Spanish bishops will register complaints of crimes against religious freedom

The Spanish bishops create an office to receive complaints of hate crimes and offenses for religious reasons, in defense of religious freedom, after the government’s decision to remove these situations from the Criminal Code.

This has been decided by the Permanent Commission of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), as reported by its spokesman and Secretary General, Mons. Francisco César Gárcía Magán this Friday.

This new agency will be coordinated by the Vice -Secretariat for General Affairs and the Episcopal Subcommittee for Interconfessional Relationships and Interreligious Dialogue.

“The objectives are the promotion of the defense of religious freedom,” explained the prelate, who stressed that this is, “within human rights, one of the fundamental rights.”

The Office will prepare “an annual report of crimes and offenses against the faithful Catholics, for religious reasons, through the collection and registration of data”, and will seek to “sensitize and offer guidance to the dioceses before possible violations”. In addition, it will maintain contact with other religious confessions and national and international organizations that also work in this area.

Decriminalization of crime against religious feelings

Mons. García Magán has indicated that at the origin of the implementation of this agency is the fact that the main party of the Government has promoted a legal reform for the decriminalization of the crime against religious feelings.

If the initiative was approved, it would be eliminated Article 525 of the Criminal Codewhich establishes that “they will incur the fine of eight to twelve months those who, to offend the feelings of the members of a religious confession, make publicly, in word, in writing or through any type of document, the clerk of their dogmas, beliefs, rites or ceremonies, or vex, also publicly, to whom they profess or practice them.”

Catholics have been mobilized against this measure, but also other Christian denominations, as well as Jews and Muslims. In a joint statement of last December, the different religious groups claimed the right of the faithful “to be able to live faith in a climate of respect for religious feelings, protected by other rights also constitutionally protected, such as the right to religious freedom, freedom of conscience and right to dignity and moral integrity.”

Of the 28 countries of the European Union, only six to date do not have laws that penalize attacks against religious freedom (France, United Kingdom, Belgium, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia).

“The Church in Spain is not persecuted”

To questions of those present in the appearance, Mons. García Magán said that although “the Church in Spain is not persecuted”, as happens in other countries such as Nigeria, “sometimes there are crimes of offense to religious feelings and realities that for a Christian Catholic believer have a very special value.”

“As ecclesial organizations and international organizations point out, Christians are the most persecuted religious confession,” recalled the auxiliary bishop of Toledo.

The director of the Pontifical Foundation helps the Church in need (ACN) in Spain, José María Garrido, recently asked by ACI Press about the cases of attack on religious freedom in the country, said that “in Spain there is a certain concern about what we call the educated persecution.”

This means, Garrido continued, that “sometimes we are trying to impose a must” or put “some zancadillas” in the free defense of the principles of the social doctrine of the Church, although he can go freely to Mass.

According to the latest report of the Observatory for Religious and Consciousness Freedom, in 2023 109 attacks were recorded against the Catholic Church, including murder in Spain. The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC) documented almost 2,500 crimes of anti -Christian hate in the same period.