Madrid, Spain, Oct 14, 2009 / 14:35 pm
Corporal Cristo Ancor Cabello Santana, the latest Spanish soldier to die in Afghanistan, fulfilled his wish to be baptized before dying. Cabello had asked the chaplain at the Herat Base to baptize him and was planning on receiving the sacrament last weekend before being wounded in a Taliban attack.
The chaplain wanted to use a baptismal shell being sent from Madrid to administer the sacrament, but Cabello told him he already had one from when he made a pilgrimage to Santiago in Spain. The chaplain used his shell and administered the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation before Cabello died on October 7. Two days later his remains arrived in Spain.
The 25 year-old corporal was a new father, and fell victim to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, where he was serving as part of security patrol force.
According to the Spanish paper La Razon, Archbishop Juan del Rio Martin of the Military Archdiocese praised Cabello at his funeral for his service to the military and for his tour with the Spanish military in Lebanon, which earned him the Medal of the United Nations.
He said Cabello gave his life “for the noble ideals of the military” and helped Spain to stand up with other free and democratic nations to address grave international problems.
The archbishop expressed his condolences to Cabello’s family and friends, underscoring that his death represented “a seed of freedom.”
Cabello entered the military in 2003 and was sent as part of the Spanish contingent in the war against the Taliban.