According to consistent media reports, the public prosecutor's office in Madrid has opened an investigation against Bishop José Ignacio Munilla of Orihuela-Alicante this week.
As the Catholic newspaper "Die Tagespost" reported on Thursday, a citizens' platform has accused him of hate and discrimination offences against the LGBTQ community.
The abbreviation LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer.
With the complaint, the Citizens' Platform is referring to a "Radio Maria" programme on 3 May, in which Munilla stated that psychologists who accompany people with homosexual tendencies are threatened as soon as this is considered "conversion".
Any counselling towards a life of chastity would be interpreted as forbidden"conversion therapy".
As conversion therapies have been banned nationwide since 2023, the Citizens' Platform has declared that Munilla's statements are not covered by freedom of opinion and religion, but constitute a call for discrimination.
Munilla: Only the law criticised
Munilla rejects the accusations.
In a post on Facebook on Thursday, he said that the action was only intended to "scare the church into not daring to preach the good news of Christian love in an attempt to impose a 'state anthropology' on society as a whole based on 'gender LGBTQ theory'".
He explained that he was not criticising LGBTQ groups but recent Spanish legislation which "'alleged' conversion therapies are banned and punished".
He wrote that it was "ironic" to defend the "freedom to change gender" but prohibit homosexuals from freely deciding to undergo conversion therapy.
The Church would continue to support people who voluntarily ask for religious help to live in chastity.
Furthermore, he had not received any notification of investigations from the judiciary.
"Conversion" or "reparative" therapies aim to "cure" gay and lesbian people of their sexual orientation.
They are rejected by experts and the World Medical Association calls them a "serious threat to the health and human rights" of the people treated.