Cort responds to the Bishopric two months later: "You can accommodate the residents of the old Palma prison"
The response arrives a few hours after the bishop of Mallorca denounced that the Palma City Council ignored them
PalmaThe complaint of the Bishop of Mallorca, Sebastià Taltavull, who has denounced that the Palma City Council ignored the proposal to accommodate people evicted from the old Palma prison, has borne fruit. A few hours after the news became public, the mayor of Palma, Jaime Martínez, sent a letter to the Bishopric asking them to enable "all the resources you have to house the residents of the old Palma prison".
"If the Bishopric of Mallorca has accommodation, let it enable it tomorrow for the people who are still in the old prison", stated the first deputy mayor, Javier Bonet, as reported by the City Council in a press release. In this press release, however, Cort does not explain why it has not responded to the request for the past two months, when the offer had already been made and the residents of the old prison were demanding housing solutions.
The Palma City Council has reported, in the press release, that it will send the file to court to execute the forced eviction of the old prison after the five-business-day period granted to voluntarily vacate the premises ended this Thursday. Cort recalled that it notified the eviction to 101 people, while the Official State Gazette (BOE) published the notification corresponding to 107 more people included in the file who could not be located.
According to the Consistory, since the beginning of the procedure to recover the old prison, nearly a hundred people have voluntarily left the space. Nevertheless, Cort calculates that there are currently approximately 100 people who regularly enter and leave the premises.
The City Council has emphasized that, throughout the process, municipal services have continued to offer social care and resources to the occupants, in coordination with the Majorcan Institute of Social Affairs (IMAS). As a result of this work, 45 people have been referred to various IMAS resources, including temporary reception centers and social and labor integration programs.
In parallel, the Bishopric of Mallorca had made different spaces and resources available to institutions last March to offer temporary accommodation to the evicted people. This same Thursday, the bishop of Mallorca, Sebastià Taltavull, assured in a meeting with the media that they had not yet received any response from the City Council regarding this proposal. Hours later, however, Cort reported that it had sent a letter to the Bishopric asking it to enable these reception resources.
Taltavull warns Trump and Netanyahu: "Beware of using God's word for your own interests"
The bishop of Mallorca has criticized speeches that “use God's word for their own interests” and has asked for caution in the face of attempts to instrumentalize the Church for political purposes.
“The Church does not preach ideology, it does not give political thought. Beware of those who do have this political interest and who want to use the Church for their own interests”, Taltavull reflected in a meeting with the media as part of the World Communications Day.
In this regard, the prelate cited as examples the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. In relation to the former, he stated: “Trump makes his people pray. If they pray to win the war, that is not a clean prayer. That is not Christianity.”
Taltavull also underlined that the Church does not adopt political positions, for example on issues such as welcoming migrants. In this case, he defended this position because, as he said, it responds to “following the Gospel”.
Young people, increasingly believers
The bishop of Mallorca, Sebastià Taltavull, explained that the Diocese has detected a progressive increase in young believers. “There has been a significant rise among young people who connect with Christianity”, he pointed out.
According to the details, it is a phenomenon that he considers “difficult to define” and which, in part, would be linked to the resurgence of groups of young people who, in some cases, are “much more independent” from the Church.