The balcony of his parish fell on the courtyard of the old Model prison in Valencia. Every day José Antonio Bargues I saw the prisoners and reaffirmed in their idea that “you had to do something for them.” He had already begun to give laps when he started to work with children and adolescents in the reformatory from his home town of Godella, more than 50 years ago. Many of those kids spent in the reformatory to the prison after a brief pause in the streets, without any chance of rebuilding his life. Bargues, who is now 79 years old, he decided then to move from words to action and set up a partnership to provide an outlet for these young people immersed in a vicious spiral as a result of committing crimes related to their apparent lack of socialization, with the extreme poverty and situations of family and social trauma.
This association gave way to the so-called Casal de la Pau, the great work that launched Bargues in 1972 and yesterday, much to her dismay, was the subject of a thrilling tribute. “No, no, not a tribute to anything. We are here by the book”, I said smiling, the priest minutes before the act of presentation of All they had the key. The making of José Antonio Bargues for liberty, a novel of fiction based on stories and real facts that the court clerk Rocío Gómez-Ferrer has gathered from long conversations with the Bargues. “He has dedicated his life to being at the side of the lepers of our time,” explained the author, who has combined writing with the treatment of a cancer. The protagonist of both the book as the act, however, preferred to adopt a role is almost secondary, listening to others, without just talking to an auditorium with more than 300 people.
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The novel, edited by Albert Haller and prelude to the philosopher John Arnau, it is articulated from the main story that has most marked the experience of care of Bargues: a guy that he met at the reformatory and the years after he returned to the Casal de la Pau to die in company. It is the leitmotif of a work that is also the testimony of the founder of this entity which today has a house in the centre of Valencia to help more than a dozen of marginalized people, especially ex-offenders. Of christian inspiration, the Casal de la Pau is not an association church, and within it, both in the volunteers and the partners, there are of all beliefs and ideologies, explained in the morning Honorat Resurrection, friend of Bargues always.
Remember, for example, how one of the first floors host ended abruptly because in the same building lived a police officer. On one occasion, he stopped a young lad and giving his address, the agent found that it was the same as yours and the experience was cut short. Moved to the marginalized neighborhood of Nazareth, in a house of the archbishopric, until finally it moved to its present location in the street Llopis, already turned into a referent of social care.
“it’s Not about a physical place, but an idea, an attitude towards life and marginalization. It is all about the strength of the conviction that this is not a just society, and address this situation, the first thing is to make aware to the society which is not fair in the treatment of dissent,” said Honorat, which helps Bargues in the preparation of their texts.
conscientious Objectors
In the 70s, the House also welcomed conscientious objectors and homosexuals; later to drug addicts and aids patients, always with the link of the place for themselves. Already in 1977 Bargues directed the magazine of The marginalized, in which he defended an approach to sociological and economic study of the causes of marginalization, and a multidisciplinary analysis of the juvenile delinquency.
That reality marginal of the young people experienced by Bargues lived Rocío Gómez-Ferrer in the courts as a court clerk in the juvenile court. “Neither the judge nor I, we came to appreciate many things. Or receiving affection, or understanding and listening”, which they attempted many years before in the Casal de la Pau, said the author of the book, very limited edition. On the table also sat the professor of Oncology, Anna Lluch, one of the researchers of cancer most relevant of Spain.
“Dew is a strong, brave woman, and as other women have managed to cope without losing hope. Despite the tiredness that he felt after the treatment, not wanting to abandon his commitment to finishing his book,” said Lluch. “Years ago I knew the House, welcoming the last of the last, those who count for nothing. They are somewhat disturbing and spare. In order to assist them it is necessary to put on the skin of the other”, he added.
Bargues took the word just to show your appreciation and talk about the future of the Casal de la Pau, “that we are all what we offer our house with the door always open for the reception and the accompaniment”. Knowing that the next year the cure will no longer preside over the House, the public will tributó an intense and prolonged applause that it was a tribute to their dismay.
