Jesús Arnal

Jesús Arnal Pena (28 January 1904 – 8 December 1971) was an Aragonese Catholic priest and writer. He was caught in Aragon at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, and joined the Durruti Column in order to protect himself from anti-clerical violence. He worked as a clerk for the Column, organising personnel and attempting to prevent looting by militiamen. After revealing his status as a priest to the Column and becoming friends with its commander Buenaventura Durruti, he became known as "Durruti's priest". After Durruti's death, he became a secretary to Ricardo Rionda Castro, the captain of the 26th Division, who told him Durruti had been shot accidentally by his own gun. Later in life, he began working on his memoirs and publicised Rionda's account of Durruti's death in the Spanish press.