Javier María Santiago Pascual Ibañez (1933–1998) was a Spanish publisher and a Carlist activist. His professional career climaxed in the 1980s, upon assuming management of Departamento del Español Urgente in Agencia EFE, a unit with linguistic normative designs upon the entire Hispanic world. He is best known, however, for his role in El Pensamiento Navarro; under his guidance in the late 1960s the daily was instrumental in Socialist takeover of Carlist structures.
Family and youth
The Pascual family have been related to the Navarrese village of Etayo, a few kilometers from the iconic mountain of Montejurra. Though its first progenitor can be traced back to the 16th century,Juan Pascual, born 1573, see Carmen Aguirre, Iñaki Pascual, Antepasados de Joaquín Pascual Hermoso de Mendoza, [in:] aguirrepascual service 2013, available here none of his descendants made their name in the history of the region. Javier María's paternal grandfather, Genaro Pascual Subirán, was a local farmer;"mi padre [...] iba para labrador como su padre y el padre de su padre", quoted after Rosa Marina Errea Iribas, Javier Maria Pascual y El Pensamiento Navarro: "con él llego el escándalo" (1966-1970), Pamplona 2007, , p. 47; name of his grandfather after Aguirre, Pascual 2013 he married a girl from nearby Lorca,now part of the city of Estella Severina Hermoso de Mendoza.Aguirre, Pascual 2013 Their son and the father of Javier María, Hernán Pascual Hermoso de Mendoza, was the first one to leave Etayo; having studied medicine and recording what was described by his son as a triumphal achievement,"por pura casualidad ¡hay que ver los nombres que se inventan para non llamar a Dios por el suyo!", quoted after Errea Iribas 2007, p. 47 he became a doctor. In the 1920s Hernán Pascual settled in Sangüesa, in the Navarrese Prepirineos. He was a member of Cuerpo de Inspectores Municipales de SanidadBoletín Oficial de la Provincia de Oviedo 20 (1929), available here and practiced as a physician in the area;Anuario de Comercia, Industria, Profesiones y Tributación del Pais Vasco 1930, p. 338, available here he is recorded in the living memory as "muy bueno".Moises Sola Machín, La comadrona, el médico y el practicante, [in:] Sanguesa, La Que Nunca Olvidó service, available here None of the sources consulted provides any information on his wife and Javier María's mother, María Ibañez; her son remembers her as extremely hard-working and devout.Errea Iribas 2007, p. 47
Javier María and his 3 sisters were brought up in a fervently Catholic ambience; one of them became a nun. He was first educated in the Jesuit colleges in Durango, Javier, and Tudela,Errea Iribas 2007, p. 45 narrowly evading expulsion as his independent character caused conflict and controversy.Errea Iribas 2007, p. 50 Upon bachillerato, obtained in 1951, the Jesuits suggested that he enters a novitiate; himself feeling he was rather tempted to pursue his knack for letters. However, Javier María's parents were skeptical and persuaded him to study law. Pascual was not at all enthusiastic, but he appreciated the advantages offered by the juridical culture; he moved to the capital and enrolled at Facultad de Derecho of the Madrid University. He completed the curriculum and graduated at an unspecified time, most likely in the mid-1950s.Errea Iribas 2007, pp. 56, 256 He did not give up his juvenile penchant; and in 1954 he joined the Madrid-based Escuela Oficial de Periodismo,Errea Iribas 2007, p. 45, Manuel Martorell Pérez, La continuidad ideológica del carlismo tras la Guerra Civil [PhD thesis in Historia Contemporanea, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia], Valencia 2009, p. 383 becoming an officially licensed press journalist later on.Errea Iribas 2007, p. 56; for detailed discussion of the establishment, see Alicia Tapia López, Las primeras enseñanzas de documentación en periodismo, [in:] Documentación de las Ciencias de la Información 24 (2001), pp. 231-253
It is not clear whether before moving to Madrid Pascual started contributing to the Navarrese press, especially that two of his relatives wrote to Pamplona periodicals and held admin positions in the local newspaper realm.Joaquín Arbeloa Galdeano and Angel María Pascual Visner During the academic period he was already noted as a Madrid envoy of two key Pamplona dailies, Diario de Navarra and El Pensamiento Navarro; some time afterwards he commenced contributing also to journals elsewhere, sending correspondence from the capital to La Gaceta del Norte (Bilbao) and El Correo Catalán (Barcelona).Mediterráneo 24.07.70, available here In an unclear position he was also involved in a technical corporate periodical Información de la Publicidad.Errea Iribas 2007, p. 56, also Javier María Pascual, periodista, [in:] El Pais 14.12.98, available here Some time, prior to the mid-1960s, Javier María Pascual married María Rosa Figueroa Otermín. The couple lived mostly in Madrid, though in the second half of the 1960s they resided in Pamplona. They had 8 children, 4 sons and 4 daughters;ABC 14.12.98, available here none of them became a public figure recognized nationwide.
