carmen louis castro, spokesperson for the PP in Güímar and former mayor of that municipality, wanted to make it clear that she does not agree that her party supported on Friday, in the plenary session of the Cabildo, the disapproval of the bishop Bernardo Alvarez “because of the statements described as homophobic, something that I do not understand; Contradicting yourself on certain issues leads to being labeled as homophobic, fascist, etc.”
Castro recalls that in that declaration, approved by all the parties, “he requests that Bernardo Álvarez not be invited to any institutional act on the Island, so I suppose that the councilors of the Cabildo will no longer attend any mass celebrated our bishop. Of course they will not go, for example, to the masses of the Patron Saint in Candelaria”.
“Even so -continues Luisa Castro-, the bishop issued a statement in which he apologizes because he understands that he did not explain himself well, but each one will have to look at his life if he wants to comply with God’s law. Mortal sin is not only understood for those who exercise homosexuality, but for relationships outside of marriage, for lying, stealing…”.
And the former popular mayor goes further, by asking her PP colleagues to request in the plenary sessions of Guía de Isora and La Laguna that they withdraw the name of the streets dedicated to the Cuban nationalized Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara for his well-known homophobia. “Che considered homosexuality contrary to his ideal of a new man, because he should be a vigorous, gallant, hard-working, patriotic, disinterested, heterosexual, monogamous and austere worker. That led him to consider gays and lesbians as ‘sexual perverts’, in the words of the writer Cabrera Infante”, he recalls.
Mari Brito
On the other hand, the socialist mayor of Candelaria, Mari Brito, a catechist and responsible for the accounts of the Igueste church in her youth, agrees with the disapproval of the bishop, because “I honestly believe that his words were a mistake, and he has done well in apologizing, there is always a word of repentance and rectification.
“Those words must be condemned, because, although the Church has its norms, the first that Jesus Christ left us is love of neighbor and that is the first commandment, whoever he is, think what he thinks or do what he does. The Jesus Christ in whom I believe taught us that path and now the Church has to adapt to the times, as Pope Francis conveys,” he said.
