The minister who prayed to save Spain from the devil

BarcelonaIt matters little that he is heard dealing with the then director of the Office of Anti-Fraud of Catalonia about the need to air dirty laundry about the main pro-independence leaders. Nor does it matter that conversations with former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo have transpired, speaking openly about Operation Catalonia ("I will deny, even under torture, that this meeting took place," he said in the audios). Not even that there are messages with his number 2, certified by a notary, in which they talk about Kitchen. For years, Jorge Fernández Díaz has played the role of the minister who knew nothing of what was happening around him. A defense strategy that he followed to the letter this Thursday when he testified as the main investigated party in the trial over the espionage of the former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas.

A fervent devotee since God appeared to him in Las Vegas in 1991 and made him abandon a life where, according to himself, sin abounded, Jorge Fernández Díaz is, however, one of the political figures under permanent suspicion. Among other things, for lying. Born in Valladolid in 1950, although he lived in Catalonia from a very young age, his first steps in politics went hand in hand with Adolfo Suárez, first as civil governor of Oviedo and Barcelona and, later, as the CDS candidate in Catalonia in the 1982 elections. Before that, he had briefly been an industrial engineer. He was the second of ten siblings (one of them, Alberto, also dedicated to politics, in the PP) from a family "that had neither too much nor too little", with a father who was a career military man who ended up being the deputy chief of the Barcelona Urban Guard. He married on October 17, 1975, the same day Franco was admitted to the La Paz Hospital and never left it, and he says that when the dictator died, he neither rejoiced nor was saddened.

What was his role in the creation of the patriotic policeWhat was his role in the creation of the patriotic police? According to him, none. In fact, seated in the Congress of Deputies in one of the investigation committees held in recent years, he went so far as to consider this parapolice structure – widely documented – an "invention". This structure included active and retired agents, informants, and even politicians, supported according to numerous sources by the state administration and financed with reserved funds. La Kitchen is a derivative of it, and accusations claim that state resources were used to follow Bárcenas with the aim of stealing compromising documentation with the PP.

The shield of Christian faith

"There is neither an investigation unit nor has one been created for independentist politicians," he assured when he had not yet been heard asking privately to investigate Artur Mas or Oriol Junqueras. Fernández Díaz said at the time that there were parties that "saw persecutions while they dreamed" and that resolving it was a matter that concerned "a psychiatrist" more than a minister. To resolve his problems, he, on the other hand, has taken refuge in faith (in that of Opus Dei, specifically). And with the excuse of religion, he took on the commitment to "save Spain".

A mission that on June 17, 2015 took him to the Vatican to meet with the then Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI. A few days earlier, Fernández Díaz had written him a letter (with the official seal of the Ministry of the Interior) showing his concern for the survival of Spain and in the meeting he asked him to pray for his country. Benedict XVI's response was recalled a few years later by Fernández Díaz himself: "He told me that the devil wants to destroy Spain for the services rendered to the church of Christ, the evangelization of America, and the role in the Counter-Reformation." "The devil attacks the best more," concluded the Pope Emeritus according to the ex-minister's version. But Benedict XVI gave him the keys to defeat the devil, which, probably in Fernández Díaz's mind, had taken the form of the independentists: "Humility, prayer, suffering, and devotion to the Most Holy Trinity".

A year earlier, he had decorated the Virgin Mary with the Gold Medal for Police Merit as an honorary title and he has always felt protected by God. This is one of the reasons why, he assures, he overcame cancer in 2016 and a heart attack in 2018. In a memorable interview with La Vanguardia for the 2015 electoral campaign, Fernández Díaz explained that, in fact, he has a guardian angel. His name is Marcelo and at that time he helped him park, among other small everyday things.