almost all complaints of religious offenses are filed

Controversial bell ringing. Ultra-Catholic associations have denounced the pair of presenters of RTVE’s Campanadas, Lalachus and David Broncano, as well as the president of the Corporation, José Pablo López, for an alleged hate crime and another against religious feelings. The reason? Show during the New Year’s Eve broadcast a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with the head of the heifer of the Grand Prix.

Before eating the grapes and welcoming 2025, the presenters showed the amulets they had brought to Madrid’s Puerta del Sol to welcome the new year. In the case of Lalachus, the comedian showed this little picture on the screen to express, as a gag, his sympathy for the mascot of Ramón García’s program, just as this image has also previously been used in the media and on social networks to ‘divinize’ sports or even political figures.

However, HazteOír or Catholic Lawyers have considered that this joke is an offense to believers and that violates the article 525 of the Penal Code. Said article sanctions expressions of “mocking” the dogmas, beliefs or rites of a religious confession that are carried out to offend the feelings of its members.

Specifically, he points out:

Those who, in order to offend the feelings of the members of a religious denomination, publicly, orally, in writing or through any type of document, mock their dogmas, beliefs, rites or ceremonies, or humiliate, also publicly, those who profess or practice them.

2. Those who publicly mock, orally or in writing, those who do not profess any religion or belief will incur the same penalties.

For these ultra-Catholic associations, the use of the religious image “denotes a clear contempt and mockery towards the rites and symbols of Catholicism and represents a vexation, an insult and an outrage towards religious feelings and Catholic beliefs.” That’s why, Hazte Oír is collecting signatures for the president of RTVE to “end all collaborations” with LalaChus. They are already going for 31,000.

The Minister of Justice, Presidency and Relations with the Courts, Félix Bolaños, quickly came out this Wednesday in defense of the comedian and assured through a publication on X, formerly Twitter, that the Government will reform the crime against religious feelings. A promise that the Executive has been carrying for some time but that would materialize in 2025 as part of the Action Plan for Democracy that Sánchez encouraged after his five-day reflection.

Specifically, according to government sources El HuffPostwe would seek to give this crime “a wording comparable to the countries around us and to comply with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, on matters of defamation and its legal framework.”

Since this article was introduced into the Penal Code in 1995, there has only been one final conviction and another in the first and second instance, which is being appealed before the Constitutional Court (TC). The only person convicted was a young man who, following a complaint from a brotherhood, had to pay a fine of 480 euros. for publishing a photomontage of a Christ with his own face on Instagram. By accepting the sentence, the convicted person was spared a possible fine 4.5 times higher, which was what the Prosecutor’s Office requested in that case.

The other case pending review by the Constitutional Court is that of a woman who attended a demonstration for Women’s Day with the image of a plastic vagina dressed as if she were a virgin. For this fact, Elisa Mandillo was sentenced to pay 2,700 euros for “the evident intention of gratuitously ridiculing and mocking a deeply rooted Catholic tradition.”

All other cases have been archived or have not even been admitted for processing. The well-known artist Javier Krahe He was denounced in 2004 for the recipe for a ‘baked Christ’, an accusation that led to the first complaint for a crime against religious feelings. Krahe was eventually acquitted, as was the actor Willy Toledo for allegedly insulting religious figures on Facebook.

The art world has also been the subject of numerous complaints from ultra-Catholic organizations. As Abel Azcona for a work that used consecrated hosts to form the word “pederasty”; or the canary drag Sethlaswho dressed as a virgin for her performance at the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria carnival.

In the theater, the writer Inigo Ramirez de Haro was denounced in 2004 for his work I shit on God and in 2007 Leo Bassi He dressed up as a pope in one of his performances. For this reason, the Italian was the victim of numerous death threats and a man even left a homemade bomb made from a bottle under a seat in the theater. More recently, in 2022, Vox denounced the play ‘Poder i Santedat’ by the Valencian playwright Manuel Molins and directed by Paco Azorín. The work was presented with a striking poster in which a pope appeared kissing a child on the mouth.

In the communication section, it is worth remembering that recently The Great Wyoming and Dani Mateoboth of The Intermediate of LaSexta, were denounced for a joke about the Valley of the Fallen, as were the editors of the Mongolia magazine for a vignette in which you could see a Nativity scene where the baby Jesus was the emoticon of an excrement and it read: “The son of God has been born! Just like the father!”