The best international ambassador we have in the “Association of Friends of the Pallerols Way from Rialb to Andorra” is, without a doubt, Emilio Fernández Urías, an aviation pilot who works in a private company with which he has the opportunity to travel all over the world.

During his constant travels, he promotes Pallerols through talks and distributing books and roses to the people he interacts with in the different countries he visits.

Lately he has spent 7 months in New Zealand for professional reasons and from there he sends us a chronicle of the last days of his stay in that country, where it coincided with the visit of the prelate of Opus Dei, Mons. Fernando Ocáriz, on the 24th to 26 of August. 

This is what he writes to us:

I arrived in Auckland (New Zealand) on February 15 and presented Lluís Trullols with a “Pallerols Rose”. Lluís is the director of the Opus Dei center in Auckland, “Glenrowan Study Center”.

I was very lucky that this time my company accommodated me at the Cordis hotel, which is 8 minutes from Glenrowan, so that I could often go to this residence that hosts a small number of young professionals and students. You can say that it has been my home during the almost 7 months of my professional stay in the area. I have been able to attend training sessions, dinners and fantastic gatherings at the end of the day.

As ambassador of the Association of Friends of the Pallerols Way, I reminded Lluís of the excellence of the historic area of the Baronia de Rialb, and my hope in being a guide for the “kiwi” friends who would dare to visit us.

And as it could not be less, the Rose also arrived at the “Fernhall Study Center”, the women's center that Carmen Ojeda directs with no less wisdom. My wife Beatriz, who accompanied me in the month of August, visited the center and enjoyed the affectionate welcome that Carmen gave her. Knowing the Association of Friends of the Pallerols Way from Rialb to Andorra, they chatted at length about Pallerols and its present and future project, and she received with enthusiasm this fond memory that, like in Glenrowan, occupies a place of honor in the living room display case.

Bea also had the opportunity to talk about her experience at the head of the Paulino Torras-Raval Solidari Foundation and the social work that has been carried out for 25 years in the Foundation and its connection with the church of Santa María de Montalegre and the sponsored entities: Social Action Montalegre, Braval and Terral, all of them in the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona.

Both Carmen and Lluís are perfectly aware of the historical event that took place in Pallerols in the Autumn of 1937. A pride and satisfaction that, despite the distance in space and time -both have been at the antipodes for more than 20 years- they have received this humble gift with so much enthusiasm.

But there is even more, since I was able to greet the prelate of Opus Dei, Mons. Fernando Ocáriz, who was in these lands on a pastoral visit from August 24 to 26. Accompanying the prelate on his visit to New Zealand, I was also able to greet Father Íñigo Martínez Echevarría, Regional Vicar of Opus Dei in Oceania, with whom I was able to chat for a good time and also present him with a Pallerols Rose that through his mediation has already reached Australia, to its headquarters in Sydney.

As you can see, Pallerols is known internationally and it is increasingly common for people from all over the world to visit these places that Saint Josemaria visited in the autumn of 1937.

You can review the latest news on our website and you will see the visits we have had this summer since Australia, Brazil, Mexico... and many other areas of Spain.