The Juggling King: Between “Reproductive Rights” and the Monastery of Leyre

In just a few days, Felipe VI has shown the two sides of the same strategy: the one that combines adherence to the dominant discourse of liberal modernity and the solemn claim of Spain’s historical and religious roots. In New York, from the solemn podium of the United Nations General Assembly, the Spanish monarch proclaimed that our country is a reference in the defense of the so-called “sexual and reproductive rights”, an international formula that—as is well known—serves as a euphemism to present the legalization and promotion of abortion as an “advance” in terms of freedoms.
The King boasted that Spain is at the forefront of that global agenda that empties cradles of children, but fills diplomatic speeches with slogans.

And, with barely time to digest those words, the Royal Household moved the scene to Navarra, to the Monastery of Leyre, pantheon of the first kings of the ancient Kingdom of Navarra and spiritual cradle of the Hispanic monarchy.
There, Felipe VI, accompanied by Queen Letizia and Princess Leonor—in her first trip to Navarra as Princess of Viana—paid homage to tradition, depositing flowers before the royal tombs while the national anthem and Gregorian chants resounded.
The contrast could not be more eloquent: from the UN to the monastery, from the applause of chancelleries to the contemplation of the Romanesque crypt.

The Art of Juggling

The Royal Household has turned this tension into an art of juggling: one day, the Crown presents itself as a champion of the most modern flags of global liberalism; the next, as the faithful custodian of the symbols that remind us of our historical continuity.
One of lime and one of sand. The stick and the caress. The cope and the trust.

Is this unity? Or rather a hypocritical mirage?
In practice, what we see is not so much the embodiment of a synthesis as the survival through juggling: telling each forum what it wants to hear, and letting the symbols speak where words cannot be uttered.

Two Messages, One Crown

The Crown thus claims, almost in the same week, abortion as a universal right and the Catholic tradition of Navarra as the root of our identity.
The same reign that oscillates between ideological vanguard and sacralized memory.

Some may see it as political wisdom, others as opportunism. But what cannot be denied is the astuteness of this Royal Household, which seeks to sustain itself by offering each audience its own reflection. The problem with mirages is that people get tired of them; the problem with juggling is that the balls end up falling.