Spain’s bishops condemn town’s ban on Muslim prayer

It issued a statement after the council of Jumilla, in the southeastern Spanish province of Murcia, passed a resolution on July 28 banning Muslims from using football grounds or other public facilities for public prayer on major feasts such as Eid.

“Public religious events, as part of freedom of worship, are supported by the right to religious freedom, a fundamental human right protected by the Spanish Constitution,” the bishops said.  

“The only possible intervention by public authorities is to prevent any disturbance to public order that these celebrations may cause. This must be assessed objectively by specialists by technical criteria that do not reflect an arbitrary or ideological decision.” 

Any restriction on religious liberty, the bishops said, “is an attack on the fundamental rights of any human being and does not affect only one religious group, but all religions and also non-believers. To impose these restrictions for religious motives is discrimination that cannot be allowed in democratic societies”.

The Spanish government subsequently ordered the council in Jumilla to revoke the resolution, saying that it “was based on a true intention to discriminate” and represented a “new violation of fundamental rights and freedoms by the right and far right over which the government of Spain has to intervene to defend the constitution”.

Santiago Abascal, the leader of the far right Vox party that proposed the original resolution, attacked the bishops on social media on August 10. Crux reported that he spoke on the Jumilla case, and also attacked the bishops for their position on immigration, their silence on what he called “advancing Islamist extremism” and the Church’s role in the controversy surrounding the removal of Francoist symbols in the Valley of the Fallen.

FULL STORY

Spanish bishops condemn town’s ban on Muslim public prayers (By Francis McDonagh/The Tablet)

Spanish bishops in crosshairs of the far-right party (Crux Now)