After a Spanish actress called the Church “a racket” in a televised red carpet interview and expressed dismay at young Spaniards drawn to the faith, politicians and public figures across the spectrum of opinion have been weighing in.

Comic actress Silvia Abril made her remarks at the 2026 Goya Awards – the “Spanish Oscars” – on February 28 in Barcelona.

“I refuse to accept that the younger generation coming up has that kind of emptiness and that pull toward Christianity,” Abril said. “I was going to say the mystical,” she added, “but it’s not really about the mystical.”

“It makes me sad that they feel the need to believe in something and end up clinging to the Christian faith,” Abril also said. “I feel sorry for the Church. You’ve got quite a racket going there. It’s over. It’s over – everyone out,” the actress added.

Abril’s comments caused an outcry, with many Catholics – including Bishop José Ignacio Munilla of Orihuela-Alicante – taking to social media to express their disappointment.

Speaking to Crux Now, Munilla said Abril’s comments were a sign of spiritual struggle searching for a mode of expression.

“I believe that many anticlerical reactions are a sign of an uneasy conscience,” Munilla said, “of an interior state that is not very peaceful. The Church leaves no one indifferent because it embodies the sign of contradiction that Jesus Christ was, before whom no one remained indifferent.”

“Many anticlerical attacks conceal a subliminal defense. It is very significant that this woman feels bothered by the fact that young people are drawing close to the Church. How could that possibly bother her? Obviously, her discomfort reveals that she feels challenged by it,” he added.

“I refuse to accept that the younger generation coming up has that kind of emptiness and that pull toward Christianity. I was going to say the mystical, but it’s not really about the mystical,” Abril said in a television interview.

“It makes me sad that they feel the need to believe in something and end up clinging to the Christian faith. I feel sorry for the Church. You’ve got quite a racket going there. It’s over. It’s over – everyone out,” the actress and comedian added.

Munilla also said that her comments were evidence that Abril had accumulated a lot of anticlerical cliches over the years.

“Apparently, what leads her to criticize the Church is the accumulation of anticlerical clichés in which she is immersed. It is a fact that in Spain – and I suppose throughout the world – anticlerical clichés are more numerous the less concrete knowledge there is of the life of the Church,” the bishop said.

Abril was responding to the success of Los Domingos, a film about a young woman who joins a convent that won a slew of awards at the ceremony, including best film, best director, best original screenplay, best actress, and best supporting actress.

The success of the film, alongside the rising popularity of religious and musical groups such as Hakuna, and the thousands of young Spaniards who went to Rome for the Jubilee of Youth last summer, has prompted some in the country to think there is something of a Catholic revival taking place, particularly among young people.

When asked why young people are being drawn to the Church, Munilla gave two reasons. “On the one hand, it is less our merit than the demerit of the world, which continues to degenerate into the anti-values it promotes,” he said.

“And secondly, there is the attractive force of Christ, who said: ‘No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him’. Jesus continually sends his Holy Spirit to draw young people toward His Sacred Heart,” he explained.

Actor Jaime Lorente, who plays Denver in international hit La Casa de Papel – known as Money Heist in English – was one of the many people who responded to Abril.

Lorente, who has been public about his recent return to the Catholic faith, defended the actress on his Instagram account, saying people shouldn’t respond to her comments with “insults and hatred.”

“You don’t know what kind of relationship she might have had with that religion, what hurt she might have had, how she might have felt. You have to be able to understand that she has that opinion about it,” he said.

“What can’t happen is that she makes that comment, you feel offended by your principles, you betray your own principles, and you resort to insults and hatred,” he added.

Lorente’s approach to the controversy chimed with how Munilla told Crux Now Catholics should respond to criticism of their faith.

“I believe that a response full of meekness is important, recalling the reaction of Jesus: ‘If I have spoken wrongly, tell me in what I have spoken wrongly; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?’ A subtle irony that does not become hurtful can also help,” he said.