The President of the Principality of Asturias has decided to put his political position before his religious beliefs and on Sunday 8 September he has assured that he will not attend the mass officiated by the Archbishop of Oviedo in Covadonga on the occasion of Asturias Day.
The repeated homilies of the prelate Jesús Sanz Montes against the socialist governments have led Adrián Barbón not to attend religious events this year. “I have already decided and I will not attend. No one can doubt my convictions and beliefs, Covadonga is an essential space, sacred for everyone. I have profound respect for that place, but I am not happy with what has happened in recent years and I already asked myself that question last year,” said Barbón at the press conference after the Government Council held in the town of Bimenes.
The Catholic president of the Principality justified the decision in these terms: “I do not want to be the perfect excuse to generate tension. I have been thinking about it for some time and I already said last year that if they intend to expel us from there…” Barbón reiterated that the decision not to go is “personal” and left it free for other members of the Government to decide whether they want to go to Covadonga or not. “I assume that this decision may surprise and not everyone will be happy, but I want people to talk about Covadonga,” said the president, who also repeated that he will continue to go to Covadonga in a personal capacity.
The Asturian president’s decision will be accompanied by the foreseeable absence of the Government delegate and number three of the Asturian Socialist Federation (FSA-PSOE), Adriana Lastra, who last year called the Archbishop “far-right”. She has not stated it with the clarity of Barbón, but Lastra has hinted, almost at the same time as Barbón’s appearance, that she will not attend the mass in the Basilica of Covadonga on 8 September. “I can form an idea of what my decision will be and I think you can too. Please allow me to leave it here,” she said at the end of a meeting in Oviedo with the Secretary of State for the Environment, the Asturian Hugo Morán.
The Archbishop’s communications officers consulted by this newspaper have stated that, “for the moment”, there will be no response to the decision of the President of the Principality.
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The absence of Adrián Barbón on September 8 in Covadonga puts an end to a dynamic that began in 1980 by the then pre-autonomous president, Rafael Fernández, and continued by the subsequent heads of the Asturian executive. But the arrival in Asturias of the Franciscan archbishop Jesús Sanz Montes has ended up breaking the cordial entente between the Executive and the Church.
And the archbishop of Oviedo has attacked feminism in his homilies, questioned climate change, the Government’s immigration policies or concessions to Catalan nationalism. Only in the 2023 homily, the archbishop reduced Rubiales’ kiss to Jenni Hermoso to the title of a zarzuela and considered it a maneuver to divert attention from the Government’s negotiations with politicians like Puigdemont: “Let’s leave the legend of the kiss for the beautiful zarzuela by Reoyo, Silva and Paso with the music of the masters Soutullo and Vert. Better this zarzuela than the recent farces cheered on with calculated strategies. Where are the frivolities remote-controlled for days and days in rigged news to distract attention, eclipse shame or handle underhand pretensions and arrangements at any price and with the usual lie as a political weapon? ” Quoting Unamuno, Sanz Montes wanted to express his pain at the political situation in Spain and the risk of the country becoming a “banana republic.”
To question the most combative feminism, Sanz Montes contrasted it with the story of Irina, a Ukrainian woman he met who lost her husband and one of her sons during the bombing of kyiv. “Her Christian testimony moved me deeply because of the depth of a woman who is not manipulated in her feminine condition, when she has to face the most hurtful blows, not letting herself be dragged along by so much posturing, so much empowerment and so much vulgar mediocrity. Her human and religious integrity as a strong woman, her lack of hatred and revenge, in the midst of her tremendous pain, pointed to the hope she wants to transmit to her two youngest children, without the sterile bitterness of a cry whose tears she dries in silence and with prayers. “What secret can a woman, mother and widow have when, faced with such a cruel scenario, she is able to show her children the horizon of a life that remains beautiful despite being stained by the most beloved blood, to show a life that remains kind beyond the debased tearing!?” proclaimed the archbishop.
The environmental movement and the 2030 Agenda were not better treated in his speech. As an appetizer for his argument, he cited the attitude of the one and a half million young people gathered in Portugal during the World Youth Days. “In that one and a half million young people there were no drunken binges, no urban destruction, no gang rapes, no tons of rubbish after their march. We dealt with so many things. Also the ecology that so many talk about, but without the ideological burden of the 2030 Agenda, nor the hackneyed parade down the catwalks of so much empty nonsense, although so well subsidized that it ends up being subversive.”
And in passing, the archbishop used ecology to attack laws such as those on abortion or euthanasia. “Because to talk about ecology is to talk about the fact that we care about life, all life, avoiding falling into the deceptive trap of saving only some flora and fauna classified by certain ecological currents that end up being eco-friendly, while we leave the most vulnerable human life adrift, the one not yet born, or the one that hastens its end with the butcher’s help of a lethal euthanasia without the censored palliative assistance, or the life of those who continue their path with a thousand difficulties by losing their job, by not yet starting it or by losing the meaning of beautiful things such as love that does not expire, forgiveness that does not give up or peace that does not traffic with unspeakable interests and clandestine currencies,” said Sanz Montes.
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