It is not a good entry, it is true, but I am sick, sick and angry, I cannot accept what is happening to us over and over again, because it is not the problem of others, but ours. It is true that this is not the first time I have been looking forward to this issue, but unfortunately I do not think it is the last. It seems that the barbarity that the media are communicating to us today does, but tomorrow too. I am referring to violence against women.

We have been raising and lowering sexist violence for years, but I do not agree, either with analyzing the problem, with the attitude of the Church, or with the penal methodology chosen to deal with it. I do not agree that this is something that comes from outside, and furthermore, as in other problems, the sanction is not an appropriate decision.

If I want to say something, today I will also look back, because that is where the thread of the disease comes from.

In the Basque Country of our ancestors, nature was the axis of survival. Both in collective and social life and in the individual, the dependence on the environment was total. The sun, water, fire, moon, hail… were of great importance in life.

It was therefore essential to seek control of these forces in order to avoid damage. This search for defenses through rites led over time to complete religion. Earth, moon, sky, sun…

The religion of our ancestor, therefore, has its origin in nature and the practice based on that belief has left deep roots in the Basque Country, from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages.

When in the 16th century Christianity spread throughout the Basque Country, it was a profound change. Among other things, the private model that came from Christianity to understand land ownership led to the first socio-economic inequalities.

The Christian Church soon maintained the abolition of the religions and customs that until then were used in these lands. The followers of customs were accused of having links with the devil; of absorbing the blood of the children, of boosting the bad crops… They repeated the same thing that the waiters of Imperial Rome did before with the Christian, who followed another religion.

Gradually these new additions were making room in society and Christianity was adapted in some cases to old beliefs (summer and winter solstice) and others were rejected as mere superstition, and those who directly opposed the Christian belief were destroyed by bans (moon worship, carnivals, etc.). ).

In this context we must place the witches, the heresy and the repression exercised by the Church. What the Spanish and French States then do, imposing Catholicism as a unique religion on this part of the border. We have a clear example when the Courts of Navarra pointed out in 1533: “The absenteeism of the bishops is causing the emptying of the dioceses and the consequent increase in the fondness of the witch.”

At this time, women became the priority objective of repression and not by chance. Women are linked to the magic field, to criminals. For Christianity, women are the source of sins and alienate them from all their rites and festive responsibilities. In the ceremony and Christian society all roads are the property of man.

At that time, women were nothing, they were valued for witchcraft, for bringing humans and for more or less. However, it has to be said that not all rites were anti-Christians. In fact, there were also mixed Christian priests in cases of inquisition. In the rural environment, many met after the Mass in the caves, with the participation of all to celebrate the festivities. In the Christian model, on the contrary, the only protagonist of the ceremony was the priest, who, as he did not so much, kept turning his back on the assembled.

This was the “command class” of the time, which gradually shaped through the Church, a structure to defend its interests. A truly negative result: the “moral Christian” that is currently being maintained.

They regulated all kinds of behaviors. They faced old Christian customs and beliefs, which were considered immoral. Thus, the old beliefs became immoral, with a link beyond nature. Belongings of witches and heretics.

Not all were alike, therefore, although some were bruges without body, symbol of damage and disease, the direct effects of the repression suffered by others, the corporeal ones. They were tortured and burned in the fire. How much? Who knows?

The problem, as we have seen, is not today, because it is a problem that comes centuries to century, and the terrible damage it has today, in my opinion, is to deny the origin. To which its origin is denied, by refusing to the same extent the solution.

It is serious, very serious and will not be solved in any case, except through proper education. That is the only instrument that will overcome the problem, the right education, starting with children.

In line with what I said at the outset, I do not see that the institutional campaigns that are being promoted will bring an end to the problem. I do not see the Catholic Church, one of the main creators, tackling this problem with the necessary strength. Moreover, I think it is turning its back, and that is a disgrace.

The fact that, for centuries, the barbarity at the summit has not been accepted, not only have the churches been emptied, but also the erasures of the incurable injury to Christian society.

They say celibacy is guilty.

Josu Iraeta, writer