The Madrid Prosecutor’s Office investigates the bishop of Alicante for a possible hate crime in defense of homosexual conversion therapies | Society

The bishop of Orihuela-Alicante, José Ignacio Munilla, has no filters. Since his stay in the diocese of San Sebastián he has begun to launch arrows against feminism, abortion and the LGTBI community, the main targets he has in his sights. Now, some statements made on Radio María can have the effect of a boomerang. The Madrid Provincial Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into a possible crime against fundamental rights and public freedoms, “either in the form of incitement to hatred or, where appropriate, injury to dignity”, as the Public Prosecutor reported to the complainants, the city platform Your People and Mine, based in Orihuela (Alicante). The prelate has already responded, via the social network

The statements made on May 3, 2024 by Munilla revolved around conversion therapies to combat homosexuality. “Psychologists who accompany people with homosexual inclinations are under threat,” he said. “If the accompaniment they provide is intended to help them redirect their homosexual attractions,” he continued, “then this is intended as conversion therapy and this is prohibited.” Munilla sought to redefine a theory that Congress is vetoing a law that the bishop is hawkish about. “Here, conversion therapy means any accompaniment of a person to try to heal their internal wounds so that they can live the virtue of chastity like every Christian”. Sexual abstinence as a prescription against any deviation, according to your point of view.

The transcript of these statements, and many others in which Munilla extended his pulpit outside the diocese he leads since 2022, was sent by the president of the Your People and Mine platform, Lucas López Moreno, to the State Attorney General, who withdrew from the case. “We do not have the authority to investigate the reported facts”, replied the Public Prosecutor, “for this reason we have appealed to the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Madrid, since this city is where the headquarters of the station where the reported demonstrations took place is located and is territorially competent to listen to them for the purposes of assessing criminal relevance”. It is the provincial office of Madrid that has initiated the pre-procedural investigation procedure, as confirmed to the appellant.

The complaint indicates that Munilla’s constant interventions could exceed “the protection of freedom of expression or religion”. The public justification of these alleged conversion therapies for homosexuals, together with the denial expressed by the bishop of their “coercive” character and the accusation of the LGTBI group of being liberticidal, must be stopped in no uncertain terms. “Such demonstrations not only trivialize a practice widely considered harmful by the scientific community,” explain the appellants in their complaint, but “symbolically legitimize interventions that threaten the dignity and psychosocial health of LGTBI people” and “fuel a discourse of stigmatization under religious cover,” in their opinion.

Shortly afterwards the local newspaper reported the news InformationMunilla wore his boxing gloves on the social network X, as is his habit. “Evidently this (the prosecutor’s investigation) has no judicial path and only aims to intimidate the Church.” In his view, the denunciation and its reception, or any action that contradicts his beliefs, serve to “impose on society as a whole an ‘anthropology of the State’ based on ‘theory type-LGTBI’”.

Subsequently, the bishop presents “four brief considerations”. The first, that it is “totally false” that he has “directed any criticism at LGTBI groups”. The prelate of San Sebastián recognizes that he has “openly criticized the law approved last year in Spain, in which ‘alleged’ conversion therapies are prohibited and penalised”. The bill was considered in June, but did not pass. However, the complaint refers to article 510 of the Penal Code, which punishes “those who publicly encourage, promote or incite, directly or indirectly, hatred, hostility, discrimination or violence against a group” and to law 8/2017 of the Generalitat Valenciana, which expressly prohibits aversion or conversion therapies.

“Is it a crime to criticize the government and its laws?” he asks, “shouldn’t all the parliamentarians who voted against that law in Congress also report it?” asks the bishop.

Secondly, Munilla underlines that “it is ironic that those who defend the freedom to change sex – including hormones and surgical interventions – prohibit homosexuals from freely requesting what they call ‘conversion therapy'”. “The Church cannot fail to preach the Gospel of love and purity”, he states in the homily in he denies having been informed of the prosecutor’s decision. “Which makes me think there is more media interest than judicial interest,” he says.

Your people and mine is a citizen platform born in defense of the attacks that, in their opinion, suffers the legacy of Miguel Hernández by the city council of his hometown. From there, they continued to “defend the ideals” of the author of The Wind of the People, according to what its president, López Moreno, told EL PAÍS. Among these, as indicated in the statute, “collective interest, social justice and the promotion of human rights” and the protection of “the legitimate rights and interests of citizens against any public or private entity”, especially when “their actions or omissions may negatively impact their freedoms, cause discrimination, grievances or damages of any kind”.