The Congress started on May 7 at the Faculty of Theology of Granada. The Apostolic Nuncio Manuel Monteiro de Castro, was received at the Faculty by Granada Archbishop Francisco Javier Martínez and city mayor Honorable José Torres Hurtado. At his entry at the conference hall the Vatican hymn played, the “Veni Creator” was sung and a prayer was said. The prior provincial of Saint Thomas of Villanova Province, Miguel Ángel Hernández; the prior general, Javier Guerra, and the Archbishop of Granada thanked the Nuncio for his presence and greeted those present.
The first lecture, titled “The Church in the early 20th century”, was delivered by the Apostolic Nuncio to Spain, Archbishop Manuel Monteiro de Castro. In it he invited the audience to face, based on Christian humanism, the challenges of relativism, subjectivism and individualism. He emphasized that the Bill of Human Rights is founded on Christian principles and that the force for transforming society is in mutual love, but bearing in mind that “charity without truth would be blind”.
Among the participants in the congress stand out the Archbishop of Granada, Francisco Javier Martínez; two Augustinian Recollect bishops who work in Brazil: José Luis Azconain Marajó andJesús Cizaurrein Cametá; the Prior General of the Order, Javier Guerra; the priors provincial of the Provinces of Saint Nicholas de Tolentine and Saint Rita, and the vice-chancellor of the Faculty of Theology. Several religious from Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Philippines and other countries also participated.
The morning schedule ended with the conferences of José María Sánchez, José Javier Lizarraga and Daniel Medina on the history of the restoration of the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova. In the afternoon,Francisco Javier Martínez Medina discoursed on the Augustinian Recollects and the Church in Granada, and Juan Manuel Barrios on the Disentailment in Granada. The first day concluded with the Eucharist presided over by the Apostolic Nuncio at the Sacromonte Abbey.
The holding of the 2nd Augustinian Recollect Historical Congress is one of the principal acts of the centennial celebration of the restoration of the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova, originally called the Andalusian Province. It was originally founded in 1621, later it disappeared due to the laws of disentailment and Spanish exclaustration in the 19th century until it was reestablished in 1909.