Calle del Padre Rubio
Recalls José María Rubio, the Jesuit known as the “apostle of Madrid,” who tended to the poor of the city’s northern slums, right beside this street.
The Padre Rubio who names the street was José María Rubio y Peralta (Dalías, Almería, 1864 - Aranjuez, 1929), a Jesuit priest whom Madrid ended up calling “its apostle.” He was ordained first as a diocesan priest and only later, in middle age, entered the Society of Jesus. In Madrid he spent hours in the confessional, where the lines of penitents grew endless, and led rounds of spiritual exercises across the city.
His work took him to the poor neighborhoods of the northern outskirts, among them la Ventilla, in the very area where the street now runs. There he cared for the rag pickers and the families the official city barely looked at, opened free schools, and built chapels in the midst of poverty.
John Paul II beatified him in 1985 and canonized him in Madrid in 2003. The street keeps the humble title by which the locals knew him: Padre Rubio, nothing more.