Church registers another cemetery in Cadiz built on public land.

February1, 1983

The then Bishop of Cadiz registered the Barbate and Zaara de los Atunes cemeteries under his ownership. Both necropolises were built decades ago on public lands of the municipality after being transferred to the administration of the church without any agreement or remuneration. The ownership of the land remained with the municipality. However, the Bishop of Gades unilaterally declared that the entire area, including the land, belonged to him, taking advantage of the clearly unconstitutional paragraph 206 of the 1946 Land Code, which allows the registration of property without the need to document ownership.

The old Barbate cemetery

It covers an area of 4200 square meters'. 'and is on city land, as already reported by Público last October.

Zaara de los Atunes

It is an autonomous local town dependent on Barbate. It has a little over 1,300 inhabitants, but in the summer its population grows strongly due to the great popularity of beach tourism.

In regards to the registration of both necropolises

The strictest confidentiality was observed by the bishop. Then-Bishop Antonio Dorado Soto registered his property in the early 1980s without the knowledge of the municipality, the owner of the land, and despite the fact that the use of the land had been agreed with the municipality.

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The municipality found out about it in the summer by chance after residents' outrage over the exponential increase in rates for''funeral set up by the Bishop of Cadiz, Rafael Zornosa. Municipal officials went to the property registry and found that both plots of land had been registered by the archbishop.

The tariff increase

The move came after the bishop decided to consolidate the most profitable cemeteries into a fund called Santa Marta, controlled directly by the diocese. To do so, he had to knock out the parishes that had run them for decades and get a signature from the priest representing the parish. Challenged by some pastors whose only source of income was providing funeral services, the bishop used every possible pressure to get them to agree.

Management of affairs undertaken''prelate

Not well received by most of the parishioners and even fewer neighbors who have seen rates quadrupled in some cases. In response to citizen protests, the municipality of Barbate said it is exploring all options to protect its cemetery rights and find solutions to the exponential price increases.

Transfer of municipal land to the Church

In Barbate and Zaara de los Atunes is not an isolated case, as sources linked to this newspaper say. It seems to have been a common practice in the early twentieth century, and there may be many more cases of appropriation of municipal parcels of land on which parafias built necropolises.

The Catholic Church has registered thousands of cemeteries across''Spain

The assignment of municipal land to the Church in Barbat and Zaara de los Atunes is not an isolated case, as sources linked to this newspaper say. It seems to have been a common practice in the early twentieth century, and there may be many more cases of appropriation of municipal land on which parafessions built necropolises.