San Juan, Puerto Rico, Jan 26, 2022 / 15:08 pm
The Archbishop of San Juan de Puerto Rico, Roberto Octavio González Nieves, expressed his sorrow and repudiated the demolition of the city’s statue of Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish colonizer who was Puerto Rico’s first governor.
“I would like to express my sadness over the acts that led to the demolition of the statue of the first governor of Puerto Rico, Juan Ponce de León. Said action must draw our strongest feeling of repudiation,” the archbishop said in a Jan. 24 statement.
Cae la estatua del colonizador español Juan Ponce de León, símbolo de la represión, la colonización y la violencia, coincidiendo con la visita del rey español, Felipe VI. Estaba ubicada en la plaza San José de la calle San Sebastián en el Viejo San Juan.#HistoriaDecolonial pic.twitter.com/NqwXpi5Tms
— CIHTAD-PR (@cihtad) January 24, 2022
The statue was torn down the night of Jan. 23-24, shortly before the visit of Felipe VI, the king of Spain, to the U.S. territory. The statue was reinstalled later on Jan. 24.