This is due to renewed calls for new elections - following a series of corruption scandals involving the Socialists in power in Spain.
Following allegations of corruption against the wife and brother of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the police are currently also investigating a former minister and Santos Cerdán, number three in the Socialists and the right-hand man of government leader Sánchez, on suspicion of bribery and corruption.
In response, the president of the Spanish Bishops' Conference, Archbishop Luis Argüello, declared in an interview with the newspaper "ABC": "The way out of this institutional impasse is to give the citizens a voice."
According to the Archbishop of Valladolid, the fact that Prime Minister Sánchez had asked for forgiveness was "a gesture worthy of human recognition, but politically irrelevant".
"Cancer of democracy"
Most recently, César García Magán, Secretary General of the Spanish Bishops' Conference, also spoke out in favour of new elections. "The good of Spain is more important than the interests of the parties," he told the press. "Corruption is one of the cancers of democracy. It undermines its foundations. It undermines credibility and is a very dangerous gateway to authoritarianism."
The socialist government reacted with extreme anger. As reported by the daily newspaper "El País" (Sunday), Presidential Minister Félix Bolaños sent a public letter of complaint to the chairman of the Bishops' Conference.
He accused Archbishop Argüello of getting too close to right-wing and far-right parties and extreme political positions through his political statements.
The minister explained that the Bishops' Conference had not called for new elections in 2018, when the then ruling conservatives under Mariano Rajoy had even been convicted of "institutional corruption" by the National Court of Justice.
"I can understand that the Bishops' Conference wants a change of government so that debates such as the one on compensation for victims of sexual abuse in the Church no longer take place," said Bolaños in his letter to the Spanish Church leadership.
The latest corruption scandal has put the socialist minority government under great pressure.
The conservative opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo is currently trying to convince the Basque and Catalan nationalists in particular to withdraw their support from Sánchez in order to replace him in a motion of no confidence.
In fact, the conservatives are likely to win new elections outright. However, they would be left without a government majority; they are currently only supported by the right-wing populist Vox.