They ask for a jail for two priests and a layman to criticize radical Islamism

The priests Custodio Ballester and Jesús Calvo and the lay Armando Robles face prison sentences accused of an alleged crime of hate against Muslims for criticizing radical Islamism.

The Prosecutor’s Office asks for 4 years in jail for Robles, disqualification to exercise teaching for 10 years and a fine of 3,000 euros. For priests, the deprivation of liberty is reduced to 3 years, the rest of punitive requests being equal.

In 2017, the Muslim Association against Islamophobia filed a complaint with the Special Service of Crimes of Hate and Discrimination of the Prosecutor’s Office of Barcelona, ​​to investigate the comments expressed by these three people during a gathering called “La Matonera”.

Since the fiscal domicile of the program is in Malaga, the case was referred to that province, where prosecutor María Teresa Verdugo, in addition to taking into account the comments of said gathering, took as reference an article published by Fr. Custodio Ballester in 2016 entitled The impossible dialogue with Islamin which he responded to a letter from the archobisop of Barcelona, ​​Cardinal Juan José Omella, entitled The necessary dialogue with Islam.

The trial was going to be held in September 2024, but was suspended because Fr. Ballester’s lawyer had another priority trial for that same date. Finally, the audience that involves the priest is set for October 1.

Speaking to ACI Press, Fr. Ballester is “quiet” a few days after the oral hearing is celebrated: “As Jesus Christ says, they will take us to the synagogue and the courts and that there the Holy Spirit gives us a wisdom that the adversaries cannot counteract us.”

“I think that this possibility that sometimes occurs, I already presented me,” reflects the presbyter, who emphasizes that this process is based on expressing his opinion: “They do not accuse me of any crime, but simply having expressed my opinion about how Islam is in certain circumstances.”

“That I say that Islam intends to destroy Western civilization, which in the mosque 20%.

“I would have to resign myself and apostolate in jail”

Fr. Ballester states that it will be ratified in all his considerations, because he understands that it is “a theological, socio -strategic reflection of what Islam is, of the vision that I have of Islam in view of what has happened before my eyes.”

In addition, he considers exaggerated the penalties requested by the prosecutor’s prosecutor: “Three years in jail for speaking?” He asks while he weighs the possibility of ending up in a cell: “Maybe the logical thing would be not. But as you never know, you look, I would have to resign myself and make an apostolate in jail.”

“Now, are you interested in making a martyr?, That’s what they have to think, if they want to condemn me. Maybe the logical thing would be, in the worst case, that they put some of that, some pity that you did not have to enter, a fine, perhaps in the worst case, if they already wanted to hurt us,” he argues.

For the priest “this crime is so subjective that you are at the mercy of what the judge decides” because there is no concrete matter like “a heel without funds, a beating someone, a robbery, a scam.”

However, it continues, the prosecutor intends a sentence “because of the meaning that you gave to your words, for a moral consideration of the intention you had, of the desire you had in your heart. They are judging absolutely unbarchable entities. Of course, it is pure subjectivism. They can condemn you and can acquit you and everything can be legally justified.”

On the other hand, he argues that his words have not derived in any action against Muslims in Spain: “What consequences have those words had? None.”

“If this serves to see people that all this is a majadería, who really are ridiculous doing what they do, because I would give it good. It is ridiculed.