The MacÃas Picavea primary school hardly looks like the seat of revolution. But this unassuming brick building in a sleepy industrial town has become a battleground in an intensifying war between church and state in Spain.
In an unprecedented decision here, a judge ruled in November that the public school must remove the crucifixes from classroom walls, saying they violated the “nonconfessional” nature of the Spanish state.
Although the Roman Catholic Church was not named in the suit, it criticized the ruling as an “unjust” attack on a historical and cultural symbol ”” and a sign of the Spanish state’s increasingly militant secularism.
If the judge’s ruling was the latest blow to the Catholic Church’s once mighty grip on Spain, the church’s response showed Spain to be a crucible for the future of church-state relations in Europe.
Hmm, I’ve heard estimates of attendance closer to 1 million from some sources. Wouldn’t be the first time that the MSM has deliberately underestimated the numbers at these type of rallies.
I am always somewhat amused by comments from journalists like, ‘Fewer than thirty percent of the population attend Mass regularly.’ Actually, that is not a bad figure. If the same number here in England began attending Church of England churches it would increase church going by more than 10 times, and would be a vast revival.
On the other hand: it is always bad for the church when it is too much hand-in-glove with secular authority. As soon as they can, to show how liberated they are, new generations move away from the church. See for example Ireland and (to a lesser extent) Poland. So it is not surprising that this is the case in Spain too. As so often, of course, rebelling takes some silly forms. I am always struck by how many young Spanish people smoke. It seems almost universal. Clearly, to be a modern person you have to smoke. Whereas in the rest of Europe young people increasingly jettison tobacco as a disgusting habit that guarantees ill health.
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With relation to Ireland it doesn’t help that vast majority of our bishops over the past 60-70 years have been mediocre to say the least. A great deal of the clergy too. The Catholicism of Ireland has for the past century or so been a peculiar blend of puritanism, anti-intellectualism and lowest common denominator liturgy. Whilst the puritanism has faded, the other two have remained, the latter being even worse now since the 1970 Missal was introduced. Indeed the puritanism has been replaced by excessive “pastoralism” and a degree of Unitarianism too.