The Dos Hermanas City Council has freely granted a plot of over 27,000 square meters to the Archdiocese of Seville for a temple and a Catholic school. The following day, the Seville City Council, with Vox in opposition, withdrew the building permit for a mosque in Polígono Sur.
The controversy over freedom of worship in the province of Seville has been illustrated in just 48 hours. Last Thursday, the Dos Hermanas City Council, governed by the PSOE, signed a free grant with the archdiocese of Seville for a plot of over 27,000 square meters in the Entrenúcleos expansion area. The land will be allocated for a new Catholic temple and a religiously affiliated school.
The next day, on Friday, the Seville City Council, governed by the PP and needing Vox's votes for the budget, removed from the Urban Planning Commission's agenda the building permit requested by the Foundation Mosque of Seville. The project, in Polígono Sur, plans for an Islamic cultural centre with a 400 square meter prayer room on a 2,500 square meter plot, fully funded privately.
The Seville City Council justified the withdrawal by stating that it needs to "request the technical and legal reports that will allow us to assess, with all the seriousness it deserves, the observations made by Vox." The project is thus halted sine die, with no deadlines for its reintroduction to the commission.
Two sides of the same coin
Isidoro Moreno, emeritus professor of Anthropology at the University of Seville, believes that both events "respond to the same logic, the non-neutrality of the State." For Moreno, "it is an excess" that the mosque faces "all the difficulties" while the Catholic temple is given "all the facilities for a place of worship with excess in terms of size and also with confessional teachings."
The expert recalls that the Constitution provides for the secularity of the State and that "no confession should be favoured, no matter how majority it is." "Both events are related to the same way of thinking: on one side, Catholic confessionalism and direct gifting; on the other, contempt, disregard, and invisibility of any other religious sphere," he concludes.
From the platform in Defence of Heritage of Seville, they describe the granting of public land to the Church as a violation of the secular nature of the State. "In a State that the Constitution defines as secular, public land is a common good that should not be gifted or ceded to any religious corporation. It is a flagrant comparative grievance," they denounce.
Critical voices and national context
José Antonio Naz, from Europa Laica, considers that gifting thousands of square meters of public land is synonymous with "privileges and Catholic confessionalism." Tomás Madueño, spokesperson for the laicist movement in Seville, argues that the mosque "meets both criteria: freedom of conscience and no privileges. Unlike the situation in Dos Hermanas."
Professor Óscar Salguero Montaño, from the University Institute of Religious Sciences at the Complutense University, warns that "sometimes there is a certain favoritism towards the majority confession, the Catholic one." The expert links this situation to a "significant political shift" and recalls the case of Jumilla, where a motion from Vox limited the uses of the sports centre and the local Muslim community had to pray in the municipal swimming pool parking lot.
"The case of the mosque in Seville is particularly concerning," adds Salguero, who points out that "there are those who want to recover that old idea that Spain's identity is linked to Catholicism." For the professor, "we are seeing a clear regression" in terms of religious freedom.
What happens now with the projects?
The Foundation Mosque of Seville hopes that Vox's objections will be resolved swiftly. Its vice president, Jalid Nieto, states that "we have approached everything with caution, asking about each aspect to include it in the project." For now, the project remains in limbo, awaiting the reports requested by the Seville City Council.
In Dos Hermanas, the granting of the Entrenúcleos plot is already a fact. The City Council has not responded to questions about whether there are precedents of similar grants to other confessions or if this is a common practice. Meanwhile, local residents see how public land is allocated for confessional use in one of the city's fastest-growing urban areas.
You may also like
