The ‘podcast’ that dismantles El Yunque, the sect hostile to human rights that confronts the left and part of the Catholic Church | Television

In the turmoil of the recent riots they began in front of the Ferraz, PSOE headquarters in Madrid God, Country, Anvil (Podcast on the podium). This documentary series presented by journalist Miquel Ramos reveals, starting this Monday, the political, economic and international connections of a sect founded in Mexico in the 1950s and whose tentacles expanded into Spain after Franco’s death. Neither the Church’s unofficial investigations nor the repudiation of Catholic parents who denounced the recruitment and mistreatment of their children stopped its advance. Some names from this secret organization now hold public positions in Spain. Liberto Senderos, one of the Vox councilors elected in Barcelona, ​​is the founder of this sect in Spain, as Miguel González, a journalist from El País who participates in it, said at the time. podcasts.

No member of El Yunque acknowledges El Yunque’s existence. And, although its existence and direct relationship with associations such as Hazte Oír were demonstrated in court 10 years ago, neither the Catholic Church, nor the Prosecutor’s Office, nor the Spanish media seem to assimilate its impact on the political and social agenda of the village. citizenship. This podcastsRamos, he explains to this newspaper, tries to neutralize one of the most powerful weapons of this organization: the silence around it. Despite having spent two decades analyzing the far right, the journalist acknowledges that until a few years ago he was unaware of the reach of this sect. “I placed it more in a fundamentalism that fought on a religious terrain that I saw little explored in Spain,” he comments. .

The testimonies of the affected Catholic families try to demonstrate that it is a threat “that generates a transversal alert”, beyond the rights defended above all by the left, such as feminism, the right to abortion or sexual diversity. The Catholic Church is one of its main victims. The director of podcasts, Eugenio Viñas, anticipates that many of the statements that appear there remind us that the sect “uses and mistreats those it captures, also betraying the doctrine it claims to defend, in this case, the Catholic one. “This is a story in which believers of the Catholic religion are the victims and also the heroes who face this sect.”

Over the course of five chapters, arriving every Monday on all audio platforms, the podcasts tells a story that arises from the investigations of journalists such as Santiago Mata, Jesús Bastante and Álvaro Delgado, who have been scrutinizing El Yunque in Spain and Mexico for years. The testimony of Victoria Uroz is also recovered, which is for Viñas “one of the most clear proofs of the existence of El Yunque, recounting firsthand the ties of her husband Luis Losada with the sect and the actions of this organization at an international level. level”. Always in the first person, the memories of José Luis N. Quijada, one of the young Christians who were about to be captured because he met all their parameters. For 15 years he has dedicated himself to denouncing their activities, among other things as the author of the blog Conozca El Yunque. The differentiating testimony for Viñas is that of Inma García, former member of El Yunque from 16 to 19 years old and daughter of the president of the Family Forum in Española, Ignacio García–Giulia.

God, Country, Anvil It’s “a warning for the future,” Ramos says. “It’s not just a cult that takes money from people. It’s an overfunded organization. That’s why they can launch global, million-dollar campaigns. And this gives them the ability to have an impact on a political level, impacting the life of the entire society”, claims the host of the podcasts.

Ramos argues that Vox and El Yunque are different things. But also that their paths are parallel and that, at times, they intersect. “In Spain the far right has been very contained by the Popular Party. But when it begins to divide, coinciding with the rise of El Yunque, we begin to hear the talk of the cowardly right that when it comes to power it does not reverse the social laws of the PSOE, such as homosexual marriage or the law on abortion, ” , recalls the journalist. Everyone looked away more than they should. The bloc opposing the People’s Party also benefited from the rise of the far right, “which was interested in there being divisions in the conservative sector. Nor does it see Ferraz’s protests as a negative thing, because they ridicule the opposition to the current government and this helps them say: either that or me”, analyzes Ramos.

The Ferraz riots are linked to the first time in which the bishops took to the streets to demonstrate against a government, that of Zapatero, in 2004. Many of these economic and political links reappear 20 years later and the influence of The One.

The first chapters explain how the sect parasitizes campaigns, organizations and causes in exchange for political and economic power. «They use, among other things, faith or something as intimate as spirituality to obtain it», anticipates Eugenio Viñas. Through this sect, the global and diversified phenomenon of the far right, which does not constitute a homogeneous entity, is analyzed. In each country there are different proposals. fight against it woke up They usually give them a lot of returns, because they also attract people who are not necessarily conservative, Ramos warns.

The expert on the rise of the far right believes that, despite the global nature of the phenomenon, “Ferraz could never have ended up like El Chapter… at this time.” The far right who demonstrated in front of the PSOE headquarters “had the capacity to create disorder for a few days. If the police had wanted it, they would have stopped him sooner,” says Ramos. “There was a lot of patience not to victimize those people, not to give rise to conspiracies that benefit them so much and that they exploited so well during the pandemic. And to show that caricature of the far right that interests his political rivals. If several issues that the far right takes advantage of converged, as is happening now with the farmers’ conflict, perhaps this would come close to what we have seen in the United States,” concludes Ramos.

You can follow EL PAÍS Television on X or sign up here to receive it our weekly newsletter.