A friar died this Saturday and six other religious people were injured – three of them needed to be transferred to a hospital, one of them with serious injuries – after a man who had jumped over the walls of the convent of Santo Espíritu del Monte, located in the Valencian town of Gilet, attacked them without apparent cause, as EL PAÍS has advanced and confirmed in sources from the armed institute. The alleged aggressor – whom a note from the Franciscan order to which the victims belong classifies as a “disturbed person” – shouted during the attack “I am Jesus Christ”, according to other police sources consulted. The perpetrator has not yet been arrested.
The event occurred before ten in the morning in the monastery located on the outskirts of this town of 3,800 inhabitants, when the attacker entered the premises and visited different rooms of the monastery where the religious were located to beat them. with the objects he found in his path. According to a statement sent shortly after the event by the provincial of the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception, Brother Joaquín Zurera, the victims reported that, while he hit them “violently,” the aggressor said he wanted to kill them. The deceased, aged 76, had a head injury, while the three most seriously injured – aged 57, 66 and 95 – suffered various traumas and bruises for which they have been treated at the Sagunto Hospital. Only two of the friars who were in the convent at that time were not attacked: one was in the garden and another in the chapel giving mass.
In their writing, the Franciscans ask the aggressor to “be aware of the damage and be able to rectify behavior that is not at all typical of the human condition.” In the same text, the order asks the Franciscans of other convents to be “more attentive to prevent people from entering our fraternities who could cause damage of any kind.” “We unequivocally condemn this aggression and we join in the suffering of our brothers, with the injuries to the body and the pain in the soul for what they experienced, which, without a doubt, leaves a deep mark on people,” the statement added.
