Spanish bishop to Biden: Invoking Jesus Christ in support of abortion is a sacrilege

U.S. president Joe Biden has come under fire for making the sign of the cross during a rally criticizing measures that restrict abortion.

Among his critics are José Ignacio Munilla, the bishop of Orihuela-Alicante in Spain, who called Biden’s gesture a “sacrilege.”

Biden went to Tampa, Florida, on April 23 for a campaign stop one week before a law restricting abortion in the state from 15 to six weeks of gestation was due to go into effect.

While a Biden supporter on stage criticized Florida governor and former Republican candidate for president Ron DeSantis for signing the bill, Biden made the sign of the cross.

On his weekday radio program on Radio María España, Munilla said that making the sign of the cross in support of abortion constitutes a “sacrilegious” gesture and “the desecration of the sign of the cross.”

“Invoking Jesus Christ in support of abortion” has drawn strong criticism “in many pro-life and Catholic circles,” the bishop pointed out.

Crossing oneself, Munilla said, is meant to be used as a sign “in which we remember that Jesus gave his life for us, he gave his life for all the innocents, he gave his life to restore innocence and to make us saints.”

To use the sign of the cross as Biden did, however, is to “invoke the cross in a sacrilegious manner.”

Referring to the incident, the Spanish prelate warned of the risk that a Catholic might publicly show his faith by crossing himself while at the same time twisting its meaning “in a sacrilegious manner.”

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Referring to the incident, the Spanish prelate warned of the risk that a Catholic might publicly show his faith by crossing himself while at the same time twisting its meaning 'in a sacrilegious manner.'

Continued below.