Reynerio Lebroc was many things: he was a priest, a professor, a patriot, a conspirator and a chaplain of the invading troops in the Bay of Pigs.
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 25 August 2024 — It is depressing that the same political dog bites you twice. The situation in Venezuela, a country crushed by my country – I say all the time that we have almost always been villains – has made me think of the Cubans who, fleeing from Fidel, sought refuge in Caracas and were surprised decades later by that moronic nephew of Castroism, Chavismo. I think especially of a couple I met in Madrid. They had left Cuba in the 60s and Caracas in the 90s. I think he was a doctor or a businessman; she offered me a rich pacharán from Navarre and could not resist making fun of Buesa: pacharán through my life without knowing that you pachaste*.
That day we talked about Carlos Alberto Montaner, who was already very ill and few knew that he had come to Spain to die. With Montaner we were losing the dream of a first president in democracy, a dream that Venezuelans are now living and that we – from afar, with envy – admire. He also spoke of the fate that awaits the library of an exile. “My children are not interested in my books,” he confessed to me. I suggested that he send them little by little to the Cuban bishops, who would find a way to nourish their libraries. Libraries are dynamite for the regime, I said, and if I didn’t say it, I thought it.
That day there was talk about Carlos Alberto Montaner, who was already very ill and few knew that he had come to Spain to die.
If it had not been for a library made of banned books I would not have been able to read Cabrera Infante, Arenas, Sarduy, Montaner, Rojas, the people of Encuentro and many others. Dazed by the pacharán and the drowsiness, I asked them if they had never come across Reynerio Lebroc in Caracas. I owe so much of my sentimental education to that bombastic name that I feel he is like an old relative. Every book in his vast library – he managed to send it from his exile to Santa Clara – ended up passing through my hands.
Lebroc was many things. He was a priest, an expert in colonial history, a professor, a conspirator, a bit of a spy and a bit of an adventurer. There is a photo in which, being less than 30 years old, he is seen descending the stairs of an Iberia plane. He is skinny and balding: he has just been released from prison. Castro put him in prison in 1961 along with three priests. They were to be the chaplains of the invading troops in the Bay of Pigs.
Castro put him in jail in 1961 together with three priests. They were to be the chaplains of the invading troops in the Bay of Pigs
The copy of the book “Religion and Revolution in Cuba” by Manuel Fernandez that I read was Lebroc’s. He underlined a sentence with a hard line: “The release of four priests arrested in 1961: the Spaniards Francisco Lopez Blazquez, Jose Luis Rojo, both diocesan, and Jose Ramon Fidalgo, dominican, and the Cuban Reynerio Lebroc.” I remember some angry phrase in the margin, perhaps a bad word, but I no longer have the book handy.
I can say that I know how the reader-machine that was Lebroc worked. From him, I took a liking for making small analytical indexes at the end of each book. He had a system of signals – one or two curls next to the line, underlining the minimum, annotating in the margin – which I adopted, with few variations. He liked to correct and make fun of the author’s blunders. He marked each book with an Ex Libris: an R and an L, capped by a star. He had collected the thousands of volumes of his library from Madrid, Rome, Paris, Bruges, Berlin, San Juan de Puerto Rico, Bogota, Mexico, Miami and Caracas. He had the most portentous collection of chroniclers of the Indies that I have ever seen, including reproductions of documents photocopied by him in the Archive of the Indies in Seville.
To annoy Castro – but I don’t think he took notice – the Cuban bishops gave John Paul II in 1998 a copy of the biography Lebroc wrote about Antonio María Claret. The Pope greeted Castro with one hand and with the other he held the book by Lebroc, the chaplain of the Bay of Pigs!
The Pope greeted Castro with one hand and with the other he held the book by Lebroc, the chaplain of the Bay of Pigs
Lebroc’s library did not travel to Santa Clara by chance. The vicar of the diocese, Arnaldo Fernandez, was his best friend since school – Arnaldo was a lively mulatto with slanted eyes; Lebroc, a scatterbrained guajiro from Ciego de Avila – in Rome. They used to see each other at least twice a year in Venezuela and that’s how the books arrived on the island. I remember that the vicar would get rejuvenated when talking about Lebroc and I, who was not able to meet him although he died in 2018 in Caracas, would get closer through the conversation to my secret benefactor, the man whose library had saved me.
Lebroc lived in Madrid and Rome for some years. He became a Doctor of history and wrote biographies of the first Cuban bishops, published by Juan Manuel Salvat in Miami. He left several unpublished manuscripts, which I was also able to read. He started a new life in Caracas, where a good part of the Cuban exile – including Bishop Eduardo Boza Masvidal, his friend, who died in Los Teques in 2003 – had settled down. He was the parish priest of La California Norte for 40 years and founded the Centro De Estudios Cecilio Acosta. Almost all the young bishops of Venezuela were his pupils.
Lebroc was remembered by his friends wrapped in his gabardine coat, chatting with the bouquinistes [antique book sellers] of the Seine or rummaging through bookstores in Seville. The fact that he chose Caracas for exile means that there, as nowhere else, the Cubans found a kindred country (Carpentier wrote there, as it happens, Los pasos perdidos (The Lost Steps) and El siglo de las luces (The Century of Lights). I cannot imagine what the rise of Chavez and that grotesque creature Maduro meant to Lebroc. To see the adopted country torn apart by the same people who ruined his native country must be devastating. Lebroc, the pacharán marriage, so many friends, how did they survive that? We owe too much to the Venezuelans. We stake our freedom on their freedom.
*Translator’s note: This is a pun on words using the word “pacharán” (a sloe-flavoured liqueur commonly drunk in Navarre) and Buesa’s poem “Pasarás por mi vida sin saber que pasaste…” where both words sound similar. The translation in English would be something like ” You will pass through my life without knowing that you did…”
Translated by LAR
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