Three years after the terrorist attacks in Madrid in which 192 people died and some 1600 were injured, Spain has remembered the victims in many institutional acts of commemoration and masses in the main cities. In Toledo the Vice-President of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, said that he was particularly “close to the victims and their families” and that the attacks “weigh on Spain like an oppressive tombstone from which we must free ourselves”. The cardinal observed that “for too many years the Spanish people have felt themselves injured, humiliated and maltreated by the inhuman and cruel terrorist violence” perpetrated against them. A monument of crystal inscribed with the names of the victims was inaugurated on 11 March at the train station of Atocha in Madrid, where the main terror attack took place on 11 March. The country’s highest institutional figures were present at the ceremony, from the Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to the leader of the opposition, Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish royal family and scores of survivors of the terrorist massacre. The St. Egidio Community also held an interfaith prayer meeting in Madrid at which the Community’s representative, Tíscar Espigares, condemned the attacks and proposed the role of religions and dialogue as means “to build a better world. Terrorism – he said – will only be vanquished if we are united and respect the identities of others”.
