The Bishop of Orihuela-Alicante (Spain), Bishop José Ignacio Munilla, has asked to respond to the government’s attempt to censor a video of large families that invites us to reflect on the excuses for not having children and to make it go viral.
Last November, the Association of Large Families of Madrid launched a campaign that used the slogans “Are you running out of rice?” and “Te la colan”, which has already reached 100,000 views on its YouTube channel.
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On November 20, Cristina Hernández, director of the Women’s Institute, dependent on the Ministry of Equality, sent a letter to the president of the association, María Menéndez, in which she demands “that they adopt the necessary measures to withdraw this advertising, as well as compliance with current regulations.”
In the letter, it is stated that the content of the campaign, which in addition to the video consists of advertising posters on bus stop shelters and in Madrid Metro stations, is loaded with “prejudices and pressures towards youth and especially towards women due to their particular biology, evokes dark moments in our history that we thought were banished.”
We are totally crazy!!!
The director of the Women’s Institute (dependent on the Spanish Ministry of Equality), sent an official letter on November 20 to the president of the Association of Large Families of Madrid, stating that the content of this video… pic.twitter.com/hf6984VTqa— Jose Ignacio Munilla (@ObispoMunilla) December 15, 2024
The government official also affirms that “for decades, women have won the right to decide about our bodies and therefore to decide freely whether or not we want to have children” or form a family and when and with whom to do so.
Furthermore, he emphasizes that the slogan “they are sneaking it on you,” which calls for reflection on the reasons why Spaniards postpone having children, “indicates a profound lack of knowledge of the makeup of our society and the educational level they have.” young people.”
In this sense, he adds “I assure you that they know what they want and do not need tutoring to exercise their freedom, within their limitations.”
For Hernández, this campaign “represents a detriment to the freedom and autonomy that women have over their bodies and could constitute a form of harassment and psychological violence.”
Response from the Bishop of Orihuela-Alicante
in your program Sixth Continentwhich broadcasts every Monday and Friday through Radio María España, Mons. Munilla has addressed the controversy by encouraging “spreading the video”, publishing it on all social networks: “We are going to try to make it rule, as they say popularly” he has encouraged .
The prelate has praised the campaign video for two main reasons.
On the one hand, because his argument “does not go on the political claim side, nor does it touch on the key of emotivism,” but instead calls for “self-criticism about the capacity for self-deception to assume worldly values.”
On the other hand, the prelate highlights that the video is accurate because it emphasizes the “moral responsibility for what my priorities are.”
In response to the content of the letter from the Ministry of Equality, the prelate highlighted firstly that it is an “interference in freedom of expression” and that Spanish society is heading towards a model in which this basic freedom is “becoming almost impossible because it seems that anything you say is going to offend.”
In coherence with the alleged censorship of the reflection proposed by the campaign, Mons. Munilla stated that “Any day a Government body would have to come and say to the Church: “It does not have the right to say ‘convert and believe in the gospel’ because “You may be bothering someone.”
Secondly, the Bishop of Orihuela-Alicante considers that, with this attitude, “it is clear what rulers are who are insensitive towards one of the biggest problems that society has, which is the birth rate crisis.”
“But what an outrage; If it should be the government’s main effort to promote birth rates! It had to be its main endeavor and what it does is attack those who try to promote birth and also favor abortion and contraception,” he added.
Mons. Munilla denounces “bullying”
For the prelate, the text addressed to large families by the Executive makes it clear that “there are methods of intimidation, of trying to scare, of trying to threaten so that citizens do not associate.”
In his opinion, these methods respond to “a statist tendency in which all official bodies are the ones that have to speak, those that have to carry out official campaigns” and that also assume the ability to supervise those that they do not control. “It is an authentic method of intimidation, of threatening, of frightening” through which “there is more and more state and less society.”
Fourthly, Bishop Munilla understands that the letter from the Ministry of Equality “conveys a false paradigm” with which large families are accused of “wanting to influence women” while it is the official organizations that are imposing the Ideology of Gender.
“Isn’t (the Government) continually influencing and also in a truly aberrant way?” asks the bishop who cited how they do it by “introducing themselves into the early childhood education plans and even subliminally in the cinema, in the drawings.” animated, everywhere” in such a way that “a manipulation of consciences” is carried out.
Mons. Munilla also wanted to emphasize that, with this attitude, “public money is being misappropriated” to try to “attack social initiatives,” which is especially serious if we take into account the contribution of large families, through their taxes, “are what are going to make possible the retirement pension system of those who are attacking them.”
Sixthly, the prelate criticized “that egalitarian ideology that seeks to homogenize the population by imposing a single thought, idiotizing the population.” This way of acting on the part of the Ministry of Equality “is denigrating the sense of justice,” Munilla stated.