“When it is allowed to humiliate a collective, such as Catholics, the next step is to persecute that collective”: An Interview with Polonia Castellanos

In Spain, rather than a crisis of values, we have a crisis of courage.

Polonia Castellanos is the president of Christian Lawyers. An international civil association that defends in the legal sphere the values inspired by Christianity: religious freedom, life and family.

Álvaro Peñas: The socialist government has promised to abolish this year the crime of offences against religious feelings. What is Pedro Sánchez looking for with this measure?

Polonia Castellanos: From my point of view, this is not just about removing an article from the Penal Code. It all starts when an association of left-wing judges, sympathetic to the government, claims that it is an anachronistic crime and that for that reason they do not apply it, which is a serious matter because judges must apply the law. This association argues that this crime is only applied in Spain and that it is something from a distant past. At Christian Lawyers we did a comparative law exercise of all of Europe and some countries in the world, and our surprise was that it is recognised in practically all of them: in Canada, Japan, and in 22 countries of the European Union, not to mention Muslim countries. In Germany, for example, sentences are three times higher than in Spain. In other words, not only have they lied by saying that the crime is anachronistic, but also that in Spain sentences are much more lax.

Basically, I believe that this decriminalisation of the crime against religious feelings is a reform of the Constitution, which includes religious freedom as a fundamental right. This is reflected in the fact that when this right is violated there is a crime attached to it. For example, the right to property carries with it the crime of theft, robbery, etc. But if the right to religious freedom is violated and there is no crime attached to it, this fundamental right is useless.

The elimination of the offence would put an end to the denunciations of anti-religious attacks that always target the same group, Catholics. But could it not open the door to attacks on religions that the government does value, such as Islam?

No, because what we have seen is that all the attacks are always in the same direction, against Catholics, and the elimination of the offence is a preliminary step to persecution. When it is allowed to humiliate a collective, such as Catholics, the next step is to persecute that collective.

A few days ago you denounced a Podemos LGBT poster in which demons appear together with saints turned into gay icons. What message, beyond provocation, does this poster intend to convey?

None really, because it supposedly advertises musical performances that can hardly be seen because the provocative images occupy the entire centre of the poster, which shows that the only aim was to insult.

Are these kinds of attacks more common?

Yes, there are a lot more attacks and in the few weeks since the beginning of the year we have already filed several complaints. This is exaggerated. There is a report by the Observatory for Religious Freedom that says there has been an exponential increase in attacks against Catholics. These attacks come on the one hand from the government, and on the other hand, as anything goes against Catholics, they come for different reasons: to make a name for themselves, to get in the media or to distract from the real problems we are suffering. The problem is that the judges hardly ever convict, either because they are close to the government or because they are cowards. In Spain, rather than a crisis of values, we have a crisis of courage.

You mention cowardice, but there are also many Catholics who say that we should not give importance to these attacks.

Yes, for me this is the result of an absurd good-naturedness mixed with political correctness, and an indifference to what does not affect us personally, when the truth is that it affects us all. I have spoken to many politicians and whenever someone says to me, “I am a Catholic too”, I expect the worst, because it is a justification for going against what a Catholic should stand for. If you are a true Catholic, you cannot support anything that goes against the doctrine of the Church, nor can you support mockery or insults against the faith.

The government is going to dedicate this year to Franco, and the Valley of the Fallen is in the spotlight. Again, there is talk about what to do with the Valley and the Cross, and some members of the government are in favour of tearing it down.

Yes. I think it has a double purpose. Of course, the more radical Left resents Catholics, as happened in the Second Republic and during the Civil War when we were massacred, and on the other hand, there is a component of theological struggle, the oldest struggle in the world: good against evil. But there is also the need to divert attention, because never in history has there been a president of a government so surrounded by corruption. I am convinced that they are going to go against the Valley of the Fallen for all these reasons and I believe that when an animal is surrounded, as Pedro Sánchez is, it is capable of anything.

If this were the case, do you think the Church would finally step up to defend the Cross and the Valley?

I hope so. The Church has always had its time, its diplomacy, and that is something I would not be able to do because I am a person of action; if there is an offence, it has to be denounced. And although I expect that reaction, it is also the time of lay Catholics, that is to say, the Church is all of us, not just the institution. We Catholics have to get down to work and start defending what is ours, because perhaps it is also our fault that we have reached this situation because we have not known how to defend ourselves due to complexes or turning the other cheek. That is why, regardless of what the Church does, we Catholics are responsible for this struggle. I was talking to the Poles from the Ordo Iuris association, and they told me that they would come to defend the Cross because it is no longer just a symbol of Spain, but of the whole of Christianity. That’s why I think many people would mobilise. In the end, the truth has to make its way, no matter how much they try to tie it down and restrict it.