(LifeSiteNews) — Spanish priest Father Custodio Ballester has been acquitted by the Provincial Court of Málaga of having committed a “hate crime.”
Fr. Ballester, along with Fr. Jesús Calvo and journalist Armando Robles were the victims of a lawsuit launched by a Spanish Muslim activist group that charged them with making “Islamophobic” remarks during a 2017 podcast.
Fr. Ballester, who serves as a parish priest in Barcelona, was also accused of violating Spanish law in 2020 when a state prosecutor in Catalonia claimed that an article he wrote in 2016 titled “The Impossible Dialogue with Islam” met the criteria of a “hate crime.”
The priest wrote the essay in response to a pastoral letter by his superior, the archbishop of Barcelona, Cardinal Juan José Omella, titled “The Necessary Dialogue with Islam.”
In his rebuttal, Fr. Ballester said, among other things, that “Islam does not allow dialogue. For Islam, either you believe, or you are an infidel who must be subdued one way or another.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Fr. Ballester expressed gratitude for the ruling.
“I thank God and the Christian people who supported me with their prayers and their presence in court,” he commented.
The priest predicted that the ruling would be appealed.
“My sentence has greatly angered the prosecutor’s office because it halts all proceedings against freedom of expression,” he said. “They are going to appeal to the higher courts. The heads of the hate prosecutor’s office … do not like defeat. We will continue to fight for freedom.”
Fr. Ballester and his co-defendants faced up to three-years in prison, with Robles reportedly facing a 10-year ban on teaching and a fine of 3,000 euro ($3,500).
Fr. Ballester has remained defiant over the past eight years. He told Catholic News Agency (CNA) that his statements “have never been discriminatory or hateful.” He also said, “they want to use me as an example so that others censor themselves.”
The Málaga court determined that Fr. Ballester’s remarks did not rise to the level of hate speech.
“No matter how despicable or perverse the message may be, or even if the statements may be clearly offensive or unfortunate,’ they do not in themselves constitute a punishable offense,” it said, according to Europa Press. The court also claimed his comments were “clearly offensive” and “unfortunate.”
Law firm Abogados Cristianos previously collected nearly 30,000 signatures for a petition supporting Fr. Ballester’s innocence.
Clergy in Spain have largely remained silent, however. Catholic News Agency has reported that Cardinal Omella “has only offered private words of support, without issuing a public statement.”
“People are very angry about the excessive sentences being sought for ‘hate crimes,’ which are comparable to those sought for sexual assault or leaving someone paralyzed in a fight,” Fr. Ballester previously told CNA.
According to Islamic Sharia law, Christians and Jews who refuse to convert to Islam are not recognized as full citizens but are considered semi-slaves called “dhimmi” who have to pay a special tax called “jizyah.” The OpenDoors “Word Watch List” shows that the majority of the top 50 countries in which Christians are most persecuted are Islamic states.
When previously asked whether he was prepared to spend three years in prison if convicted, Fr. Ballester replied: “It doesn’t seem right to be convicted for something I’ve said, but in Spain anything is possible. But if I am convicted, this will no longer be Spain but Pakistan, where you can be killed for blaspheming the Koran or Mohammed.”
“As a priest, my duty is to Christ and to truth, not to the ideological consensus imposed by the government,” he added.
Fr. Ballester told Fox that had he been convicted he would have wanted to “celebrate Mass in prison with the inmates.”
