There is a poem that a fellow canon dedicated to him during his stay in Covadonga.  Its first stanza decisively portrays his personality:

“Young, wise, Andalusian, polite, elegant,
Calm, discrete, learned,
Kindhearted by nature, and virtuous beside,
A priest of an edifying life”

From this same period, a young teacher, Luis Huerta, one of his collaborators, defined the indelible memory of him with a few strokes:  “He was a blond canon, impeccable, congenial, with a fine irony.  He lived the problem of education in depth, was an insatiable reader and he was very well informed”.

A reader who could have got easily lost in books and thoughts but for his firm belief that actions speak louder than words, validate our ideas, and “express eloquently what we are”.  For this reason, a priest from Oviedo, Luciano García Jove, who understood his dream from the beginning, emphasized:  “In his life not everything were projects: he was also a man of action”. Monsignor Antonio García, the Bishop of Tuy (Vigo) in 1961, confirmed this perception with these words:  “His priestly goodness became for him a source of interior torture due to his most delicate conscience; his apostolic zeal hurled him into a path of adventures so daring that I, sometimes, would have termed as reckless”

What did the young students see in him?

Magdalena Martín Ayuso, his collaborator in Covadonga, was impressed by the trust he put in people:  “He had an almost unlimited trust in the human person. I remember some of his phrases from his letters that left a profound mark in me:  ‘We need to believe in people’, ‘I who expect so much from you’.

Ana María López, a pharmacy student when she met him in Madrid, admired his natural talent as educator and teacher:  “I learned from him to monitor a discussion in a study group, to stir interest in our round table conversations, to get in touch with the labor world during evening classes and in the celebrations organized by the incipient labor unions.  I learned from him the value of a monotonous and sacrificial task, of systematic education at all levels.  And all this after he had made me aware, and I agreed, that all intellectual and academic knowledge was always to be transformed into service of others.”

His equanimity called the attention of the youth:  “With an even spirit he served the need of intellectuals and leaders as well as the needs of his followers, putting at the service of the former his wisdom, his prudence, his accurate vision of matters; and to the latter he offered his gentle hand and his experience in guiding souls.  I observed what I consider his two most characteristic qualities:  his imperturbable gentleness and a charity that reached everybody” (Julia García Castañón).  This opinion is corroborated by those who had more elements for evaluation, as is the case of the Patriarch Bishop of Madrid Alcalá, Leopoldo Eijo y Garay:  “The serene equanimity, reflected on his countenance, always affable and smiling, both in happy hours and in the bitter moments of his life, is a note of the imperturbable Don Pedro Poveda”

Already in his mature years, Don Baldomero Jiménez Duque, offers a well rounded description of him:  “My vision of Don Pedro is of a man that is all goodness, education, simplicity, of few words, most devout, holy.  His health was very delicate, his manner gentle, with a very exquisite, refine and rich Andalusian sensibility capable, therefore, of much suffering.  This human background could have easily turned him into a timid, melancholic, passive man.  But the grace of God, hid faith and trust, gave him serenity and firmness of purpose, strength and resolve to carry out his work”.

These are all traits that approach us to a man of faith, an educator and a friend, “a friend of the most difficult and lofty endeavors of apostolate” (Enrique Herrera Oria) of whom the journalist, María de Echarri, wrote:  “To meet him meant to love him; to work with him amounted to venerate him”.

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