There was no surprise at the plenary assembly of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE). The archbishop of Valladolid, Luis Argüello (Meneses de Campos, Palencia, 1953), entered as the man with the most support among the prelates and left as the new head of the bishops, replacing the cardinal and archbishop of Barcelona Joan Josep Omella. He obtained 48 votes out of a possible 78 in the first, without the need to repeat the scrutiny, since he had an absolute majority. Monday’s non-binding poll already predicted that he would be elected.
Argüello, 70, was appointed archbishop of the Diocese of Vallisoleta in June 2022 and had previously held the position of general secretary and spokesperson of the EEC for a period of four years, from 2018 to 2022. The first gesture as a brand-new president, with the new vice-president, the cardinal and archbishop of Madrid José Cobo – elected in the second ballot with 39 votes -, was to greet the victims of sexual abuse who gathered in front of the organization’s headquarters in Madrid. In addition, they promised them that they will receive them, in a meeting that does not have a date for now. The next four years will have to face, among others, the challenge of launching the comprehensive reparation plan for victims of abuse in the Church.
Bishop since 2016, when he was appointed auxiliary, Argüello has spent his entire life in Valladolid and was the right-hand man of Cardinal Ricardo Blázquez. He was ordained a priest in 1986 and ten years earlier he graduated in Law and was a university professor.
Despite the fact that during the transition he collaborated with the PSOE – as he himself explained – he is associated with the conservative profiles of the Church, albeit with a softer tone than that used by prelates such as Jesús Sanz (Oviedo) and Juan Ignacio Munilla (Oriola-Alacant), who have not spared criticism of the airs coming from the Vatican. Cobo, who will be the vice-president and has been identified in this process as the man of Pope Francis, gives an apparent image of balance to the EEC, although Sanz has entered the executive commission – in the third vote because it did not have an absolute majority in the first two – and bishops such as Mario Iceta (Burgos) who tip the scales towards the conservative side.
Francisco César García Magán, auxiliary bishop of Toledo, who succeeded Argüello in this position in 2022, will continue as secretary general of the CEE until 2027.
In the first intervention, Argüello called for “unity” and a Church present in public life through the laity. “We have a special responsibility, which is precisely to take care of this exercise of collegiality by the bishops of Spain, their link with the bishop of Rome, and from him, with the whole universal Church, and also to encourage the whole people of God to walk united”, he remarked.
Precisely, Omella, in his farewell speech, called for “communion” between the prelates. Cobo, in turn, wanted to trace a thread of continuity with the work of his predecessors and pointed out that they join “a train in motion”.
The possibility of an Amnesty law being approved has caused disparity of opinion between the bishops, and a few months ago the Tarraconense Episcopal Conference, which brings together the Catalan dioceses, came out to amend the position expressed by the EEC spokesperson, García Magán, contrary to penal oblivion. Argüello – like other conservative prelates, such as Sanz and Munilla -, assured in November that the criminal oblivion can “call into question” the “pillars of coexistence”. “Amnesty could be valuable if it were reciprocal and the amnesties renounced an illegal and unilateral process, if it was the result of an agreement with a qualified majority, if it did not prevent violence against people. If this is not the case, it threatens the coexistence it claims to serve”, he asserted.
