(OSV News) – Spanish bishops marked International Day for Life March 25 by demanding a better environment for "stable families," as pro-life campaigners rallied in Madrid against promoting abortion in the traditionally Catholic country.
"Many Western countries, including Spain, are witnessing a birth rate decline so significant as to be widely described as a demographic winter," the bishops' subcommission for family said in a message.
"It is crucial for society to promote public policies that protect families and foster an economic and social environment conducive to young people forming stable families," it said. "This includes ensuring decent and stable jobs, fair wages and adequate housing."
The message was published as more than 500 pro-life groups, carrying green balloons, massed on March 23 in the Spanish capital for a "Yes to Life" rally.
The bishops said Spain had witnessed over 2.5 million "voluntary abortions" since the practice was conditionally legalized in 1985, with 103,097 recorded in 2023 alone.
They added that the pope had highlighted the decline in family life when announcing the church's current Jubilee Year, also deploring "social models whose agenda is dictated by the quest for profit rather than concern for relationships."
The Sunday rally, put by organizers at 40,000, drew attention to hardships facing Spanish families, also protesting calls by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's socialist-led government for abortion to be given constitutional status.
The editor-in-chief of the online Catholic Religión Digital news agency, Jesús Bastante, told OSV News the rally was a "secular initiative," but said many Spanish bishops had indicated a readiness to "take to the streets themselves" against abortion, same-sex marriage and other liberal changes.
"Critics have accused the traditionalist groups who initiate such marches of believing only unborn lives should be defended," Bastante said.
"They've charged the supposedly Catholic far-right groups that endorse these actions with not defending vulnerable lives already born, especially those of the poor, excluded and migrants," he said. "This event will fuel the polarization, which is now the order of the day here."
Although 58.4% of Spanish citizens still identify as Catholics, according to April 2024 data, only 1 in 5 practice their faith, while vocations and Mass attendance have dropped sharply across the church's 70 dioceses.
Church leaders have clashed with Sanchez, in power since 2018, over laws liberalizing abortion, euthanasia and gender recognition, as well as restricting religious education and state subsidies for Catholic schools and withdrawing tax exemptions on church donations.
In a Dec. 6 parliamentary speech, Sanchez vowed to add a right to abortion to Spain's 1978 Constitution, "so no one can touch them in the future," adding that abortion and same-sex marriage formed part of a "framework for open and inclusive coexistence" in a "united and diverse Spain."
The pledge was repeated at a March 5 press conference by Equality Minister Ana Redondo as she expressed openness to considering including the right to abortion in the Spanish Constitution "when the appropriate and necessary conditions exist to do so," admitting that "at this time" there may not be sufficient consensus to achieve this.
In a March 21 pastoral letter, Archbishop Enrique Benavent of Valencia rejected suggestions that abortion was "a right to be justified socially," and said Christians were "called to be sowers of hope" for "families afraid to welcome new life."
He added, however, that the "commitment to life" must "extend to all moments and situations," also recognizing "the tragedies experienced by those whose dignity is not respected."
Meanwhile, Cardinal José Cobo of Madrid said his church sought to help rather than judge women in "enormously complex and difficult situations," but would also speak out against "a culture of indifference" which "normalized and naturalized" abortion.
"Abortion is not a right, it can never be a right. There is no right to tragedy! Only a personal and collective conscience numb to the value of life, to which we all have a right, can think this way," the cardinal in a March 22 cathedral address.
In his OSV News interview, editor-in-chief of Religión Digital said abortion rights were now largely "normalised" in Spain, placing the church "in a difficult situation."
However, Bastante added that giving them constitutional status would require a two-thirds vote in Spain's Cortes, making this currently "unfeasible" against firm opposition by the conservative Partido Popular and Vox parties.
In their "Day of Life" message, the bishops said disputes over life affected society's future and had "dragged on for several decades," leading to a cultural and corporate "lack of appreciation for motherhood."
"Love is true and authentic when open to the gift of life, recognizing in each child a divine blessing and a concrete sign of hope for humanity," said the six-page message on the bishops' conference website.
