Government issues list naming assets of the Catholic Church

Government issues list naming assets of the Catholic Church

The Cathedral in Cordoba built on the site of the mosque

THE Government has registered in Congress a list of 34,961 assets which belong to the Catholic Church, which could be claimed by private citizens or administrations.

Amongst them are properties as important as the cathedrals of Sevilla, Leon, Valencia, Palma de Mallorca, Barcelona, Cadiz, Malaga, Burgos, Santiago de Compostela, Toledo, Zamora, Tarragona and Ibiza, as well as the Cathedral Mosque in Cordoba.
In most cases, the assets were registered in the name of the Catholic Church in Spain based on simple deeds or ecclesiastical certification titles, as was permitted by the law at the time, between 1996 and 2015.
At the time, this was done in accordance with the law but the government has admitted that this opens the door to administrations and private citizens to claim ownership of the assets via court procedures or administrative channels.
Most of the pieces on the list are Religious Art works but there are also buildings and properties, such as schools, parish houses, seminaries, temples and hermitages, and of course the abovementioned cathedrals, amongst which, the Cordoba monument is of particular interest to those who have denounced for years that the church claims assets which do not necessarily belong to them.
The First Vice-President, Carmen Calvo, explained that the list was requested from congress in 2017. However, she did not elaborate on what could happen now regarding these assets.


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Jennifer Leighfield

Jennifer Leighfield, born in Salisbury, UK; resident in Malaga, Spain since 1989. Degree in Translation and Interpreting in Spanish, French and English from Malaga University (2005), specialising in Crime, Forensic Medicine and Genetics. Published translations include three books by Richard Handscombe. Worked with Euro Weekly News since November 2006. Well-travelled throughout Spain and the rest of the world, fan of Harry Potter and most things ‘geek’.

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