“La vieja y parcheada piel del tambor…”

“La vieja y parcheada piel del tambor…” is Father Príamo Ferro’s metaphor for the worn clergy who continue to serve despite doubt, institutional neglect, and the apparent silence of God. The image gathers his defense of Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas into a single figure: the priest may be battered, but the people’s need for hope still gives his work purpose.

The phrase and its speaker

Ferro gives the image at the close of a conversation with Lorenzo Quart about the church’s survival and the meaning of faith. He says that priests like himself remain necessary as long as someone needs to kneel in search of hope or consolation. They are, in his words, “the old and patched skin of the drum” on which the glory of God still resounds. The metaphor does not present the clergy as untouched or triumphant: its force comes from the contrast between their worn condition and the continuing sound they carry.

The phrase also caps Ferro’s account of his own life. At sixty-four, he recalls having studied ancient philosophy as a young priest, then retaining little beyond a bitter-sweet sense of melancholy and disillusionment. His knowledge of human beings has narrowed to three certainties: they remember, they are afraid, and they die. For a quarter of a century, he says, he ministered to the dying, whose hands clung to his because he was their only comfort, while his own prayers received no answer. The image therefore arises from a vocation tested by loss rather than from uncomplicated confidence.

Faith as consolation and service

Ferro does not claim that his defense of the church proves his own faith. Instead, he argues that the faith of those who come to him is sufficient reason for Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas to remain. He presents belief as a form of hope and consolation in a universe that might otherwise seem chaotic and meaningless, where individuals know they will die and may leave no memory behind. The priest’s task, in this account, is less to settle the question of God than to remain present to people who need support.

That position shapes Ferro’s defense of the church’s Baroque art and ritual. He regards its images, gilding, altars, and inherited forms as shelter for people whom abstract reasoning may deprive of hope. Quart objects that this approach risks alienating the faithful; Ferro answers that people need symbols and that a church’s responsibility is to those who still believe. He contrasts the old stones, altarpiece, and Latin with a modern religious spectacle of amplified music and giant screens, which he considers a degradation rather than a renewal. The patched drum metaphor expresses the same argument: an imperfect, aging form can still carry something its audience needs.

A church under pressure

Ferro’s defense is bound to a concrete institutional struggle. The Archbishop of Seville explains that an old privilege granted in 1687 protects the church’s rights so long as a Thursday Mass is said for its benefactor, Gaspar Bruner de Lebrija. In a later account to Quart, Macarena Bruner specifies that the Mass takes place at eight in the morning and commemorates Gaspar’s death in 1709. An emissary of the archbishop and a notary paid by Pencho Gavira watch for any lapse that might make demolition possible. The ritual is thus both devotional practice and a condition with practical consequences for the building’s survival.

The church’s defenders also face ecclesiastical discipline. The Archbishop says that Ferro disregards his pastoral instructions and that he has sought Ferro’s suspension from office, a process delayed in Rome. Against this setting, Ferro’s image gives persistence a double meaning: the priest continues to serve people in need, while the church’s recurring rite keeps alive a fragile claim against demolition. The old drum is not secure; it remains audible through repeated effort.

The image’s wider resonance

Ferro’s reflection is echoed in his later exchange with Quart about astronomy. Quart associates the subject with despair; Ferro answers that awareness of human smallness can bring serenity, because what matters is precisely what hurts to lose. He allows for the comfort of a friend before the stars go out and all is finished. The exchange extends the earlier metaphor beyond institutional survival: consolation may be modest, but companionship and ritual can answer, without resolving, the knowledge of mortality.

The phrase also clarifies why Ferro can defend religious practice while speaking from uncertainty. His argument rests not on a declaration that doubt has vanished, but on a responsibility toward people who still seek consolation. The battered drum is therefore an image of continuity without invulnerability: a fragile human institution can keep sounding for others even when its own confidence has been tested.