{"id":401205,"date":"2026-03-24T10:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T10:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/401205\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T10:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T10:41:10","slug":"spanish-catholic-group-draws-backlash-over-vote-to-exclude-women-in-easter-procession-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/401205\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish Catholic group draws backlash over vote to exclude women in Easter procession \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The decision by a Spanish Catholic<\/a> association to continue excluding women from its Easter<\/a> processions has reopened a debate about female involvement in such events and could lead to it being sanctioned by the central government.<\/p>\n

Every Easter across Spain<\/a> groups of men known as cofrad\u00edas, or brotherhoods, carry ornate religious floats through towns and villages as crowds watch. <\/p>\n

Earlier this week members of the Brotherhood of Holy Week of Sagunto voted on whether to allow women to take part in the carrying of their float. This followed growing pressure for a change to a tradition that has been observed in the eastern Mediterranean town since the late 15th century.<\/p>\n

The result of the vote was 114 in favour of the change and 267 against, ensuring that women, who are involved in other ways such as helping to prepare the garments of the men who carry the float, remain barred from taking part in the event itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable that we are in 2026 and this door to equality remains closed,\u201d said Blanca Ribelles, of an organisation that had been campaigning for women\u2019s participation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like bashing your head against a wall,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are disappointed because we\u2019ve missed an historic chance to change things from the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

One member of the brotherhood who supported the inclusion of women, Albert Llueca, said the arguments against the change had been thin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there had been any coherent reason to prevent women from taking part, on an equal footing, we would have heard them,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s just silence and \u2018it\u2019s always been like this\u2019, which, translated, means \u2018because we don\u2019t want it to change\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those in the brotherhood who did not want to allow women to participate have barely spoken to the media since the vote.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How Spain\u2019s Pedro S\u00e1nchez became Trump\u2019s fiercest critic in EuropeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

This is the third ballot on the matter the town has held since 1999, when only nine members voted in favour of including women.<\/p>\n

In 2024 the Spanish Constitutional Court ruled that the male-only tradition observed by a Catholic brotherhood in the town of La Laguna, in Tenerife, violated the rights not to be discriminated against and of free association of women who wanted to join. That ruling has been appealed and is now before the European Court of Human Rights.<\/p>\n

The brotherhood of Sagunto, which has a population of 73,000, is also facing criticism from the left-wing central government, which champions gender equality. <\/p>\n

\u201cHoly Week must be egalitarian,\u201d said the equality minister, Ana Redondo. \u201cWe will act.\u201d<\/p>\n

One action the government is considering is to strip Sagunto\u2019s Holy Week procession of its official designation as a Fiesta of National Tourist Interest. That status gives the town access to subsidies and means it is promoted internationally as a tourist destination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decision by a Spanish Catholic association to continue excluding women from its Easter processions has reopened a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,2512,154384,18,51949,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,81065,383,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-401205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-catholic-church","11":"tag-easter","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-european-court-of-human-rights","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-pedro-sanchez","25":"tag-spain","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116283734906730727","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}