Pope against the Spanish tide
David Gollob
Saragossa In the square outside the basilica, some people are already fighting for a front-row seat. A group of women from the Basque country make themselves comfor- table on the asphalt and begin unwrapping their sandwiches. There are still six and a half hours to go before Pope John Paul II is due to appear. 'We left our village at four in the morning,' says one; 'no sacrifice is too great if it means seeing the Pope.'
Inside the church, known as El Pilar the jasper pillar which, according to legend, Mary herself brought from Palestine when she visited Saragossa in 40 AD — the faithful queue patiently in front of a little alcove with two signs. The first, hanging above a hole in the wall through which part of the legendary pillar is exposed, reads, `Kiss the Virgin here'. The second sign, above the collection box, reads, Put your money here'. Mechanically, one after another, the faithful drop their coins into the box, kneel and kiss the pillar and rub a xeroxed prayer sheet against it. You can tell from the calluses on their hands and the mud on their shoes that they are humble people all — Spain's indefatigable, uncon- ditional army of believers.
Indeed no country has served Rome more loyally, more jealously, more bloodily, than Spain. It took eight centuries to drive out the infidel Moor, and three terrible years of modern warfare to crush the godless Republicans. 'We rejoice with your Ex-
cellency in the victory of Catholic Spain,' was Pope Pius X1I's message of congratula- tions to a triumphant Franco, whom he later rewarded with the privilege of having the power to name his own bishops. In Spain, Church and State have always locked together perfectly, like the jaws of a vice.
However, John Paul's exhausting ten- day visit, the longest ever to one country, intriguingly juxtaposes two subtle transfor- mations: that of a nation, and that of the Papacy. Forty years of dictatorship have weaned Spaniards of any sympathy for the triumphalist evangelical ideology that sought in vain to justify a blood sacrifice no god could ever have commanded. Spaniards are tired of being different they want to be like everyone else in Europe. They want jobs and purchasing power, a modern state and a renovated economy. In the recent elections, ten million Spaniards voted not so much for socialism as for change.
Urbanisation and industrialisation have significantly affected religious observance in a country which by admission is nearly 100 per cent Catholic and yet, also by ad- mission, is nearly three-quarters non- practising. This state of affairs is a power- ful indictment of the failure of Church- dominated education effectively to condi- tion the thinking and behaviour of the Spanish population, a failure all the more surprising given the subsidies the state has lavished on the Church-run private educa- tion sector since 1939.
The queues at the pillar and the zealots in the square (`Only three things are important in Spain,' says one woman, 'the Virgin, the Eucharist, and his Holiness the Pope') are therefore neither typical nor descriptive of the Spain that has emerged from the ashes of the great dictator. It was a centre coali- tion, not a socialist government, that in- troduced divorce legislation. Nevertheless, a powerful sector remains committed to Church doctrine and, like the Pope himself, is prepared to dig in and resist the creeping secularisation of the Spanish state.
However, the Catholic activist movement is as bitterly divided between right and left as the nation's political parties. Both sides are convinced the Church must change or resign itself to a slow but irrevocable pro- cess of extinction. The controversy sur- rounds the nature of that change.
On the one hand, progressive priests, like
The Spectator 13 November 194 Father Alfredo lniesta, Bishop of the work, ing class Madrid suburb of Vallecas, belie' the Church should embrace the pluralistic society, endeavouring to put into practice the reforms of the Second Vatican Council' Emphasis should be placed on the to dividual rather than on doctrine, on the small community of believers, on clualitY, rather than quantity. Ultra-conservat°, groups such as Opus Dei, on the otilei hand, feel the authoritarian model ° catholicism needs to be reinforced. The two tendencies typically clash over such issues' divorce and extra-marital sex, education, and details of ritual observance. Opus Dei, in the words of one send churchman, 'is the strongest organisv'„ force in the Catholic Church today'..',' Spain, the order's close collaboration Franco earned it considerable ill-farne. However Opus, which controls its 04 newspapers, radio stations and wire seir; vices, is not bothered by its bad press. 't never sought to be a mass movement b;11, rather, in imitation of the Jesuits centuries ago, to recruit from the upper classe; establishing elitist institutes of higli,ce education through whose doors L',:e managers and future directors of the Spanish economy were to pass. The secular character of the order is oil; doubtedly one key to its prosperity, f°01 most of its members marry and live norm ?l contributing handsomely from ti'e'r salaries to the movement's coffers. BY con 1; tract, a Jesuit represents a financial bugles to his order, and the vow of celibacy 11a had a negative impact on recruitMet especially in advanced countries. Over tn.; last two decades, some 80,000 priests atlas' 200,000 nuns have given up their vocatiur, for good. Over the past 50 years, howevelf Opus has swollen to 72,000 members, ha of them Spanish, eclipsing the Jesuits in terms of numbers and, under John Paul power and influence in the Vatican.its During the Papal visit Opus, with has slogan `Totus Tuus' visible everywhere, "re sought to appear as the leading fute, amongst those who turned out to salubii, cheer or pray with the Pontiff. opus ruc)nas, ised more children, sang more s°,71e. shouted more `Vivas' and cut upom re phone directories to shower on the P.(rso Pau mobile than any other Catholic grouch utlhat doing they hoped to show John l .„ is the future of Christian devotion in SPat" indisputably in their hands. ffec- In so doing, however, they have _5 tively shouted down the oPP°siti°,11 a message. Underneath the razmatazz ru p ni?o, cold current of disenchantment. has gressive spokesmen and theologians ":,d begged the Pontiff to do more listeninga:fled less talking during his visit. Spain has vu` for for change, while John Paul has voted Opus. His own bishops could have told b1-1 that he is swimming against the sociologal5 tide. The Spaniards are a warm people, ,,30 their massive demonstration of affec" for John Paul is a tribute to the staturee'r. this great statesman, humanist and think Let us hope he is not misled by it.
Previous page
