Speaking at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, a country sinking into secularism (less than one in five Spaniards attend weekly mass), Pope Benedict XVI said, "Europe must open itself to God."
Atheists, feminists and labor unions are protesting the Pope's visit, along with a condom distribution, and homosexuals are staging massive kissing in his presence.
-- From "Visiting Spain, Pope Criticizes Antichurch Sentiment" by The Associated Press 11/6/10
Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday strongly criticized the “aggressive” antichurch sentiment that he said was flourishing in Spain as he sought to rekindle the faith in a once staunchly Roman Catholic nation that is now among Europe’s most liberal.
The Roman Catholic Church is fighting laws supported by Prime Minister José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero’s Socialist government that have allowed same-sex marriage, expedited divorce and eased restrictions on abortions.
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From "Pope calls on Europe to 'open itself to God'" by Sinikka Tarvainen, DPA posted at Kansas City Star 11/6/10
"How can what is most decisive in life be confined to the purely private sphere or banished to the shadows?" Benedict asked the 7,000 faithful attending the mass in a country whose rapid secularization has caused concern in the Vatican.
Talking to journalists on the plane to Spain, the pope warned against the return of the kind of "aggressive" anti-clericalism that had erupted in Spain in the 1930s. In those years, leftists and anarchists burned churches and killed priests before and during the 1936-39 civil war.
Some 100 feminists demonstrated against the "patriarchy" of the church in Santiago de Compostela, while police blocked the access to the cathedral of dozens of trade unionists protesting against religion as "the opium of the people."
Meanwhile in Barcelona, hundreds of protestors distributed condoms.
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From "The Pope in Spain: Kissing Gays and a Special Church" By Lisa Abend, Time Magazine 11/6/10
. . . The Atheists of Catalonia organization has revived its recent advertising campaign for the occasion — "Probably, God doesn't exist," say posters pasted on the sides of public buses; "Stop worrying and enjoy life" — and plans to hold a protest outside the new basilica on Sunday, as do several feminist groups. To get there, they'll have to fight their way through the gay and lesbian couples locking lips for a two-minute "kiss-in." One consortium, the Secular and Progressive Movement, has already gotten the protests underway with a 3,000-strong demonstration held Thursday in Sant Jaume square, the seat of Catalan government. "Spain and Catalonia are pluralist," says Joffre Villanueva, secretary general of the association. "No single religious or moral code should be allowed to dominate the public space."
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Also read, Countering Secularists' Stripping Jesus from History
