Spain: Regional Government Aviva The confrontation against the Archbishop of Oviedo

For the first time in 20 years, the Government of the Principality of Asturias (Spain) has decided not to broadcast the Mass of Covadonga, a patron saint of the region, which enlivens the conflict it maintains with the Archbishop of Oviedo due to its disagreement with the content of its recent homilies.

The Board of Directors of the Asturian Public Television Administration, which has a majority of the vowels appointed at the request of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), which the Regional Executive also leads, he approved not to offer the complete broadcast of the Eucharist, as has been doing since 2006.

The Observatory for Religious and Consciousness Freedom (OLRC) He has denounced that this decision “supposes a setback in respect” to this fundamental right and emphasizes that it is “a form of discrimination” that affects thousands of Asturians, “especially older people, sick or residing outside.”

For this civil organization that has almost two decades watching out for religious and conscientious freedom – denouncing their violation and preparing reports that are taken into account internationally -, with this type of decisions “Belagant secularism advances day by day.”

In a letter addressed to the president of the Principality of Asturias, the socialist Adrián Barbón, the OLRC asks that “out of respect and defense of religious freedom, reconsider the decision”, because the celebration of the Eucharist every September 8, in the Sanctuary of Covadonga, “represents much more than a religious act: it is a tradition that unites all Asturians, inside and outside this land”.

“Deleting their broadcast is excluding thousands of people who want to live this day in a special way, especially older, sick or people who reside outside Asturias,” concludes the OLRC.

Criticism of Archbishop for his homilies

Although the decision not to transmit the complete mass was taken last January, it has not transcended until a few days ago and occurs in an institutional tension environment promoted by the Principality of Asturias and the Government Delegation, which have disqualified the Archbishop of Oviedo for preaching according to the Christian doctrine.

The last time the president of the Principality, Barbón and the Government delegate, also the socialist Adriana Lastra, went to the Mass of Covadonga in his sanctuary, was in 2023.

On that occasion, Mons. Sanz Montes, referred during his homily That during the World Youth Day, there had been talk of ecology, “but without the ideological burden of the 2030 Agenda”, but with an approach to defense of life.

In addition, she claimed, on the basis of the testimony of a young Ukrainian who lost her husband and one of her children during a kyiv bombing, “the depth of a woman not manipulated in her feminine condition, when she has to face the most hurtful blows not letting herself be dragged therefore posture, both empowerment and so much mediocrity zafia.”

President Barbón He called the Archbishop’s words Of “unfortunate,” said that “many people were offended” and said that “the Covadonga party can never be contaminated” with “political debates.”

“Lord comes with slogans,” said Mons. Sanz

In the summer of 2024, newly appointed delegate of the Government in Asturias, the socialist Adriana Lastra announced that she would not go to the Mass on Covadonga day by calling the interventions of the prelate of “ultra -rightist.”

Mons. Sanz responded in x: “The Lord comes with slogans. Marking the step from its ideology. A bold ignorance that imposes issues, censures, threats and agenda. Lessons who may not want. I love freedom too much, that which derives from the truth, as to shrink with synchronized labels.”

In the Homily of 2024Mons. Sanz referred to the criticisms received by socialist politicians, with eloquent words:

“Teaching who does not know is a work of mercy. Since some are determined to teach me to preach, I will try to improve and be applied child. And it seems that my two degrees and a doctorate are not enough to overcome this revalidation of those who pull in press wheels or in open letters with protocol vaseline.”

“Honestly, it is not necessary that they teach me how a homily or that synchronously pretend to censor it from the well -known genre of the ultra -right -wing mud of Marras. Well, I know that this pulpit is not a tribune for political debates, nor They insist on putting them, but a moral judgment that is born from the Word of God and the Christian tradition, ”he added.

Next, he developed a series of contemporary bliss in which he defended the family founded between men and women, which cannot be equated with other forms of coexistence, the care of the common house “without giving in to climatic ideologies” or the equality between man and woman “in its differentiated complementarity, without the arrogant machismo that kills and without the empowered and exclusive feminism that imposes its dictatorship of gender”.

Mons. Sanz Montes praised those who defend these values ​​before pointing out, in reference to absent politicians:

“Blessed because of you here there is no one left over nor do we lack any of those who decline in Maria’s house absent for reasons as doubtful as strange. And it is that in the public stage of so many lares we see it frequently: that there are artificial and synchronized controversies that are needed to hide the shortcomings, make up the shame and hide with distraction the true intentions.”

“The doors are open in the house of Mary, and the intact freedom for those who want to approach as you present here and how many follow us by the media,” concluded the prelate, whose homily cannot be followed next September through Asturian public television.