KIKO ARGüELLO

'Francisco (Kiko) Argüello' (born January 9 1939) is, together with Carmen Hernandez and Fr Mario Pezzi, one of the initiators of the Neocatechumenal Way. The Neocatechumenal Way is a reality born as one of the fruits of the Second Vatican Council, within the Roman Catholic Church. Argüello was born in León, Spain. He was originally involved in the Cursillo ministry. He studied fine arts at the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. In 1959 Argüello was awarded a Special National Prize for Painting and was a student of the famed Spanish painter, Pablo Picasso.

Contents

Crisis and Conversion

The Origins

Kiko Argüello and the Neocatechumenal Way today

Architecture, paintings and the liturgy

Crisis and Conversion

After a profound existential crisis, he embarked on a serious conversion that made him dedicate his life to Jesus and to His Church.
Convinced that Christ is present in the suffering of the least of people, Argüello took his guitar and Bible and initiated the Way in 1964 in the slums of Madrid, following the path of Charles de Foucauld. He abandoned his studies and painting as a career, to go and live amongst the poorest, buiding for himself a wooden shack in Palomeras Atlas, in the outskirts of Madrid.

The Origins

Later on, Kiko encountered Carmen Hernández, a graduate in Chemistry and Theology. Thanks to the liturgist Father Farnés Schroder, they got in touch with the liturgical renewal of the Second Vatican Council and the centrality of the Easter Vigil. Inspired by the environment in which the poor were living, they encounterd a form of predication that led them to the formation of a small Christian Community. Thus the first community was born, amongst Gypsies, illiterates, vagabonds, prostitutes, homosexuals, unemployed etc, in whom Christ Crucified manifested His love.
Through more contact with other parishes embracing different standards of living, little by little a Way of Christian initiation was begun for adults who were rediscovering the richness found in Baptism.

Kiko Argüello and the Neocatechumenal Way today

After more than thirty years of work in more than a hundred countries, this Neocatechumenate was recognized by Pope John Paul II as an itinerary of Catholic Formation, valid for our society and for our times.^[1] Kiko Argüello, Carmen Hernández and an Italian Priest, Father Mario Pezzi are presently the responsibles of the Neocatechumenal Way worldwide. Today the Neocatechumenal way is present in more than 110 countries in all the six continents, in nearly 900 dioceses, and in around 8,000 parishes with more than 30,000 communities, 19,000 of which are found in Europe.

Architecture, paintings and the liturgy

Throughout the years, Kiko Argüello painted a large number of religious paintings, in several cities and localities, cathedrals and Churches. He is also a psalmist, composing well over one hundred and eighty songs of a religious nature, for use within the Neocatechumenal Way celebrations and liturgies. Thus an aesthetic renewal has taken place through paintings, architecture, music, songs and liturgical ornaments. In Rome, Kiko has painted huge murals in the crypt of the Church dedicated to the Canadian Martyrs (Ascension of Our Lord in Heaven); in the Church of Saint Frances Cabrini (Holy Trinity) and also in its crypt and in the Church of Saint Louis Gonzaga (The Apparition of the Risen Christ to Saint Thomas). In Porto San Giorgio, the centre of the Neocatechumenal Way, near to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Loreto, the International Centre for the New Evangelisation has been built according to Argüello's design. He has also set up a huge cross and an abstract painting of the Creation. He has also designed many of the 64 Necatechumenal Way Seminaries, especially the Redemptoris Mater Seminaries of Newark and Denver (USA), Rome and Macerata (Italy), as well as the Neocatechumenal Centre in Madrid, amongst others.
In Florence, he has painted the "Corona Misterica", behind the altar of the Church of Saint Bartholomew in Tuto and has designed, together with the Italian architect Alberto Durante, a Catechumenium (a structure encompassing several halls, intended to hold liturgies by the Neocatechumenal Communities and the Diocese).
In the Parish of the Holy Trinity in Piacenza, he has painted one of the largest murals in the world (500 square metres). It represents the Glory of Christ Pantokrator, Resurrected on a golden background. It was inaugurated in the presence of the local Bishop, an official of the Orthodox Church of Moscow and three Eastern Patriarchs.

In Madrid, Kiko has also designed the architecture of various Cathecumeniums and has painted different themes in the Parishes of El Transito (The dormition of Our Lady), of Saint Joseph (The Transfiguration), of La Paloma (he designed and painted the chapel dedicated to Pentecost) and in Saint Catherine Laboure (where he designed the architecture of the church together with the German architect Gottfried Klaiber), he painted the Story of Salvation on a golden background all around the temple. Additionally, in the parish of Saint Frontis of Zamora, he painted a round mural depicting the Birth of Jesus, His Baptism and His Resurrection.
In Finland, in the city of Oulu, he designed, together with the Swiss architect Gabriele Geronzi, the first parish church in a zone where no one had ever established the presence of the Roman Catholic Church before.
Also in Israel, he designed, together with a team of architects (Antonio Abalos and Guillermo Soler, Spanish; Mattia Del Prete, Italian and the above mentioned Gottfried Klaiber), the grand building of the Domus Galilaeae (centre of biblical formation and a place to receive pilgrims to the Holy Land), where he recently has finished the painting showing the Final Judgement, that decorates the church of this new building.
Just before to the royal wedding of the Crown Prince Felipe of Spain, Kiko was commissioned to paint the interior of the Almudena Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Madrid, in time for the said wedding, in 2004.
Though not a member of the clergy, Argüello is to this day unmarried.