Vox has toned down its public disagreements with the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) ahead of the upcoming visit of Pope Leo XIV to Spain. The party wants to reduce the dialectical clash with the bishops, centered on the migration debate and national priority, a divergence that goes back a long way. In this sense, the attendance of the organization’s secretary general, Ignacio Garriga, at a conference by the president of the prelates, Luis Argüello, this May in Madrid should be understood.
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From the far-right party, it is considered that in the prelate’s speech there were “nods” to favor détente on the eve of the papal visit. “There are no irreconcilable positions with anyone,” Argüello defended, who a few days earlier had already extended a hand to Santiago Abascal’s party to address the disagreements.
At the center of the controversy is the debate on immigration. Here the points of disagreement between the party and the Church continue to be shown, also in public. Nevertheless, Vox considers that Argüello’s references to the migration debate fit within the defense of regulated immigration and follow the line of what Robert Prevost pointed out in April when asked about the controversy in Spain – precisely by Vox – when returning from his trip to Africa. The Pontiff said that “a State has the right to set rules for its borders,” and this is what the party wants to highlight. Although the Pope also demanded dignity for migrants once they are in a country and emphasized that they cannot be treated “worse than a pet or an animal.”
The Church extends a hand to the far right: “There are no irreconcilable positions with anyone”
In Vox’s leadership, it is pointed out that the Episcopal Conference is also not interested in controversy, and one must look beyond the latest disagreements. From Abascal’s party, it is assured that they plan to attend all of Leo XIV’s events to which they are invited. After the colloquium and Garriga’s attendance, it is indicated that the problem “is not with the bishops nor with the Church,” but with some prelates, a veiled but clear reference to the spokesperson and secretary general of the CEE, the auxiliary bishop of Toledo, Francisco César García Magán. The latter has voiced the disagreements with Vox but has also positioned himself against the Amnesty law – personally, although the microphone was outside the CEE – or has called for early elections during this legislature.
A regional deputy of Vox expressed himself along the same lines a few days ago and emphasized that a good part of the parliamentarians and the organization’s leadership are practicing Catholics. Vox wants to face the papal visit calmly in its relations with the Church’s leadership.
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The migration debate and national priority are the focus of tension between the party and the prelates
During the colloquium attended by Garriga, whom Argüello thanked for his presence, the archbishop of Valladolid was also critical of the far right and linked the national priority defended by Vox with the “America First” principle of the MAGA movement led by Donald Trump. But, at the same time, he defended the right of states to regulate migratory flows and focused on correcting the causes that force people to emigrate.
Over time, Abascal has been the most belligerent in the clash with the Church and had already sown sedevacantist positions during Pope Francis’s papacy, whom he referred to as “citizen Bergoglio.” On some occasions, he had also praised one of the firm opponents of the Argentine Pontiff, the Guinean cardinal Robert Sarah, from the traditionalist and more conservative sector.
The Church already avoided a frontal clash with Vox last summer following the controversy over the veto of Muslim community events in Jumilla, although some bishops like the one from Tarragona, Joan Planellas, made it clear that the xenophobic positions attributed to Abascal’s group are not compatible with Christianity. Sources from the CEE point out that their position is that of the Gospel and that sometimes they coincide with the Government – as in the regularization of migrants – and other times with Vox. They basically say that it never rains to everyone’s liking.
In any case, this matter is not trivial and there are communicating vessels. Vox is not interested now in appearing opposed to the Pope when he has become a media figure and a geopolitical leader due to his opposition to wars or his recent encyclical. The party also aims to concentrate part of the Catholic vote. Argüello, in turn, since 2022 has served as a professor at a think tank linked to Vox, the Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences (ISEEP), which was founded by Marine Le Pen’s niece in Lyon and was exported to Spain by close collaborators of Abascal. Despite having disagreed with Vox since 2019, he taught classes about the Church.
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