Voces del Prado

We Went to Mass with Father Sopeña

Francisco Manso Guerrero, Gallery attendant and Clerical Support, 1966-1991

Sopeña was good person. When you were with him, he never said anything. We didn’t speak much. But, of course, we sometimes went to mass, because he officiated at eight o’clock in the morning close to the Plaza de Oriente, before he came to the Museum. Then he came to the Museum. When Father Sopeña came, I don’t think he was really that involved in the museum world, but he appointed Doña Manuela Mena as Assistant Director and she was the one who looked after everything. But he was a good person. Paloma O´Shea came to see him regularly, who was the wife of Emilio Botín, together with her daughter, because Father Sopeña must have been a good musician. There were some music scholarships sponsored by Banco Santander and Father Sopeña was the one who organised them. She came to see him a lot.