Early public career
There were both Falangist and Carlist antecedents among Pascual's close family. He admitted great influence of a maternal relative, Joaquín Arbeloa,Joaquín Arbeloa Galdeano (1910-1979), Errea Iribas 2007, p. 47; see also Mediterráneo 28.06.79, available here, Ainhoa Arozamena Ayala, Joaquín Arbeloa Galdeano entry, [in:] Auñamendi Eusko Entziklopedia online, available here during early Francoism an emerging star in Navarrese historiographyhis opus magnum, Los orígenes del Reino de Navarra, was published in 3 volumes in 1969 and journalism, co-founder of combative Falangistdubbed "la revista negra de la Falange", also "Guía nacionalsindicalista del Imperio, de la Sabiduría, de los Oficios", Juan María Lecea Yábar, Angel María Pascual (1911-1947), [in:] Príncipe de Viana 215 (1998), p. 861 review Jerarquía and in the 1940s contributor to Diario de Navarra.Ainhoa Arozamena Ayala, Joaquín Arbeloa Galdeano entry, [in:] Auñamendi Eusko Entziklopedia online Javier María remained indebtedErrea Iribas 2007, p. 23 also to a paternal relativein 1954 he called him "uncle" ("Angel María Pascual es mi tío"), quoted after Errea Iribas 2007, p. 48. As Angel María Pascual died in 1947 it is not clear whether the present tense used was licencia poetica or the alleged 1954 date of the document is incorrect. Also exact family relationship between the two remains to be established Angel María Pascual,Angel María Pascual Visner (1911-1947) a Falangist old-shirt, president of Asociación de la Prensa de Pamplona, a poet and a correspondent of Navarrese and national newspapers.Lecea Yábar 1998, p. 870; as author he is known mostly for his Falangist heroic and lyrical opus magnum, Amadis (Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 1943), "novela de tendencia anti-realista en la que acomoda el mito literario caballeresco a la historia coetánea", see Carlos Mata Induraín, Semblanza de Angel María Pascual (1911-1947), [in:] Insula Barañaria blog 2012, available here On the other hand, Javier María's father was a vehement CarlistErrea Iribas 2007, p. 49 and his paternal uncle, José Manuel Pascual Hermoso de Mendoza,born 1902 and ordained in 1929, Jaime del Burgo, Catalogo bio-bibliografico, Pamplona 1954, p. 428 was an iconic movements figure; as a former Requeté chaplain, he served as a parish priest first in Etayo and then in Pamplona,in the prestigious parish of San Francisco Javier active also as leader of a Traditionalist ex-combatant religious organization.he was the moving spirit behind the first Javierada, a male pilgrimage to Javier organized by Hermandad Caballeros Voluntarios de la Cruz, José Fermin Garralda Arizcun, La primera Javierada: 10 de marzo de 1940, [in:] Navarra y Pamplona service 27.02.15, available here , Javier Baleztena Abarrategui, Fundación de la Hermandad de Caballeros Voluntarios de la Cruz, [in:] Premín de Iruña blog 10.02.15, available here
