"The problem is not that the Government is secularist, but that in Spain there is an assumed secularism", said Andrés Ollero, magistrate of the Constitutional Court, this Thursday in the Alumni Program of development University (PADU) that took place in the high school Mayor Mendaur.

The magistrate explained that secularism (rejection of religion) is not the same as laicism (separation of civil society from religious society), the current context of the Spanish State. In this sense, Ollero affirmed that the majority of people who profess a religion in Spain have "convinced themselves" that they should not have their beliefs present in the place where they work, thus assuming a kind of self-imposed secularism. In addition, he pointed out that believers usually have a deficit of secularism that leads them to a "B clericalism" in their social behavior: "When a problem arises, believers say what the religious leader says, and that is difficult".

Ollero explained that secularism has a conception of religion as "something that is disturbing" and that in a secularist society it is believed that if someone is a believer in a religion, he or she is no longer neutral. But the speaker stated that, in reality, the opposite is true, because "there is no neutrality" for non-believers: "It is as if one wants to put salt on rice and another does not, and in the end it is not put on it defending that the latter is a neutral position." In this sense, he indicated that the layman is "a normal and ordinary person" who says or does things because "he feels like it" and asked for the same respect for believers as that given to other non-believers when they give their opinion on a topic: "As a believer I do not tolerate that they limit themselves to tolerate me, but that they treat me the same as the others".

Regarding abortion, Andrés Ollero declared that "it is not a religious problem, but a civil one" and, nevertheless, he assured that "most Catholics" are reluctant to demonstrate in favor of life "because they consider it to be right-wing", when, in reality, the right to life is defended by the legal system. 

In addition to the students from Mendaur, the lecture of the Constitutional Court magistrate was attended by students from the Center high school Mayor Mendaur, students from the Center educational Andel, in Alcorcón, who have participated in the University of Navarra's University Excellence Program for students of the University of Navarra. high school diploma.