View from Madrid 2, Margaret Hebblethwaite

Tensions between conservatives and progressives still mark the Spanish Church, and when the Episcopal Conference voted for their President last month, there was concern to know which way it would go. But the votes settled decisively (52 out of 76) on renewing the mandate of the moderate incumbent, Bishop Ricardo Blazquez of Valladolid, who is skilled at achieving consensus.

“We don’t have progressive bishops in Spain,” I was told in Madrid, “but Blazquez is the nearest thing. He is in the line of Francis. The Spanish Vaticanista Jose Manuel Vidal confirms this: he offers “synodality, collegiality, dialogue and harmony with Rome”. [El Pais, 15 March 2017]. Since he is now 75 (since 13 April, one month after his re-election) he already has to offer his resignation as bishop; but the chances are that Francis will ask him to stay on another two or three years, to enable him to conclude his new mandate as president. 

The vice-presidency, however, went to the conservative Archbishop Antonio Canizares of Valencia, whose nickname is “the little Ratzinger”. Though committed to works of charity, he has denounced the “imperio gay”, and has said that clerical sex abuse is a lesser scandal than that of abortion. He unfortunately chose to wear a magnificent red cappa magna with a train seven metres long when he ordained two priests back in 2007, and the photo of the diminutive cardinal in procession down a courtyard, with a massive sail of scarlet cloth lifted by an acolyte high and far behind him, caused great delight and adorned a good number of blog sites. He has never been allowed to forget it.