The Bishop of Urgell about to approve an abortion law for Andorra with the backing of the Vatican

Andorra is on the verge of a historic scandal. The Government of the Principality, under the leadership of Xavier Espot, is preparing a bill for November 2025 that seeks to decriminalize abortion, according to the media outlet Le Veu Lliure.

The text contemplates the elimination of prison sentences and professional disqualification, in addition to a system for women to be referred to clinics in France or Spain, with «medical» accompaniment from Andorra and economic compensations. Far from being an «intermediate» measure, this is a genuine covert legalization, as the State will not only stop penalizing abortion, but will subsidize it with public money.

It disguises the contradiction with the argument that abortions will not be performed within the territory, but the result is the same: the murder of unborn children will be protected and financed by the Andorran State itself. The gravity of this maneuver increases due to Andorra’s institutional peculiarity. The Principality has as heads of state the President of the French Republic and the Bishop of Urgell. Today, that responsibility falls on Josep-Lluís Serrano Pentinat, who on May 31, 2025, assumed the role of Bishop of Urgell and co-prince. If this project advances, it will be Serrano Pentinat who must sanction this iniquitous law with his signature, legitimizing abortion from the head of state. In Rome, the Secretariat of State, under the direction of Cardinal Pietro Parolin, has followed the matter under the excuse of seeking an «institutional balance.» But the truth is that this «balance» could ultimately translate into a capitulation: allowing a Catholic bishop to provide political cover for a norm that turns into a right what the Church has always condemned as a grave crime.

If the project is presented in November 2025 and follows its parliamentary course, we will face an unprecedented fact: the only Catholic bishop in the world who is head of a state (beyond the Pope in the Vatican) will sanction a law that subsidizes abortion. This gesture would mark a before and after in the defense of life within the Church and would leave a deep wound in the credibility of its commitment to the most defenseless: unborn children.