A woman from Tenerife has succeeded in leading the highest body overseeing compliance with the Spanish Constitution to review discrimination against women in the associations of the Spanish Catholic Church. The Constitutional Court (TS) has just admitted for consideration the appeal for protection presented by María Teresita Laborda, an islander who has been fighting for 16 years for the Pontifical, Royal and Venerable Slavery of the Holy Christ of La Laguna to accept the inclusion of women in this institution dependent on the Bishopric of Tenerife, which prohibits it in its statutes.
The acceptance of the appeal already represents an event of great importance because the investigation that is now being opened will not be limited to the case of this woman who wants to serve this venerated Christ in Tenerife. The process may affect the rest of the religious congregations – not only Catholic ones – in Spain that exclude the presence of women, against the constitutional right to equality and non-discrimination based on sex.
It is precisely the general interest behind this particular complaint that has led the Constitutional Court to admit this appeal, a court that only accepts one out of every hundred appeals it receives. The body itself confirms this in the providencia in which it communicates the admission of the procedure, signed last Monday and accessed by EL DÍA-La Opinión de Tenerife.
The process may affect the rest of the religious congregations of Spain that exclude the presence of women
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The Third Section ensures that there is “a special constitutional significance” in María Teresita Laborda’s appeal because it “may give the Court the opportunity to clarify or change its doctrine as a result of an internal reflection process”. The resolution is signed by the magistrates Inmaculada Montalbán Huertas –vice-president of the Constitutional Court– and Laura Díez Bueso, and the magistrate César Tolosa Tribiño.
Members of the Slavery of Christ, in the center, surrounded by faithful of the lagoon image. / Andrés Gutiérrez
Laborda, who has represented in this lengthy legal battle for equality other women from Tenerife who, like her, want to serve as slaves of the Christ of La Laguna, filed an appeal for protection before the Constitutional Court against the ruling of the Supreme Court, in January 2022, which endorsed the exclusion of women from this brotherhood.
The Slavery is a congregation in Tenerife that is governed by canon law and the diocesan norms of the Bishopric of La Laguna, a municipality in Tenerife that hosts the seat of the Catholic leadership of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. According to article 1 of its statutes, its members can only be “knights”.
The decision of the First Chamber of the Supreme Court that two years ago supported the prohibition for women to belong to this brotherhood was adopted by the justices Juan María Díaz (rapporteur), Ignacio Sancho, Rafael Sarazá and Pedro José Vela.
The Slavery is a congregation in Tenerife that is governed by canon law and the diocesan norms of the Bishopric of La Laguna
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The ruling addresses a conflict between the fundamental rights of equality, non-discrimination based on sex, and association, and the particularities of the organization of religious entities. The highest court gave precedence to the regulations of Catholic entities over those enshrined by the Spanish Constitution.
Following two rulings that supported women’s access to the Slavery of La Laguna and gave precedence to constitutional rights over religious ones – one from the Court of First Instance number 2 of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 2020 and another from the Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 2021 – the Supreme Court ruled in the opposite direction.
It argued that in this case, attention must be given, “as norms of direct and preferential application, to what is provided in the agreement between the Spanish state and the Holy See on legal matters (article I) and in the Organic Law on Religious Freedom”. It also cites a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights which states that “the principle of autonomy prohibits the State from obliging a religious community to admit new members or exclude others”.
Two rulings supported women’s access to the Slavery of La Laguna, giving precedence to constitutional rights over religious ones, but the Supreme Court overturned these decisions
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Judges from the Supreme Court include another judicial pronouncement that maintains that “fundamental rights and, among them, the principle of equality, must be applied with nuances, as they must be made compatible with other values or parameters.” They confine the activities of the Brotherhood to the religious sphere to argue that “the non-admission of a member cannot cause significant harm to them.”
Laborda began her struggle in 2008 and initiated legal action in 2018, fed up with the silences and snubs of the Brotherhood of the Christ and the Bishopric in response to her requests for her and 35 other women to have the right to join the association. The brotherhood argued that it was not governed by the Law of Association Rights, but by the agreement between the State and the Holy See, the so-called concordat. It considered that this fact exempted any religious association from the obligation to admit women.
Act of descent of the Christ of La Laguna, organized by Slavery. / Andrés Gutiérrez
The Brotherhood also invoked “a tradition of more than four centuries, reflected in the article of the contested statutes, which responds to the exercise of the self-organization faculties of the entity, which must be respected by the judicial authority in accordance with national and European jurisprudence.” This is explained in the appeal it presented to the Supreme Court for procedural infringement and cassation, a court that ruled in its favor.
The Bishopric of Tenerife joined the actions of the Brotherhood. It requested that a judgment be handed down “declaring the lack of objective competence of the civil jurisdiction to hear the claim and, subsidiarily, nullifying the contested judgment, and ruling in favor of the appeal” against the two rulings that obligated the brotherhood to accept women. It is worth noting that the Bishopric had initially accepted Laborda’s request but in the judicial process, it worked against the woman’s interests.
Laborda’s demands sparked a debate within the Brotherhood of the Christ, whose purposes, according to its statutes, are as follows: “To promote among its members a more perfect Christian life, the practice of evangelical acts of piety, and the increase of devotion and worship to the Sacred Image of Our Lord Crucified, brought to this Island by the first chief adelantado of the Canaries, Alonso Fernández de Lugo, and which has since received constant popular veneration in its chapel.”
In 2019, the general assembly of the Brotherhood of the Christ of La Laguna rejected modifying the statutes to allow the entry of women
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In 2017, after a meeting held between the then leaders of the brotherhood and two representatives of the female sector interested in joining, the entity convened an extraordinary meeting of former chief slaves – as the top leaders of the Brotherhood are known – to address the change. The agreement did not go beyond having two members study the request to have a report that would be discussed at a new meeting.
María Teresita Laborda, the woman who has undertaken this judicial battle for equality in the Catholic Church. / El Día
Even one of their chief slaves, Francisco José Doblas González, who held the position between 2016 and 2023, stated that it was “a very legitimate demand” that had to be addressed. Then December 2019 came. The Brotherhood of the Christ brought the matter to the general assembly. It was the first time in over four centuries of history that this Catholic collective addressed the change in its rules to accommodate women. The vote, however, rejected changing the statutes. Its members have continued to be only “gentlemen.”
The City Council of La Laguna even intervened in the process. In 2018, the Municipal Women’s Council sent a letter to the bishop of the Diocese of Tenerife, Bernardo Álvarez, and to the Board of Brotherhoods and Fraternities (JHC) of La Laguna, to request that women could be part of the Brotherhood of the Christ and other Catholic associations. Now it will be the Constitutional Court that will rule on this demand, a decision that could set a historic precedent on equality in the religious collectives of the country, not only those of La Laguna.