Having arrived in Madrid in the mid-1950s Pascual approached students of Traditionalist heritage, grouped in semi-legal AET.Manuel Martorell Pérez, Carlos Hugo frente a Juan Carlos. La solución federal para España que Franco rechazó, Madrid 2014, , p. 46. Pascual did not hold roles in the AET executive, but some scholars count him among "grupo de la dirección de la AET", Josep Miralles Climent, Estudiantes y obreros carlistas durante la dictadura franquista. La AET, el MOT y la FOS, Madrid 2007, , p. 44 He perfectly fit their typical profile, "de procedencia rural o de pequeñas ciudades no demasiado urbanizadas, católicos, monárquicos y legitimistas".as described later by the group leader, Ramón Massó, quoted after Martorell Pérez 2009, p. 384; a different profiling is offered by José Antonio Parilla, who claims that Pascual was an exception since he was the only one holding Carlist ancestors, Javier Lavardín [José Antonio Parilla], Historia del ultimo pretendiente a la corona de España, Paris 1976, p. 48 Brought up in Traditionalist ambience in their provincial towns but enjoying autonomy of students living in a huge city, they were not particularly concerned with the doctrine and looked for a new format of Carlism.Martorell Pérez 2009, pp. 383-4 With a new mid-1950s pro-collaborationist turn of the party the youth benefitted the most: the regime permitted a launch of AET-controlled periodicals La EncinaLa Encina was an ephemerical periodical with 6 issues only, Martorell Pérez 2014, p. 119; others claim there were 5 issues before La Encina was closed by the authorities, Miralles Climent 2007, p. 39. Pascual is characteristically noted as lambasting those who "escriben contra el comunismo y no escriben por la Justicia", Evaristo Olcina, Prologo, [in:] Josep Miralles Climent, Estudiantes y obreros carlistas durante la dictadura franquista. La AET, el MOT y la FOS, Madrid 2007, , p. 8 and Azada y asta.the periodical was launched in 1959, but in 1960 it was released in only 3 issues; in 1961 there were 7, Lavardín 1976, p. 100 Pascual was involved in both,Martorell Pérez 2009, p. 470 in 1957–58 as editor-in-chief of the formerMiralles Climent 2007, p. 39 and since 1959 of the latter.Martorell Pérez 2009, p. 443; it is not clear when he ceased as editor-in-chief, though certainly prior to late 1962, when the post was held by Rafael Navarro Dominguez, Miralles Climent 2007, p. 54 Under his guidance it grew into a platform where Traditionalism mixed with a search for a new intellectual formula,using a strategy which would be frequently employed later, he equalled uncompromising stand by the Traditionalist principles as false Traditionalism and merely a stagnation, see his notes on "posición estática de algunos que se dicen defensores de la misma [tradición]", Miralles Climent 2007, p. 41 increasingly endorsing heterodoxy.Martorell Pérez 2009, pp. 444-5, Lavardín 1976, pp. 101-102, Martorell Pérez 2014, p. 119 Pascual contributed himself, focusing on social and religious topics; in line with ongoing Vaticanum II preparations, he called for a new Church.he advocated that the Church gets closer to the people, assumes pro-social stand, engages in dialogue with dissidents, embraces scientific progress and modernizes the liturgy, Martorell Pérez 2009, p. 451 Falling short of openly embracing liberal trends, he endorsed "catolicismo liberal" in "su sentido etimológico y no político".Martorell Pérez 2009, p. 451, Martorell Pérez 2014, p. 126 Some of his combative pro-Carlist pieces have been noted even by the exile Republican press in France.this was the case of his 1957 contribution to El Pensamiento Navarro, titled "From cavemen to heroes and from heroes to imbeciles". In the article he protested and ridiculed patronising Falangist treatment of the Carlists as merely "unos buenos chicos", CNT 19.01.58, available here