The Madrid Prosecutor’s Office investigates the bishop of Alicante for a possible hate crime when defending homosexual conversion therapies | Society

The bishop of Orihuela-Alicante, has no filter. Since his stay in the diocese of San Sebastián he began to launch darts against feminism, abortion and the LGTBI community, the main objectives he has in his sights. Now, some statements made on Radio María can stir like a boomerang. The Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Madrid has opened an investigation for a possible crime against fundamental rights and public freedoms, “either in the form of hate speech or, where appropriate, injury to dignity,” as reported by the public ministry to the complainants, the citizen platform Your People and Mine, established in Orihuela (Alicante). The prelate has already responded, that he has neither received any communication about this provision nor does he believe that he has “any judicial recourse.”

The statements issued on May 3, 2024 by Munilla revolved around the . “Psychologists who accompany people with homosexual inclinations are threatened,” he said. “If the accompaniment they provide has any intention of helping them redirect their homosexual attractions,” he continued, “then that is understood as conversion therapy and that is prohibited.” Munilla tried to redefine a theory that the bishop is very combative against. “Here, conversion therapy is called any accompaniment to a person to try to heal their inner wounds so they can live the virtue of chastity like every Christian.” Sexual abstinence as a prescription against any deviation, according to your point of view.

The transcription of these statements, and many others in which Munilla has extended his pulpit outside the diocese that he has headed since 2022, was sent by the president of the Your people and mine platform, Lucas López Moreno, to the State Attorney General’s Office, which recused itself from the case. “We do not have the authority to investigate the reported facts,” replied the public ministry, “which is why we referred it to the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Madrid, as this city is where the headquarters of the station where the reported demonstrations took place is located and is territorially competent to hear them for the purposes of assessing the criminal legal significance.” It is the Madrid provincial headquarters that has initiated pre-procedural investigation proceedings, as confirmed to the plaintiff.

The complaint indicates that Munilla’s constant interventions could exceed “the protection of freedom of expression or religion.” The public justification of, specifically, these, together with the denial expressed by the bishop that they are “coercive” and the accusation of the LGTBI group of being liberticidal, must be stopped cold. “Such manifestations not only trivialize a practice widely considered harmful by the scientific community,” the plaintiffs explain in their complaint, they also “symbolically legitimize interventions that threaten the dignity and psychosocial health of LGTBI people” and “feed a discourse of stigmatization under religious cover,” in their opinion.

Shortly after , Munilla put on the boxing gloves on the social network X, as is his habit. “Obviously, this [la investigación de Fiscalía] It does not have any judicial process and only seeks to intimidate the Church.” In his opinion, the denunciation and its acceptance, or any action that contradicts his beliefs, serve to “impose on society as a whole a ‘State anthropology’ based on the ‘theory gender-LGTBI’”.

Next, the bishop presents “four brief considerations.” The first, that it is “totally false” that he has “directed any criticism at LGTBI groups.” The San Sebastian prelate does acknowledge that he “openly criticized the law approved last year in Spain, in which ‘alleged’ conversion therapies are prohibited and penalized.” The bill was considered in June, but has not been approved. However, the complaint refers to article 510 of the Penal Code, which punishes “those who publicly encourage, promote or incite directly or indirectly hatred, hostility, discrimination or violence against a group” and Law 8/2017 of the Generalitat Valenciana, which does expressly prohibit aversion or conversion therapies.

“Is it a crime to criticize the Government and its laws?” he asks, “shouldn’t they also denounce all the parliamentarians who voted against that law in Congress?” asks the bishop.

Secondly, Munilla emphasizes that “it is ironic that those who defend the freedom to change one’s sex—hormones and surgeries included—prohibit homosexuals from freely requesting what they describe as ‘conversion therapy.’” “The Church cannot but preach the Gospel of love and purity,” he states in his homily in X, “and we will not stop accompanying people with homosexual inclinations who freely ask us for spiritual help to live in chastity.” Finally, the head of the diocese of Orihuela-Alicante denies that he has been notified of the prosecutor’s resolution. “Which makes me think that there is more media interest than judicial interest,” he says.

Your people and mine is a citizen platform that was born in defense of the attacks that, in their opinion, the legacy of Miguel Hernández suffers from the city council of his hometown. From there, they went on to “defend the ideals” of the author of the people’s wind, according to what its president, López Moreno, told EL PAÍS. Among them, as indicated in its statutes, “collective interest, social justice and the promotion of human rights” and the protection of “the legitimate rights and interests of citizens against any public or private entity”, especially when “their actions or omissions may negatively affect their freedoms, cause discrimination, grievances or damages of any kind.”