The bishop of Alicante claims that the new spanish criminal classification aims to prevent Catholics with homosexual inclinations from receiving guidance to live in accordance with the Catholic Magisterium, and points out that the greatest threat lies within the Church itself.
Published by Infocatolica, June 26, 2026, 7:19 PM
The Spanish Congress of Deputies approved, in its last session before the summer recess, a proposal to incorporate so-called “conversion therapies” into the Penal Code—a measure that provides for prison sentences of up to two years for those who provide guidance to people with same-sex attractions who wish to live in chastity. Bishop José Ignacio Munilla of Orihuela-Alicante has denounced this as “religious persecution” and announced that the Church will not stop offering such support.
The bill, which must still complete its passage through the Senate, was approved with 178 votes in favor and 32 against—all from Vox—while the Partido Popular abstained. The text proposes including these practices in Article 173 of the Penal Code, within Title VII, which defines torture and crimes against moral integrity. The new criminal offense provides for prison terms of six months to two years and fines of up to 24 months for anyone who applies or practices “acts, methods, programs, techniques, or procedures of aversion or conversion” intended to modify a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, “even with their consent or that of their legal representative.” Additional penalties of professional disqualification may also be imposed.
“An Ideological Construct”
Bishop Munilla addressed the issue on his program "Sexto Continente" on Radio María España. The bishop denied the very existence of so-called conversion therapies and described them as an ideological tool designed to prevent pastoral care:
“So-called conversion therapies do not actually exist. They are merely an ideological construct of an anti-Christian lobby seeking to prevent the pastoral care of people with homosexual inclinations who, in good conscience, wish to live in chastity and ask for help to do so.”
The prelate clearly explained what he considers to be the real objective of the law:
At its core, the aim is to ensure that a homosexual cannot be Catholic, or if he is Catholic, he must be a Catholic who dissents from the Church’s magisterium. He is persecuted so that he cannot be a faithful Catholic, because if he wants to live in chastity and asks for help to do so, he is persecuted. Are we crazy?
Bishop Munilla highlighted the contradiction that, in his view, lies at the heart of the stance taken by those promoting the law: “It is ironic that those who defend the freedom to change one’s sex—including hormones and surgery—prohibit people from freely seeking what they label ‘conversion therapy.’” And he concluded: “It is a clear demonstration that they do not believe in the freedom they boast so much about.”
“The Pastoral Care of the Forgotten”
Bishop Munilla devoted a significant portion of his program to reading in full an article he described as “prophetic,” published in Religión en Libertad on June 15 by the priest Jesús María Silva Castigrani, who supports Catholics with same-sex attractions in Madrid through the association Courage. The text, titled “The Pastoral Care of the Forgotten”, denounces the Church’s neglect of those who seek to live in accordance with the Magisterium:
There is a marginalized person whom the Church has been looking at askance for years without really knowing what to do with him. I am referring to the person with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria who has decided to live in accordance with what the Church teaches. If you are homosexual and want to live an active sexual life, there are many who rush to embrace you. But if you have decided that you want to live a life of chastity, then you are left alone—more alone than at one o’clock in the morning.
The priest describes what he calls a “profound and very particular loneliness” experienced by these people, caught between pressure from the secular world and a lack of understanding within the Church community itself:
They don’t fit into the world, which tells them they’re repressing themselves. Nor do they easily fit into many church communities where a kind of pastoral panic reigns regarding anything related to the acronym LGTBI. And when they dare to approach their parish priest, they encounter either an awkward silence or, in the worst-case scenario, that open-minded priest who tells them that perhaps the Church is wrong.”
Silva Castigrani denounces that certain sectors within the Church—“priests, theologians, even the occasional bishop”—are pushing these people in the opposite direction from what the Gospel proposes, and he puts it bluntly: “That is lying to them—they deserve the truth— and it is a betrayal of the Church’s magisterium, which has not changed and will not change, no matter how hard some may try.”
The article points to two fears that, in the author’s view, paralyze pastoral care in this area: the fear of pressure from activism, which equates any distinction between orientation and behavior with an act of hatred; and the fear that spiritual accompaniment will be confused with “conversion therapy.” He clarifies: “Accompanying someone who wants to live a life of chastity is not an attempt to change them. It is exactly the same as what we do with any Christian who wants to live their faith consistently: offering them community, prayer, friendship, the sacraments, and spiritual direction.”