José Manuel Lorca Planes, bishop of Cartagena, and other members of the leadership of the Murcian Church were vaccinated against covid on January 19 at the Hogar de Betania nursing home.
As they did not belong to any group to which they corresponded according to the vaccination protocol, they were included as chaplains of the center in the list sent to the Ministry of Health, as published this Wednesday by the newspaper
La Opinion de Murcia.
Along with Lorca Planes, who has given up receiving the second dose after the controversy, his personal secretary, Maximiliano Caballero, received the prick;
the auxiliary bishop, Sebastián Chico;
the former archbishop of Burgos, Francisco Gil Hellín, and the canon of the Murcia cathedral, Tomás Cascales.
The Prosecutor's Office is investigating whether these events constitute a crime.
In the days prior to the vaccination, the bishop "filled in the necessary consent for the Ministry of Health to authorize his vaccination," the Diocese of Cartagena explained in a statement issued on Monday.
From the Ministry of Health, they clarify that each residence or socio-health center enters a list of professionals and residents for their vaccination into a computer program, and that it is not the Murcian Health Service that cites them, but the residences, which manage the drug in their own centers.
When the bishop signed the consent for his vaccination on January 2, he was not listed as a worker at the Hogar de Betania residence in Murcia, which depends on the diocese.
However, in the list sent to Health, Lorca Planes appears as chaplain of the residence, according to
La Opinion de Murcia.
Also the other ecclesiastics vaccinated irregularly appear like workers of the center.
Hospital and nursing home chaplains are included as front-line personnel in the vaccination protocol.
From the diocese they maintain that Monsignor Lorca Planes "at no time did he think he was acting wrong" and "never contemplated the possibility that vaccines could be lacking."
And they refer to the statement published on Monday, maintaining that the bishop was vaccinated as president of the board of the residence, to which he "attends regularly", the last time "on January 30 to celebrate the Eucharist together with the residents ”.
The spokesman for the Covid-19 Monitoring Committee in the Region of Murcia, Jaime Pérez, announced that the council will investigate the vaccination of the bishop and the rest of the ecclesiastics, and stressed that Health is not responsible for the performance of the residence .
The PSOE of the Region of Murcia delivered this Tuesday to the Superior Prosecutor's Office an anonymous letter from a worker from the Home of Betania, in which she denounced how Lorca Planes and several priests arrived at the residence in several cars to receive the vaccine without corresponding.
This is the second known case of violation of the vaccination protocol in the Region of Murcia, after the resignation of the former Minister of Health, Manuel Villegas, on January 20 for having received the vaccine together with hundreds of counseling professionals.
The superior prosecutor of Murcia, José Luis Díaz Manzanera, has confirmed to Efe that this Wednesday he has received the complaint for the vaccination of the prelate and some of his closest collaborators, which will be incorporated into the proceedings that he already instructs for the immunization of Villegas and of other officials and senior health officials.
Three other bishops, those of Mallorca, Alicante and Tenerife, have also been vaccinated irregularly, registering as residents in houses for retired priests where they did not actually live.
