He worked all night long on his speech. He asked Mrs. Isabel Godoy, who was serving him, to prepare some guarapo for him during those hours. In the afternoon of the following day, with some slowness and difficulty, he left his apple-green painted house, marked with number 21 on Los Pinos Avenue, in the Lazo de la Vega development, in the city of Valera, to get into the car that would take him to La Puerta, a place he liked for its climate and people.
The remembered priest Juan de Dios Andrade (Tovar, 1907 – Valera, 1980)was one of the most eminent in his apostolate, a simple citizen, wise and cultured priest of Valera. Chronicler and illustrious character of this city. His neighbor, Professor Luisa Moreno, remembers that the families of the Lazo de la Vega urbanization, historically identify him by his famous Rogativa de la libertad, of January 19, 1958, days before the fall of the dictator Pérez Jiménez, for which hundreds of Valeranos went out with him to the streets to protest against the military regime, and to demand their political and civil rights; and for his action in favor of the poor, in the 60s, he was related to the armed struggle and was called a communist; something similar happened to Father Espinosa in Boconó, who was linked to the Antonio José de Sucre Guerrilla Front.
On the occasion of the 360th anniversary of the town of La Puerta, Father Andrade was chosen the day before to give the Keynote Address at the solemn session held in the region by the Municipal Council of Valera. I consider this speech to be an extraordinary piece of social and environmentalist oratory, full of synderesis, analysis and proposal, with fine elaboration and profound historical content from Trujillo.
Indeed, in the evening hours of August 20, 1980, he was there, he entered the Parish Cinema, they introduced him, that calm and simple man, he took the microphone and sat in a chair because his health was very bad. From the beginning he recognized with his sincerity and simplicity, that to prepare a good speech, it requires time and research, however, >. After some previous historical considerations about La Puerta, the priest Juan de Dios Andrade said the following: >in this way he strongly criticized unscrupulous urban developers.
With his dialectical and Christian approach, he stated, looking at the presidium of the session, which included the presence of Dr. Dora Maldonado de Falcón, Governor, the city council and other officials and personalities with a well-known career in the state of Trujillo, the following: >referred to the macro urban project that was being developed in front of the Guadalupe Hotel, lands of the Indigenous Reservation and Father Francisco Rosario.
The regional press covered the event and headlined: > (Diario de los Andes, Friday, August 12, 1980 edition). Father Andrade, a scholar and up-to-date on the fundamental issues of his time, was an admirer of an American architect named Frank Lloyd Wright, known for his courage in declaring himself an enemy of large metropolises and skyscrapers, because it seemed to him that precisely that kind of men are those who fight against universal imbecility, that is, the weak and lacking in reason.
From this Lloyd he took certain fragments from one of his works, thus: >This scourge, unfortunately, overwhelmed and continues to overwhelm the geography of Puerto Rico. It is no longer just the damage to La Maraquita, now the predator is expanding along the slopes of the Páramo, in the Los Bicuyes and Santa Bárbara sectors, with the consent of the authorities and residents.
Father Andrade continued speaking about Lloyd and shared what he said about the conduct of the human race, which >and explained in a didactic way why: Skyscrapers are an insult to nature, to God; natural cavities are the only perfect dwellings because they signify our total renunciation of human boasting that wants to raise masses of emphatic and superfluous walls, over the sacred virginity of meadows, forests and mountains.up to here he quoted Frank Lloyd Wright.
His historic speech is a call to common sense, respect for nature and harmony with the environment, therefore, >; This reserve of life has been illegally and unscrupulously intervened on the slopes of the Páramo, in the Los Bicuyes sector, by the unsatisfied voracity of the builders and real estate agents. The cemetery of houses in La Maraquita is not enough for them.
Reflecting, the Father claimed that, >; a call to develop balanced, healthy tourism without the invasion of concrete.
Father Andrade concluded his masterful speech, encouraging and addressing those attending the event, with this teaching: >; here, he summarized and finished with that didactic gift, mixed with that superior prose of ideas, this extraordinary piece of oratory.
One of his biographers wrote: > (Ramón Rivas Sáez, Diario de los Andes, November 2, 2020. Juan de Dios Andrade, the Democrat).
The remembered chronicler, Mr. Elvins González, on the qualities and virtues, recognized that Andrade > (Elvins Gonzalez); He was a Master.
Professor Francisco González Cruz, in one of his simple notes, showed the dignity and integrity of Andrade, taking us back to the contingency in which this Parish Priest, due to political retaliation, was forced to hand over the Church of Valera, on March 1, 1962, shortly after Monsignor Rojas Chaparro was appointed Bishop, > (Friends of the Ateneo de Valera. 2023); This interesting fact confirms that the priests of that time, with their similar habits, scholars, free thinkers, with different pastoral practices, differed in their political preferences.
I have no doubt that the speech from which we publish a few paragraphs today is a masterful piece, not only in the field of fine eloquence and oratory on the platform, but also an admirable lesson in terms of so-called ecology or environmentalism, but above all, it contains hopeful words for the new generations of our population. Perhaps, this is the last speech given by Father Andrade, who died shortly after, on December 21, 1980. It is worth remembering, 44 years after it was heard in the town of La Puerta, and published in Diario de los Andes, because its content is deeply relevant in these times of “universal agendas”: Open The Door, >. That’s the lesson.
#Father #Andrade #door #closed #stupidity #Oswaldo #Manrique
2024-08-11 12:11:30
