The Pope visits Spain, asks to disarm language, is applauded by the right and the left (with a fervor that is a bit shameful, for being hypocritical) and, a month later, all that occurs to the president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Luis Argüello, is to state that, "when a state forgets ethics, it becomes a band of thieves". "And I refer to the evidence," he adds. Obviously, he was referring to the government and Pedro Sánchez's collaborators, some of whom are already in prison for being thieves.
It's not that there's a lack of finezza, but rather that the vast majority of the Spanish episcopate is like the scorpion in the joke, it can't help it. They play on the team of the PP and Vox (a year ago it already called for early elections), and, as is known, he who can do something, let him do it.
Yes, Saint Augustine's quote about the ethical omissions of the state was perfect for them, but they didn't use it when the head of state didn't declare millionaire donations. And we could also ask ourselves what kind of band a state becomes when its police fabricate false evidence against politicians, or when secret services spy on political adversaries of the government, or when judges refuse to apply the laws approved by Parliament. Because economic corruption is not the only one, and Spain's morality has been distracted in all directions.
Fortunately, it was about disarming language and not about giving away guns, as the president of Turkey did at the recent NATO summit. I imagine Leo XIV reading, in the press summary, the news of the brawl between Archbishop Argüello and Minister Bolaños ("And if we defined the Church as a band of sexual aggressors?") and thinking: "Did they hear anything I said?"
