Antoni Bassas's analysis: "Planellas, an independent voice from Catalonia"

We started the week before Christmas stuck in Groundhog Day: Sanchez on the ropesThe PP against its impotence and Catalan politics subordinated to what happens in Madrid, with Isla, as if he were a smaller piece in a set of Russian dolls, presiding over the Generalitat with the distant support of Esquerra i Comuns, and with Junts living in its own impotence.

Well, amidst this stagnant situation, Pedro Sánchez appears today to give an overview of 2025 and titles it FulfillingClearly, this is a deliberate act of propaganda, intended to highlight the macroeconomic growth of the Spanish economy and the increase in pensions, while glossing over the police raids, arrests, and imprisonment of two former PSOE organizing secretaries and sordid stories of sexual harassment that occurred during those days.

The right wing is demanding elections. And Yesterday, the president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Luis Argüello, joined in expressing his support., who yesterday, in an interview on The VanguardHe said that, according to the Constitution, the situation had three possible outcomes:

"I say: if the situation is deadlocked, we must turn to the Constitution; then the issue would be a vote of confidence, a motion of censure, and if not, giving the citizens a voice."

Sánchez will not raise the vote of confidence; Feijóo will not raise the motion of no confidence because no one, except Vox, will vote for it; and regarding calling elections: what Bishop Argüello says would make sense if he were only representing himself, but being the head of the bishops, and with the tragic history we have of the Spanish Church, torn apart time and again, he has joined Aznar's "whatever he can do, he'll do" and has shamelessly added himself to the PP's blog.

And it is in this sense that it is worth highlighting the courage of the Archbishop of Tarragona and none of the Catalan bishops. Joan Planellas, who has distanced himself from Argüello's approach (and it's not the first time) and he has said on Catalunya Ràdio and in The Vanguard The same applies to Argüello's statements, which "go beyond what an archbishop can say." "I would be very prudent in making these statements," he said, adding that one must be "very careful" because the Church "cannot identify itself with a specific political option." He also asked for a distinction to be made between what someone might say in their own name as a citizen and what is said "in the name of the Church or of the various pastors."

At a time when the political pulse of Catalonia and its Catholic Church is not always felt or noticed, Planellas' words are proof of independent thought and a distinct personality.

Good morning.