Príamo Ferro is kidnapped

Príamo Ferro is kidnapped as a calculated way to stop the Thursday Mass at Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas, the observance that preserves an old privilege protecting the church from demolition. The abduction turns a procedural vulnerability into physical coercion: because the church cannot be attacked without violating the conspirators’ professed scruples, they target the priest whose presence makes the rite possible.

Causes and the Thursday Mass

The immediate stakes arise from a privilege granted in 1687, which provides that Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas retains its rights so long as Mass is celebrated each Thursday for the soul of its benefactor, Gaspar Bruner de Lebrija. The parish observes the condition at eight in the morning. The day is tied to Gaspar’s death, though the accounts given in the novel differ: the Archbishop of Seville says he apparently died on a Thursday, while Macarena Bruner specifies Thursday in 1709. That legal-religious condition makes the weekly service an obstacle to the proposed secularization and demolition of the church.

The observance is watched. Macarena tells Lorenzo Quart that each Thursday an emissary of the archbishop and a notary paid by Pencho Gavira sit in the last row, alert for any irregularity or lapse. Their presence underscores how the Mass has become more than a devotional act: its exact performance is scrutinized because the church’s survival depends upon it. Macarena fears that, with the young curate Óscar Lobato away, someone may act against Ferro, leaving the parish without the priest needed for the service.

The Archbishop’s account supplies the institutional background to the danger. He says that demolition requires secularization, but the old privilege complicates that process. He has sought Ferro’s suspension from office, citing the priest’s disregard for his pastorals and calls to obedience; the request to Rome is proceeding slowly. The abduction bypasses that contested disciplinary process. Instead of obtaining a formal suspension, the conspirators seek to make the required Mass impossible by removing its celebrant.

The plan: remove the priest, not the church

Celestino Peregil presses the problem after concluding that there must be no Mass the coming Thursday. Don Ibrahim’s crew has reservations about attacking a sacred building. Don Ibrahim recasts the target: if the church itself is off limits, they can act against the human element, namely its parish priest. The scheme depends on the simple premise that without a priest there can be no Mass.

Peregil points out that the crew had previously objected on grounds of conscience to breaking the elderly Ferro’s leg. Don Ibrahim proposes a less visibly violent alternative: the priest could disappear for two or three days without physical injury. He suggests holding Ferro on a boat on the river, where the Potro del Mantelete lives, until Friday. That timetable is the practical core of the plot: keep Ferro away through Thursday morning, then return him after the Mass can no longer be performed on schedule.

The plan is not an independent criminal venture. Peregil is Pencho Gavira’s hired aide, and the eventual exchange is arranged under Gavira’s instructions. The abduction is meant to serve the broader effort to clear the way for the church’s redevelopment, while the payment gives Don Ibrahim, the Potro, and Niña Puñales a direct financial stake in carrying it out.

The abduction and confinement

The crew intercepts Ferro after midnight in the alley by the garden door of Casa del Postigo. Getting him into a rented van takes a struggle: the priest resists fiercely despite his small, frail appearance. The fight leaves Don Ibrahim’s cane, once belonging to María Félix, broken; the Potro with a black eye; and Niña Puñales with two damaged dental fillings. The injuries make the episode’s dark comedy concrete, but they also establish that Ferro is not a passive victim who can simply be carried off without resistance.

Aboard the Canela Fina, Ferro is kept in a cabin with his wrists taped to a chair and a silk scarf over his eyes. The restraint materials are makeshift and specific: the scarf belongs to Niña, while the wide adhesive tape was bought the previous afternoon at a pharmacy on Calle Pureza. He remains bound and blindfolded, largely silent. When asked whether he wants a sandwich, a drink, or to relieve himself, he answers only by telling his captors to go to hell.

The confinement is intended to last only a few days, but the kidnappers understand that the plan has crossed a serious legal line. Peregil is uneasy about seizing a priest and holding him against his will, knowing that judges are unlikely to look kindly on the offense. Don Ibrahim too is not entirely confident, yet believes it is too late to withdraw. He has originated the idea and accepts the risk alongside his accomplices. The sum promised to the three men—four and a half million pesetas in total—is a further reason they proceed.

The planned handover and its stakes

Peregil is assigned to manage the transfer. At a meeting planned for eleven at night near the boat, Gavira instructs him to take delivery of the priest and arrange for the woman and the tall priest to assume custody in an old dock warehouse. Peregil carries the warehouse key and the ransom money. The agreed payment is four and a half million pesetas in 10,000-peseta notes, hidden under his shirt inside the elastic of his underwear; he has also kept another 500,000 pesetas by charging his employer for supposed necessary expenses.

The exchange plan shows how the kidnapping links religious discipline, property interests, and private profiteering. Gavira wants the priest out of the way; Peregil tries to make money from executing the arrangement; and Don Ibrahim’s group has accepted a dangerous job while maintaining the fiction that the sacred building itself remains untouched. Their distinction between the church and its priest is morally compromised from the outset: leaving the walls intact is useful precisely because the priest’s removal can disable the rite that protects them.

The evidence follows Peregil as he approaches the rendezvous beneath Triana Bridge and walks toward the old Arenal docks, confident that the night’s business is nearly finished. He expects Ferro to be brought from the Canela Fina and the handover to proceed at the warehouse. The kidnapping’s decisive purpose is therefore temporal rather than permanent: keep the celebrant away long enough to break the Thursday requirement, and turn the church’s weekly ritual into an opening for demolition.