Has Spanish minister gone too far by giving a policing award to the Virgin Mary?

Spain’s gold medal of police merit is normally reserved for police who have died in terrorist attacks. So it came as a surprise when the country’s interior minister, Jorge Fernandez Diaz, decided instead to award it to an icon of the Virgin Mary in Malaga.

Announcing the award in February, Diaz congratulated the statue and her congregation for “maintaining a close collaboration with police, particularly during the acts celebrated in Holy Week, and for sharing police values such as dedication, caring, solidarity, and sacrifice”.

The decision has angered members of the police force. “Give the Virgin whatever you like, take her some flowers, make her the patron saint of our people, but don’t give her a police medal, least of all one reserved for police officers who have lost their lives in an attack,” José María Benito, a representative of the police officers’ union, told the online daily El Boletín.

It has also infuriated secularists. “The norm specifies clearly that the medal is given to people, not immaterial beings,” said Francisco Delgado of Secular Europe. “It’s meant to recognise exceptional acts of service by police.”

Along with the Movement Towards A Secular State (Movimiento hacia un estado laico), Secular Europe is taking the interior minister to court over the award. The country’s 1978 constitution officially enshrines the separation of church and state, but in practice the two have remained enmeshed.

Diaz, the interior minister, has form on this. In 2012, he gave the highest honour of the Guardia Civil (the Spanish gendarmerie) to the Virgin of the Pillar in Zaragoza. This icon is the patron saint of the Guardia Civil, and Diaz paid tribute to the “deep roots of the patronage”. Last year, he suggested divine help was helping Spain out of the economic crisis, saying that Mother Teresa was “making important intercessions” for Spain “during these tough times”.

Despite these precedents, this is the first time that secularists in Spain have resorted to the courts – largely because it appears to be so clear cut (it would be hard to argue that the Virgin Mary is, in fact, a police officer). And public opinion appears to be behind them. A petition has been started at change.org calling for the award to go to Spiderman. The case will be heard in June.