Leo XIV appointed two bishops closely connected to Madrid's existing
administration.Today, Pope Leo XIV appointed two new auxiliary bishops for the Archdiocese of Madrid, Spain: Fernando Murga Gómez and Andrés Martínez Esteban.
Leo XIV Reinforces Cobo’s Leadership in Madrid
According to InfoVaticana.com, Murga is one of Cardinal Cobo's closest collaborators. Martínez Esteban represents the less progressive clergy.
VidaNuevaDigital.com reports today that both appointments match the profile Cardinal Cobo personally requested.
Cardinal Cobo of Madrid is known for homosex scandals like receiving a homosexual group. One controversy is his association with Father José Castro Cea (“Josete”), who reportedly lived next door to him and appeared in a gay-bar video. InfoVaticana alleged that Cobo protected the homosex priest for years.
Auxiliary Bishop Fernando Murga Gómez, 61, originally trained as an architect and worked in that profession before entering the priesthood.
Ordained for Madrid on May 7, 2011, he served in several parishes before becoming a formator and administrator at Madrid's diocesan seminary in 2015.
In February 2025, Cobo appointed him moderator of the archdiocesan curia. He became the trusted implementer of Cardinal Cobo’s synodal reforms.
As a member of the new body coordinating diocesan affairs, he described himself in a July 2026 Alfa y Omega interview as “a kind of personnel chief”.
Murga also coordinated the Madrid stage of Pope Leo XIV's June 2026 visit to Spain.
More importantly, Murga has served since 2015 as a formator and administrator at Madrid's seminary. In November/December 2025, this seminary forced seminarians to listen to an hours-long homosex indoctrination by the LGBT-group Crismhom.
Auxiliary Bishop Andrés Martínez Esteban, 54, was ordained a priest in 1997. He holds doctorates in theology and Church history and has taught at the Universidad Eclesiástica San Dámaso.
He directed Madrid's diocesan archives and has served in several parishes and ecclesiastical institutions.
He is also vicar general of the Ordinariate for Eastern Catholics in Spain.
Martínez Esteban faces a controversy over his handling of Madrid's Ukrainian Greek Catholic community. He became involved in the relocation of this liturgy from Nuestra Señora del Buen Suceso to a pastoral center in Vallecas.
In 2025, ElWanderer.com published complaints alleging that Martínez Esteban angrily confronted community representatives, reportedly telling them: “Either accept it, or you'll have to fend for yourselves.”
In July 2026, Religión Confidencial reported that more than 500 Ukrainian Greek Catholics petitioned Pope Leo XIV and the Vatican, alleging that the relocation had caused the “disintegration” of their community, including a decline in attendance exceeding 60 percent and serious disruption to their liturgical life.
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