This monk is single-handedly building a cathedral using a book and his bare hands

Eighty-year-old Trappist monk, Justo Gallego Martínez, has made an unfathomable dream into reality... almost. For the past 45 years, Martínez the Trappist monk, affectionately known as Don Justo, has been constructing his very own 8,000 square-metre cathedral just 25 kilometres east of Madrid. Don Justo has largely built this colossal undertaking alone, without any formal architectural training. He insists that it's solely his faith that has enabled him to succeed.

TBS found Don Justo, oblivious to the world around him, carrying plastic buckets to and fro between the complex of cloisters and crypts located in the cathedral's lower level. He wore a red woollen hat in place of a hard hat and a matching red scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth in place of a dust maskÑno ordinary construction worker. Don Justo is a petite man, appearing to weigh around 40 kilos, but his presence is large. He graciously welcomed us, explaining that due to his failing voice, he would have to defer all questions to his loyal assistant Gregorio, who would be more than happy to answer anything we wanted to know. Having no choice but to respect his wish to preserve what vocal ability he had left, we went in search of Gregorio who we found in his office, comprising of a chair, a small electric space heater and a radio.

Born in 1925 in Mejorada del Campo, Don Justo has always maintained a profound faith in Christianity, which led him, at age 27, to join an order of Trappist monks in Soria, Spain. His life as a monk, however, was cut short when after contracting tuberculosis, he was expelled from the monastery for fear that his disease might spread and infect the rest of the order. Saddened but not deterred, Don Justo returned to his native town, where in 1961 he laid the first stone for what would become his life's work. He felt there was no better way to dedicate himself to the Church, than by building one himself.

Don Justo still arrives to work each day at 6am where he contently toils for 10 hours, usually without a lunch break. Besides sporadic help from his nephews and the occasional volunteer, Don Justo has almost single-handedly built a Romanesque cathedral complete with domed ceiling, hanging turrets and columned semicircular arches. A truly astonishing feat considering that a few books on architecture have served as his only training. Don Justo admits that blueprints for his structure never existed. He uses only the vision in his head
to guide him.

To help finance the construction of his cathedral, Don Justo has sold and
rented out parcels of farmland he inherited from his parents. The majority
of the building materials however, have been salvaged from the piles of discarded materials at construction sites and a nearby brick factory. It wasn't until this past May that Don Justo received his first and only to date corporate funding when he agreed to let Coca-Cola use his story and image as part of a promotional television commercial for the isotonic beverage Aquarius. It is estimated that Coca-Cola compensated him between 30,000 and 40,000 euros. Still, additional funds and materials are needed to complete the project. "We lack a lot of money", Gregorio says. The dome and most of the roof are still unfinished. Don Justo says that with 500 million pesetas and five years he hopes to be finished. A modest yellow notice adorns a far wall of the cathedral displaying Don Justo's bank account number in case a visitor should wish to make a donation.

When asked about Don Justo's health, Gregorio assured me that despite losing
his voice, his boss was in fine health for an octogenarian, adding that in all his years of hauling, hoisting, climbing and chiselling, Don Justo has never been injured on the job. But at 80 years of age, one can't help but wonder how many more years of "fine health" Don Justo has left in him, which begs the question of what will become of the fruit of his labour once he is gone?

It is Don Justo's express wish that the diocese of Alcalá, to which Mejorada del Campo belongs, will assume ownership of the cathedral once he has passed on. When Don Justo began building four-and-a-half decades ago, he failed to
secure any official building permits so his cathedral is not recognized by the city planning council and is technically considered illegal. This, coupled with the unorthodox building techniques used in construction engender serious concerns about the cathedral's structural integrity which pose menacing liability issues that the diocese doesn't want to touch with a ten foot staff. The harsh reality is that the cathedral may be razed immediately after his death, a reality that Don Justo is well aware of, yet his devotion to completing his masterpiece remains unwavered.

Recent public interest in the cathedral, no doubt attributed to the wide reach of the Aquarius spot, has been putting pressure on the Ayuntamiento of Mejorada del Campo to preserve what has become a symbol of the tiny working-class town. It's the town's only tourist attraction drawing as many as 1,000 people at the weekend. If the town council was to adopt the cathedral, an architectural audit would need to be conducted. This would require a large investment, especially if structural improvements and safeguards need to be made. Currently no official word exists on whether the council is willing to make this investment or not.

What eventually becomes of the cathedral in future is of little concern to
Don Justo. "He is not interested in the future. Building this is what makes him happy. Why else would he continue to show up every day at six in the morning? He was meant to do this... He doesn't know how to do anything else", says Gregorio.

It was evident from our time at the cathedral that Don Justo's goal was never to create fanfare, to inspire nor to make a lasting impression in this world. Yet, near the main entrance there is a small makeshift table with a spiral notebook. This is the visitors book where people from all over the globe have inscribed
their personal messages of praise, appreciation and well-wishing for Don Justo. In the book, there seemed to be a handful of recurring words; miraculous, amazing, inspiring, overwhelming, extraordinary. Don Justo's cathedral is indeed all of those things... intended or not.

 
Searching for the quasi-famous monk, TBS was intercepted by an older fellow seemingly spry for his age Don Justo's brother-in-law, Pablo. Pablo took on the persona of celebrity agent and inquiring as to whether we had brought any dinero, because surely we knew that payment was required to speak with Don Justo. The first time he demanded money we thought we misunderstood. The second time, we thought it must be a joke. But around the third or tenth time, while making the international hand signal for money, rubbing index and middle finger together with thumb, we knewhe was serious. Pablo continued his charade for about 15 minutes until, lucky for us, he had some more important place to be and hurried off.