Santiago Abascal has not sat at anything good for the Episcopal Conference to leave publicly in defense of the Muslim community of Jumilla (Murcia) and warned that the motion promoted by the Ultra Party and approved by the PP to prevent him from celebrating his religious festivities in the Municipal Sports Center attempts against the principle of religious freedom and human rights. The VOX leader has lashed out at “a part” of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, in his words, coming to suggest that he is bought and that his lack of criticisms of the government is due to the public subsidies that he receives, directly or through the charitable organizations that serve immigrants. He has even suggested that the Church does not support many positions of its party because it is “gagged” by the cases of pedophilia denounced in its bosom.
Abascal has never hidden his discrepancies with the position of the Catholic Church in the face of immigration and was always dissenting with the previous pontiff, Pope Francis, which he referred to as the “citizen Bergoglio”, while cultivating relations with the most reactionary sectors of the curia, although he always took care to avoid any clash with the episcopate, aware that most of his voters are Catholic. However, the criticisms of the Episcopal Conference to the Islamophobic escalation undertaken by his party, with the disturbances of Torre Pacheco or Jumilla’s motion, have made him respond with an unprecedented virulence.
“The truth is that I am perplexed and sad before a part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy,” said Stream Bipartisanship, a YouTube channel with the extreme right. “It is not only its position in immigration or in front of the extremist Islamism that advances, but its silence before many policies of this Government. Given the policies of gender, the right to the life of the unborn, of the elders at the end of their life,” he stressed, in allusion to the right to abortion or euthanasia. “When Vox proposed that the Latin fetal be heard,” he recalled, referring to the proposal made by the then Castilian vice president. Leon Juan García Gallardo, “we received the reproach of the Secretary General of the Episcopal Conference. That is why I say ‘a part of the hierarchy’, I mean a person in this case, his position before the valley of the fallen, his position before so many things. The one indicated by Abascal is Francisco César García Magán, auxiliary bishop of Toledo and spokesman for the Episcopal Conference, who defended the agreement reached between the Church and the Government to maintain the Catholic cult in the Basilica of Coveramuros stripping the enclosure of its Francoist symbology.
“I do not know why it is. “I do not know if this weakness or this silence refers to the income received as a result of the illegal immigration aid system, where probably not all the money goes to those supposedly needy people [los inmigrantes] but also to the maintenance of structures ”of the Church. Taking another step, he added:“ I do not know if it has to do with the cases of pedophilia within the Church that have absolutely gagged before the actions of certain liberticidal governments that go against our identity, even against religious freedom and against faith in many cases. I don’t know why it is, but I attended these positions. ”
It does not seem, in any case, that the criticisms of the Church are going to make a dent in Abascal and lead to change position before the Muslim community. On the contrary. After declaring himself “Catholic,” he says he has “a political responsibility and will exercise it.” “Every stick that endures its candle,” he said. To conclude with a warning to bishops: “If others do not exercise their responsibility, they will have to give accounts before other people or in other instances.”
Demand of the Islamic Federation
The Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities (FEERI) announced this Sunday that it will file a demand for challenge “before the competent courts to restore the right of the Muslim community to use public spaces on equal terms with the rest of religious confessions” in the Murcian town of Jumilla, whose City Council approved at the end of July an amendment that seeks to veto the Muslim celebrations in public facilities in public facilities in public facilities sports. The objective of the measure (approved by the Municipal Government of the PP with the abstention of Vox) is to defend the “customs of the Spanish people in the face of foreign cultural practices, such as the feast of the lamb”.
The president of the Feeri, Mounir Benjelloun, signs the statement released this noon by the Muslim entity “on behalf of thousands of Muslim faithful throughout the national territory”, where he states “his deep concern and rejection” before the motion approved by the Jumillano Consistory and asks for his “immediate revocation.” This is justified by Benjelloun in the document: “This decision implies an act of institutional discrimination, contrary to the principle of equality in article 14 of the Spanish Constitution, which prohibits any discrimination due to religion. Likewise, it violates article 16 of the Constitution, which guarantees ideological, religious and cult Muslim (Law 26/1992), which recognizes the right to celebrate religious acts in public spaces on equal terms as other confessions ”.
The Feeri requests, in the same way, “the adoption of active measures against” the adoption of active measures against hate discourse and Islamophobia. ” They are isolated: they are produced in a climate of hate speech promoted by sectors of the ultra -right, especially Vox, and backed very worryingly for the Popular Party in certain locations. This speech seeks to face citizens and stigmatize entire religious communities, violating democratic values and peaceful coexistence that defends our constitution, ”says the Islamic President, which also offers the ultra -right party to sit down to have a“ constructive dialogue ”“ in favor of a plural Spain, respectful of all beliefs ”.
