Princess Cecilia de Bourbon Parma died this Wednesday, September 1 at the age of 86 in Paris. Just last Saturday the family gathered in Parma to celebrate the solemn funeral for the eternal rest of the Infanta María Teresa de Borbón Parma.
María Teresa died on March 26, 2020 due to the coronavirus. However, the farewell mass was celebrated this weekend, just five days before the departure of her sister Cecilia. “I deeply regret having to report the death this afternoon in Paris of my dear aunt Doña Cecilia. Tireless fighter, always ready to help others with a smile that made her special, active Carlist militant with my father Carlos Hugo and my aunts María Teresa and María de las Nieves in the political tasks entrusted in the difficult 60s and 70s of the last century.
“Of an overflowing vitality, she worked as a nurse in a leper colony, or volunteered in the floods of the Vallés, or worked for the FAO in favour of Laos”, wrote her nephew Carlos Javier.
Princess carried out volunteer work
And he continuesd “At the outbreak of the Biafra war, she enlisted as a volunteer in the Order of Malta, making continuous flights of humanitarian aid, since she was also a pilot.
“Expelled from Spain by the dictatorship on several occasions due to her tireless struggle to recover democratic freedoms. During her last years she dedicated herself in Paris to collaborate with the Association of Palliative Care, accompanying the sick and offering love and hope.
“She was always a person of strong Christian beliefs. Along with me family I ask you to pray for her, and that we never forget her constant example of dedication and service to others “.
Family claim to Spanish throne
Born in 1935, Cecilia was the daughter of Francisco Javier de Borbón y Braganza, prince of Parma and Plasencia, and of Magdalena de Borbón Busset. Her father claimed to be the legitimate heir to the Spanish Crown, as the Carlist tradition proclaimed. However, his opposition to Franco cost him his exile.
His struggle did not cease and in 1952 he proclaimed himself the legitimate heir to the Crown of Spain, a dignity inherited by Cecilia’s brother, Carlos Hugo, who died in 2010.
Cecilia’s nephew Carlos Javier continues the claim.
