This Monday the trial against Father Custodio Ballester, of the Archdiocese of Barcelona (Spain), was suspended, for whom the Prosecutor’s Office is asking for 3 years in prison for committing a hate crime by writing an article critical of radical Islam.
The suspension of the oral hearing is due to the fact that Father Ballester’s lawyer had another trial scheduled for the same date and with priority, involving a person deprived of liberty.
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The events date back to 2016, when the priest published an article titled The impossible dialogue with Islam in which he responded to a Sunday letter from the Archbishop of Barcelona, Cardinal Juan José Omella, entitled The necessary dialogue with Islam.
The cardinal’s letter made reference to the meeting between Pope Francis and the great imam of the University of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayeb, which restarted the interreligious dialogue that had been interrupted, as explained by Bishop Omella, following a statement by Benedict XVI after an Islamist attack against the Coptic cathedral of Alexandria in 2011 and its well-known speech at the University of Regensburg of 2006 that “contributed to making dialogue and rapprochement between the two religions difficult.”
Father Ballester expressed his reservations that Pope Francis’ meeting with the great imam could in itself reactivate dialogue between Christians and Muslims because “Islam does not admit dialogue. “Either you believe, or you are an infidel who must be subdued one way or another.”
He also stated: “Let us not deceive ourselves, Islam today and always, which is what we are trying to harmonize with Christianity, with one hand promotes works of charity, while arming the other hand to annihilate all those who refuse to recognize Allah, and Muhammad as the last and definitive prophet of God.”
In 2020, the coordinating prosecutor of the Economic Crimes Section and Hate Crimes delegate of the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Malaga, María Teresa Verdugo, decided to report Father Custodio for an alleged hate crime and request a 3-year sentence. of jail.
Nicholas de Cardenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish husband and father and journalist with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specializing in sociopolitical and religious information. I have worked for more than 10 years in defense of human rights and have accreditations in Journalism and Comprehensive Communication. Since July 2022, I have been a correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.