The government demonizes the bishop of Mallorca for defending the territory

PalmaMarga Prohens' government believes in a new God, different from the one that guides the Bishop of Mallorca, Sebastià Taltavull. The Minister of Tourism Jaume Bauzà has cried out to the heavens following the interview that the prelate granted to this newspaper. It was on the occasion of the 36th anniversary of the publication of the poignant pastoral letter titled Ecology and tourism in our Islands. Guidelines for Christian action. This was the first time in history that the three representatives of the Balearic dioceses signed a document together. Back then, Teodor Úbeda was the Bishop of Mallorca; Manuel Ureña, of Ibiza-Formentera; and Antoni Deig served as diocesan administrator of Menorca. In 1990, the three allied to protest against the terrible consequences that more than three decades of tourism boom.

In his latest homilies, amidst the current debate on tourist overcrowding, Taltavull has wanted to rescue from oblivion the pastoral letter that he himself helped to draft, while he was then vicar general of Menorca. In a tweet on the X platform, the Minister of Tourism has shown himself to be indignant at the tourist greed of these years that the bishop denounces in ARA Balears. He did so by appealing, cynically, to the famous chorus of a song by Lluís Llach: “That was not it, comrades, that was not it”. Bauçà accuses the prelate of being a hypocrite. He makes three reproaches: “He is bothered by the cyclists who climb to Lluc, even though not long ago the same sanctuary invited them with an enthusiastic ‘Cyclist, Lluc is your home’. That is the good part of having a memory: it allows one to remember that hospitality, sometimes, has a curious variable geometry. He is also concerned about cruises, even though a good part of their passengers end up visiting the Cathedral. And while he preaches against tourist greed, it would be appropriate to remember the 268 places marketed at the Lluc sanctuary, the subject of a file for alleged irregularities. Perhaps greed is easier to recognize when it is contemplated from someone else's bell tower”.

Bauçà even reproaches Taltavull for wanting to appropriate, 36 years later, the famous pastoral letter that was completely ignored at the time by the political and business class. “Modesty -he declares- is also a Christian virtue, especially when it comes to distributing merits retrospectively”. The verbal virulence of the minister against the head of the Cathedral, who has always been characterized by his strong civic commitment, is very surprising. In the interview, Taltavull recalls that from the 70s onwards he participated actively in the environmental mobilizations of Menorca. “It was clear to me that defending the territory was defending the people, their identity, and their language”. The minister forgets that, despite the inconsistencies that the bishopric may have as an institution, it was the first entity that, in the midst of the boom in tourism, was concerned about the most vulnerable. In 1961 it created Caritas Diocesana of Mallorca, which even today saves lives in the midst of the social disaster that we are suffering.

If the minister has read the interview, he will know that the bishop at no point criticizes tourism, which, just as his colleagues stated 36 years ago, “is the bread of our Islands”. Taltavull only asks for common sense regarding the current collapse. One only needs to look at the figures to realize that the industry has slipped through our hands and that the Balearic Islands have become a theme park where residents are a nuisance. The 18 million annual tourists triple those who arrived in the Archipelago in 1990. And in the last 25 years, the population has doubled to exceed 1.2 million inhabitants. It is an unusual demographic growth in Europe, which threatens our survival as a people -only about a third of the population is Catalan-speaking.

The bishop knows well the dark side of tourism. It has been a long time since we went from living off tourism to barely surviving on tourism. The famous ‘golden goose’ only cackles with joy for a minority. Today, the happiness of tourists is sustained by the suffering of poor workers who, in the new ‘real estate islands’, cannot even afford a home. It matters little that one of the articles of the sacrosanct Constitution is thus violated. For all this, it is an indecency that a political leader demonizes a pastor of the Church who worries about the well-being of his parishioners, increasingly abandoned by democratic representatives sold out to turbocapitalism. The ‘theotourism’ of Marga Prohens' government does not understand Christian charity. There are sins that have no forgiveness from God no matter how much one likes to go to mass.