A person from Tenerife has succeeded in getting the highest authority responsible for ensuring compliance with the Spanish Magna Carta to review gender discrimination within the associations of the Spanish Catholic Church. The Constitutional Court (TC) has recently agreed to process the appeal for protection made by María Teresita Laborda, a woman from the island 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, which is prohibited in its statutes, dependent on the Bishopric of Tenerife.
The acceptance of the appeal itself represents a matter of enormous importance since the investigation that is now being opened will not be limited to the specific case of this woman who wishes to be a part of this Christ venerated in Tenerife. The process may affect the rest of religious congregations – not just Catholics – in Spain that prohibit the presence of women, which is contrary to the constitutional right to equality and non-discrimination based on gender.
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 in every hundred appeals it receives. The body itself asserts this in the decision announcing the admission of the proceeding, signed last Monday and accessed by EL DÍA-La Opinión de Tenerife.
The Third Section states that in María Teresita Laborda’s appeal “there is special constitutional significance” because it “may give rise to the Court clarifying or changing its doctrine as a result of internal reflection.” The resolution is signed by the judges Inmaculada Montalbán Huertas –vice president of the Constitutional Court– and Laura Díez Bueso, and the judge César Tolosa Tribiño.
María Teresita Laborda, who has represented other women from Tenerife in this long legal battle for equality, who like her, wish to be part of the Christ of La Laguna, filed a petition for constitutional protection against the ruling of the Supreme Court in January 2022, which endorsed the exclusion of women from this brotherhood. The Slavery is an association in Tenerife governed by canon law and the diocesan rules of the Bishopric of La Laguna, a municipality in Tenerife that hosts the headquarters of the Catholic hierarchy of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. According to article 1 of its statutes, its members can only be “gentlemen.”
The decision of the First Chamber of the Supreme Court, which two years ago supported the prohibition of women from belonging to this brotherhood, was taken by the judges Juan María Díaz (rapporteur), Ignacio Sancho, Rafael Sarazá, and Pedro José Vela. The ruling addresses a conflict between the fundamental rights of equality, non-discrimination on the grounds of gender, and association, and the specificities of the organization of religious entities. The higher court gave priority to the regulations of Catholic entities over those established by the Spanish Constitution.
Two favorable rulings
After two rulings that upheld 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 paid, “as rules of direct and preferential application, to what is provided for in the agreement between the Spanish State and the Holy See on legal affairs (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 forcing a religious community to admit new members or exclude others.”
The four judges of the Supreme Court also include a judicial statement that maintains that “fundamental rights and, among them, the principle of equality, must be applied with nuance, as they must be made compatible with other values or parameters.” They confine the activities of the Slavery of the Christ to religious matters to argue that “the non-admission of a member cannot cause significant harm to them.”
Laborda began her fight in 2008 and initiated the legal process in 2018, tired of the silences and snubs of the Slavery of the Christ and the Bishopric of Tenerife regarding her requests for herself and 35 other women to have the right to be part of the association. The brotherhood argued that it was not governed by the Law on the Right of Association, but by the agreement between the Spanish State and the Holy See, the so-called Concordat. It believes that this fact exempts any religious association from the obligation to admit women.
The Slavery also invoked “a tradition of more than four centuries, which is reflected in the article of the contested statutes, which responds to the exercise of the powers of self-organization 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 and cassation infringement, a court that ruled in its favor.
The Bishopric of Tenerife joined the actions of the Slavery. It requested that a judgment be handed down “declaring the lack of objective competence of the civil jurisdiction for the knowledge of the claim and, subsidiarily, annul and overturn the challenged judgment, and uphold the appeal” against the two rulings that obliged the brotherhood to accept women. It is noteworthy that in the first instance, the Bishopric had accepted Laborda’s request, but in the judicial process, it worked against the interests of the woman.
Debate within the Slavery
Laborda’s demands sparked a debate within the Slavery of the Christ, whose purposes, according to its statutes, are as follows: “To promote among its members a more perfect Christian life, the exercise of corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and a filial devotion to the Holy Christ of La Laguna. More recently, its particular devotion is extended to the Virgin of Los Remedios.”
The evangelical piety and the increase of devotion and worship of the Sacred Image of Our Lord Crucified, brought to this Island by the first major pioneer of the Canary Islands, Alonso Fernández de Lugo, has received constant popular veneration in its chapel.
In 2017, a meeting was held between the then leaders of the brotherhood and two representatives from the female sector interested in joining. The entity convened an extraordinary meeting of former senior slaves – as the top officials of the Brotherhood are known – to address the change. The agreement did not go further than having two members study the request to prepare a report that would be discussed at a new meeting.
Even one of its senior slaves, Francisco José Doblas González, who held the position between 2016 and 2023, stated that it was “a very legitimate demand” that needed to be addressed. Then came December 2019. The Brotherhood of the Christ brought the matter to the general meeting. It was the first time in over four centuries of history that this Catholic group addressed the change in its rules to accommodate women. The vote, however, rejected changing the statutes. Its members would continue to be “knights.”
Municipal Intervention
The La Laguna City Council even intervened in the process. In 2018, the Municipal Women’s Council sent a letter to the Bishop of the Diocese of Tenerife, Bernardo Alvarez, and to the Board of Brotherhoods and Fraternities (JHC) of La Laguna to request that women be allowed to participate in 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 for equality in religious groups in the country, not only those of La Laguna.
