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Updated: 10/3/2012 at 3:38 pm EST

June 28, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – After fourteen monthly protests in front of Sant Pau hospital in Barcelona, little has changed. The institution, which includes multiple priests on its board of directors, is accused of continuing to perform abortions. Cardinal Archbishop Lluis Martínez Sistach remains silent while mainstream media headlines shout: “Hospitals linked to the Catalan Church still offer abortion services.”

Other hospitals in the Archdiocese of Barcelona and neighboring dioceses also continue to perform abortions and sterilizations, and dispense contraceptives, all in opposition to Catholic teaching, according to protest organizer Fr. Custodio Ballester.

Spanish pro-lifers, however, remain undaunted and are resolved to continue the demonstrations, which occur on the 25th of each month at 8:30 pm, beginning in front of the Sant Pau hospital, and ending in front of the Holy Family Basilica, several blocks away.

Monday’s march included a testimony by Mercedes Cruz Quesada, a Catholic nurse who works at a local hospital and claims that her organizing efforts have prevented the performance of abortions at the facility.

Fr. Ballester, a Barcelona-area priest who has helped to lead the demonstrations and repeatedly asked for action on the part of his prelate, Cardinal Sistach, compared Cruz Queseda’s victory in protecting life to the ongoing failure of his archbishop to do the same in Catholic hospitals.

“If she was able to do it, from her humble position, why can’t the bishops do the same with the board of directors [of Catholic hospitals]?” he asked in an email interview with LifeSiteNews.

The abortions continue, evidence indicates

“The Santa Creu y Sant Pau Hospital, in whose administration the leadership of the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Barcelona participates, continues to carry out abortions according to various witnesses and the health care workers themselves,” Ballester told LifeSiteNews.com, adding that the most the archdiocese has done is to state that “abortions should be done in other health centers.”

However, notes Ballester, that hasn’t happened. There is “an agreement with the administration of the hospital to deny the problem and not a coercive order to not do abortions.”

He cites the case of Alicia Rojano Miguel, whose testimony was publicized by the Spanish newspaper ABC and other publications, “to whom they offered an abortion in the Sant Pau Hospital this past April 18th.”

“The sterilizations and abortion pills that are dispensed in the hospital is a topic that the archdiocese has not wanted to broach, nor has been interested in,” stated Ballester. “Regarding the experimentation with human embryos, the Archdiocese of Barcelona excuses itself saying that a ‘foundation independent of the hospital,’ is doing it. But it has its headquarters and acts in the very facilities of the Sant Pau Hospital.”

In addition to Fr. Ballester, Spanish medical expert Dr. José María Simón has opined that the presence of abortionist physician Joaquim Calaf Alsina, as head of the hospital’s gynecology department, is evidence that abortions are continuing at the facility.

ABC’s Esther Amora reported in late 2011 that the Sant Pau hospital was again being listed as an abortion facility on a Catalonia government website. The page with the listings was eliminated soon after the publication of the report, according to ACI Prensa.

Despite the evidence offered by official government records and reported statements by hospital officials and patients indicating that abortions are carried out at the Sant Pau hospital, Cardinal Sistach has repeatedly denied the claims, the last time in late 2011 in an interview with the Catholic news agency ACI Prensa.

Other area hospitals also problematic

Ballester says that other area hospitals, which were revealed in 2010 and 2011 to be carrying out abortions and sterilizations and distributing abortifacient contraceptives, are still doing so.

“The General Hospital of Granollers—in whose board of directors the Diocese of Tarrsa participates—carries out abortions continuously, above all eugenic ones, and dispenses RU-486 and Levonorgestrel,” Ballester told LifeSiteNews.com. “Various medical professionals and various witnesses say so, and on the website of the hospital it is indicated with a great deal of clarity…Despite this, the diocese of Tarrasa still participates in the leadership of the hospital.”

“The situation of the Comarcal Sant Celoni Hospital — sterilizations and abortifacient pills — came out in March of 2011 with the singular resignation of the pastor of St. Martín of St. Celoni [church] as vice-president of the hospital, for reasons of conscience. The three parochial representatives of the board abandoned the pastor in his decision and continue in their positions. The diocese of Tarrasa has kept silent.”

“In the Maternal hospital of San Juan de Dios in Espluges (diocese of San Feliu), today, they are carrying out abortions in the first weeks of pregnancy. They dispense the abortion pill, they carry out sterilizations, and in the Medical Center for Reproduction, located in the hospital’s facilities, they experiment with frozen embryos. The Diocese of San Feliu excuses itself saying that the topic is not part of their jurisdiction, since the hospital belongs to the Order of the Hospitalers.”

“In short, the situation continues to be mired in confusion, passivity, and silence. The only clear directives of the chanceries hasn’t been directed at eliminating the practices that are abortionist and contrary to Christian morality, which those four hospitals are carrying out, but rather to deactivate and silence the pro-life movements that publicly denounce this grave scandal on the 25th of each month.”

Requests for interviews with the Archdiocese of Barcelona and the Sant Pau Hospital were not answered by publication time.