Barcelona cardinal appointed head of Spain's episcopal conference

Barcelona's archbishop and cardinal Joan Josep Omella will lead all of Spain's dioceses after being appointed as the new president of Spain's Episcopal Conference.

This institution is formed by Spain's most relevant 87 bishops and all its dioceses.

Omella, who will lead the episcopal conference from 2020 to 2024, is 73 and was born in Cretes, in the Catalan-speaking strip of Aragon.

The new president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference figurehead said he intends to "build bridges, coexistence and fraternity" in all sensitive issues, such as the Catalan independence conflict. 

"When there is a will to walk together we can do it, when we want to face this it always produces wounds and pain, and this is not what we want for our Spanish people and for our Catholic church," he argued in his first press conference after being chosen for the post.

As for other controversies with the Spanish government in the field of education or taxation, Omella has said that they do not want "privileges" but hopes that they are treated with "dignity and respect."

Omella was first ordained as a bishop in 1996, and Archbishop of Barcelona in 2015. Two years later, the Pope appointed him cardinal, meaning he could now take part in the election of a new pontifex if needs be.

He will be the first archbishop of Barcelona to hold the top job in the episcopal conference.

Some previous presidents of this institution have been outspoken in the past on political issues in the country. 

Antonio Rouco Varela, for instance, who was in charge of the episcopal conference from 1999 to 2005 and from 2008 to 2014, flatly rejected any progress on the same-sex marriages or abortion, and had his say on the education policies of both the Socialist and People's Party governments in Spain.