The Cabildo de Tenerife is the first public administration in condemn “outright”» and unanimous statements by the Bishop of Tenerife, Bernardo Álvarez Afonso, in which he referred to homosexuality “in a pejorative and demeaning way”.
The motion presented by the PSOE acquired a character of institutional pronouncement. Thus, it was approved “to wave, once again, any form of LGBTIphobia and hate speech that promotes, directly and indirectly, violence and discrimination against LGBTI+ people.” And it was also said in the text «transfer this agreement to the Bishopric of Tenerife, the Spanish Episcopal Conference and the Municipalities of the Island of Tenerife». On January 19, various media echoed the despicable statements made by the Bishop of the Nivarian diocese, Bernardo Álvarez Afonso, regarding homosexuality, who has repeatedly annoyed the LGTBI + collective with his words. The first statements were in 2007 when he stated that homosexuality harms people and society, linking sexual orientation with child abuse.
Sorry
From that moment to the present, there are many occasions in which this representative of the Catholic Church and head of the Nivarian diocese has been in the spotlight for his continuous interventions in homilies or the media about people with sexual orientations, diverse gender identities and gender expression.
In the last Álvarez stated in a television interview that “despite the fact that they know it is wrong, they do it, without being conditioned by anything. He is like the person who drinks and when he drinks he does whatever nonsense. Of course, what you have to do is not drink », linking that each person can freely live their sexual orientation with suffering from a disease such as alcoholism and affirming that homosexuality is a« mortal sin ».
Bishop Bernardo Álvarez, originally from La Palma, after the storm unleashed and to head off the criticism, decided to apologize publicly, but by not having retracted the content of his statements, he has not satisfied any of those who felt affected.
