Nectorio María

Nectario Maria Pratlong Bonicell Gal (28 October 1888 – 3 October 1986), born as Louis Alfred Silvano Pratlong Bonicell Gal, was a Venezuelan religious brother of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. He was noted as an educator, historian, cartographer, archaeologist, paleontologist and geographer. Having spent much of his adult life in Venezuela as part of his activities with the Christian Brothers, he was the author of study works about the history and geography of the nation which became the educational standard in schools throughout the country. A devoted Mariologist, he was associated with promoting two causes in particular, that of Our Lady of Coromoto, Patroness of Venezuela and also that of Our Lady of Palmar in Spain, a series of apparitions to which he was personally a witness.

Biography Background Louis Alfred Silvano Pratlong Bonicell Gal was born in the small village of Hyelzas, Lozère, Occitania, on 28 October 1888 to Silvano Pratlong and María Celestina Bonicel. As a child he was educated by the De La Salle Brothers in Meyrueis, near his hometown. His birth name is sometimes Hispanised as Luís Alfredo Pratlong Bonicell.

Education and science in Venezuela Inspired by his Christian Brothers teachers, he decided to enter the novitiate of the De La Salle congregation in 1850, graduating as a teacher at the Lembecq Lez Hall school in Belgium in 1907. He took the religious name Nectario María. After formation, he was sent to Latin America where he would become most notable for his activities. Firstly, he lived in Panama, teaching at Catholic schools there, before being sent to Venezuela on 13 March 1913. When he arrived there, he was tasked with participating in the foundation of a new De La Salle School in Barquisimeto, where he made perpetual vows in 1917.

While in Sevilla, Brother Nectario's attention was drawn to an alleged contemporary apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at a village known as El Palmar de Troya, near Sevilla. Here, on 30 March 1968, four school girls reported having seen the apparition of "a very beautiful lady" on a bush (lentisco) near the Alcaparrosa field, while they were picking flowers. Many other people were drawn to the place and also reported to being seers, witnesses to the apparations and miracles, in what would come to be known as the apparations of Our Lady of Palmar. By early 1969, the attention on the apparations had died down a little, but two articles published in the summer in the ABC newspaper, defending the supernatural nature of the events at Palmar with documentary evidence were published, reinvigorating attention; one by a Jesuit priest and one by Brother Nectario, then an octogenerian. The latter invited readers to a talk he was to give on the topic at the Le Salle Institution in Sevilla. Two of the visitors to the talk, Clemente Domínguez y Gómez and Manuel Alonso Corral, who had visited El Palmar de Troya in 1968 but had become dissafected and stopped attending, were further convinced of their legitimacy and vowed to begin attending again.

On 15 August 1969, when a number of mystical ecstasies of visionaries had gathered there, Brother Nectario reported to have had a vision of Jesus Christ, proclaiming "Christ is present here!" Having been convinced by Brother Nectario of the veracity of Palmar and then witnessing intense alleged miracles for themselves, from this point on Clemente and Manolo visited far more frequently and indeed would soon push their way to the forefront, with Clemente claiming many visions and miracles, such as the stigmata throughout 1969. It was not just in spiritual matters, but also financial, that the well connected Brother Nectario made prominent moves for the Palmarians, as according to Magnus Lundberg, "Nectario María would have an essential role as a facilitator of contacts with potential donors and became responsible for the group’s finances for some time."

Eventually, distance grew between Brother Nectario and Manolo and Clemente, who would eventually found the Carmelites of the Holy Face, which, after the death of Pope Paul VI would proclaim itself as the Palmarian Catholic Church.

Works Historia Elemental de Venezuela (1927) Historia Superior de Venezuela (1929) Historia General de Venezuela (1929) Geografía de Venezuela (1929) Historia de la Conquista y Fundación de Caracas (1967) La maravillosa historia de Nuestra Señora de Coromoto (1975) La Virgen del Valle de Margarita: un gran santuario Mariano de Venezuela (1986)