"Those relationships that they offer you on Tinder and in those things, those
dirty tricks
that you have on the Internet (...) are not relationships, my children."
The sonic magic of the word makes the dictionary over.
It came from the mouth of priest Emilio Montes in a sermon in which he warned of the evils of the Internet.
But it has been someone else who has made this parish priest from Valdepeñas popular: the video of that other talk has far exceeded 90 people, the maximum capacity of his church during the pandemic, to be spread everywhere on social networks: it has already been played 200,000 times on YouTube.
In Valdepeñas there does not seem to be a neighbor who has not seen the sermon on October 4.
Montes, having finished the Eucharist that was broadcast on the Internet, asked the cameraman to continue recording it.
He then began his reprimand of his faithful for not scratching his pockets enough and thus defray 80,000 euros of works that have cost 1,100,000 euros.
"Then it deducts taxes for the Treasury," he said.
Montes's spiel, in which he detailed particular cases of parishioners who did not pay - always without naming names -, has been sweet bait for WhatsApp and a juicy object of gossip, in electronic format or face to face.
This is how the employee of a small gas station next to the church of Cristo de la Misericordia comments.
He does not give his name and does not agree that the priest demands more money.
"They have always been asking for the priests, but this is already overdoing it," underlines another countryman, while a customer parks next to the pump to refuel.
Referring to him, the man at the gas station says: "It's as if I tell this man to give me 20 euros instead of 5, which is what he has to pay me."
From the car, the customer takes a 20-euro note from his wallet and offers it to him with a joking gesture through the window.
They all laugh.
The priest Emilio Montes lectures his parishioners on October 4.
On Friday, Manolita, 83, would arrive at the door of the church an hour and a half before the eight o'clock mass.
"The parishioners should not speak ill of the priest. He is very spontaneous. And the Lord was killed for telling the truth, which is what he does."
The woman says that in the 11 years that Montes has been a parish priest in Valdepeñas she has done a lot so that the two brotherhoods of the parish get along, after disagreements in the past.
Those responsible for the del Cristo met in full media uproar to decide whether or not to speak about the sermon.
In the end, it was no.
Its president and also the president of the brotherhood of La Soledad refuse to comment on the priest when asked by phone, in the second case after having spoken with him.
Paqui Madrid, a councilor who deals with the brotherhoods, says that the issue is "something internal" between the priest and his parishioners.
"We from the City Council have little to say."
In a bar near the Cristo de la Misericordia, María del Rosario, 52 years old, recounts bad experiences with the priest.
"He did not want to baptize my grandson because my daughter-in-law is Romanian and is not Catholic," she says hurt.
That was "years ago".
Since then, he has not set foot in that church again.
Sitting at the same table, Antonio, 67 years old, retired from the water service, intervenes in a severe tone: "I was baptized, I made communion and I got married in that church. And this priest put obstacles and obstacles so that I could not get married in it my son, who in the end did it in a convent. I don't want to know anything about him. I don't put another foot there ".
It also angered him that in recent years, with Montes in the parish, two carvings of his "lifelong church" have finished, he says, in other temples outside of Valdepeñas.
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In the previous destination of the priest, Carrizosa, several neighbors were angry with him because he asked them for photographs of him to portray them as painted angels in the church.
The same sources assure that he also litigated with the City Council for a house that he considered that a parishioner had donated to the parish after dying, and where a medical office was installed.
"He divided the people," says a neighbor who asks to remain anonymous.
"Olé! For this priest"
At the door of the bar, a parishioner from the neighborhood who does not want to give her name either clarifies that the controversy of the sermon derives from the "brusque" ways in which the priest expresses himself.
She backs him up: "I say 'olé!'
for this priest. I could already see Christ on the ground, how bad the church was, and he has raised it up. "
He adds that, if the works have been so expensive that Montes has to be squeezing his faithful, the project should have been more modest.
Other neighbors put to the credit of the religious who has also managed to rehabilitate two hermitages.
Toñi, 60, became hooked on the priest's sermons during confinement.
He saw them on his mobile from his home in Pozo de la Serna, a few kilometers from Valdepeñas.
"I liked that he spoke so clearly, but not that he demanded money that they were already giving him and in such bad ways."
The scolding sermon was the last that, she decided, she would hear from Montes.
Faithful is, in both senses of the word, the marriage of Marisa and Juan, both 57 years old.
This week you have heard the parish priest ask God for the aggrieved.
It is the only indirect mention that they have heard about the enormous repercussion of the controversy;
Most of those consulted, like them, consider it excessive.
Don Emilio, as they call him, has been found "serene" and "safe."
They confirm that they do pay the church;
the priest had ruled that of some marriages only one of the spouses contributed money.
A little less than an hour before giving mass, Emilio Montes is in the sacristy.
He has not yet put on the chasuble.
He is in his late forties and has grown a beard since the viral tirade that unwittingly made him famous.
"I don't want to make statements," he says, in a firm but calm tone, when approached.
"I speak very clearly to my faithful, I do not speak for everyone; that's what the Pope is for," he says when asked why he does not want to speak.
He has not given "interviews to anyone," he explains.
Nor "to the media at home, that is, even to
Religión Digital
or
Infovaticana"
in a few days marked by a coming and going of journalists around the parish.
And they have called it "of all televisions".
"It shouldn't have been discussed [in the media], because I don't think it's news, I'm convinced," he says.
"It is not the worst that I have experienced as a cure," he answers the question about how he feels;
"Well" and "happy" is in your parish.
And what about the comments in town?
"Yes, there is a lot of comment in the town ... [but] two weeks ago [there were] [them] also due to a comment from the mayor who made on his account ...", he reduces the question.
What weight does Montes give to the one who has involved with his sermon?
"Why should I care? I have not offended anyone and no one has complained to me, which is the most important thing."
He criticizes that the media have reproduced the video "to the last bull", weeks after the sermon.
The reform of the church was inaugurated a few days later, and in the act Montes highlighted, in addition to the contributions of the institutions, the most modest: "There has been a lot of help from simple people (...) to be able to feel part of the project ".
Many parishioners and neighbors confirm that they had indeed not seen the recording until it was broadcast on television, in recent days.
The priest assures that no parishioner has reproached him for anything he commented, "and it was said in five Masses, eh? Not only in that one."
Have you noticed more financial involvement towards the work after the sermon?
Lean, he replies that the work "is finished", at least the part that he has been able to address.
The amount that remains pending, a loan of 60,000 euros until 2033 included, "is not a problem", ditch.
Minutes later, the mass begins.
Some angels' stickers indicate the safety distance between the faithful and the faithful on the kneelers, and it is strictly respected even if almost all the permitted places are occupied.
The Eucharists in recent weeks have also been filled, says Pilar, a parishioner who manages the places by phone;
you have to reserve a place for masses on weekends.
"Today's catechesis is very simple," announces the priest at the end of the celebration.
It sticks to the young Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia at 15 and was beatified this month.
The day before, the faithful had heard a talk about
the millennial saint
for almost an hour and a half.
When they leave the church, in the middle of the night, some brothers from La Soledad will arrive to dress their virgin for the month of the dead.
And one more mass will have passed since his most famous sermon, those ten minutes in which he said that he is more silent than it seems.
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