself of all his clothes in a square in Assisi and went off to embrace sanctity. Perhaps the young man realized that he wouldn’t be able to enter the Cathedral to hug the image of Santiago above the altar without clothes and decided to climb up and embrace the one outside.

On the good side of things, I suppose, the hospital whereto the fellow was taken has reported that he was neither under the influence of drugs nor alcohol.

The $$ value of the damage to the relieves has not yet been calculated.

 

Well, since aberrant behavior tends to attract imitators, perhaps the authorities in the Cathedral will have to put barriers around the lovely carvings at the sides of the Holy Door, as they have done around the portico de Gloria.

There is another picture of the fellow in today’s newspaper; you can see it by going to 

www.elcorreogallego.es  the picture appears on the lower part of the front page, but if you click on it you will go to the article and a larger version of it showing him after he was brought down.



Someone once wrote that “Only for mad persons and poets do all things exist under the sun”………I wonder!

 

In another theme: the bids made by those private organizations interested in managing the red of public albergues were opened Wednesdays and are presently being perused.  Since most of the new rules will go into effect on January 1, 2008, a decision will have to be made fairly soon, so it shouldn’t be long until we learn it.

Those interested can read an article about it on the Nov. 25 Correo.

 

Hugs!

 

Rosina

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