The vice president of the Consell, Vicente Barrera (Vox), has demanded that the Archbishop of Valencia, Enrique Benavent, “rectify his linguistic policy” and recognize the “Valencian language itself as different from Catalan.” “I am Catholic, apostolic and practicing, and I have great respect for the archbishop, but having said that, I perfectly understand the request of the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture about the language, I join it so that it is recognized by all the entities that We have our own language, which is Valencian, never Catalan, which is a highly respected language but is not ours.
Barrera thus joins the harsh criticism of the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture, RAVC, an entity that denies the unity of Catalan and Valencian and that does not recognize the linguistic authority of the Valencian Academy of Language, AVL, against the Archbishop. The entity accuses Enrique Benavent of “Catalanizing” the gospels for precisely using the official and statutory regulations of the AVL. The Valencian vice president joins this criticism. The RACV also criticizes the Archbishop for his “forgetfulness of authentic Valencian” in the Gospels and the Pastoral Letter sent by his diocese and demands that the Valencian church rectify its new linguistic policy.
Specifically, academics from the RACV accuse Benavent of “skipping his commitment to obtain the consensus of the bishops of the Archdiocese, for having sent a Catalanized version of the Gospels to be read at masses, as well as a Pastoral Letter of the same sign, contrary to what was considered and despite recognizing the sensitivity that exists in the Valencian Community on the linguistic issue”.
