Andorra: abortion issue raises question for bishop’s traditional role
August 12, 2024
» Continue to this story on Monday Vatican
CWN Editor's Note: At MondayVatican, Andrea Gagliarducci reflects on an unusual question involving Church-state relations in the tiny republic of Andorra.
Under Andorra’s existing constitution, the Bishop of Urgell, Spain, is ex officio the co-prince of the state. (The other co-prince is the president of France, currently Emmanuel Macron.) A move to legalize abortion is rapidly gaining strength in Andorra, and Gagliarducci notes: “The Holy See cannot accept that one of its bishops is the head—even and especially when the title is almost entirely honorific—of a State that introduces legal abortion on his watch.”
Bishop Joan Enric Vives Sicilia of Urgell submitted his resignation in July upon reaching the age of 75; Pope Francis has named Father José-Lluis Serrano to become his successor. Gagliarducci reports rumors from Rome of “the Holy See accepting a change in the Andorran Constitution that would allow the Bishop of Urgell’s right to be co-prince of Andorra [to] lapse.”
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