Not at all!
The Pope is visiting Val ncia next weekend. According to Rita Barber Noya,
the mayor of the city during the last 16 years (I mildly remember her
predecessor), All Valencians will welcome him warmly . Well, not exactly
all.
The Pope's visit was decided by the previous one a few years ago, and
Ratzinger, shortly after being elected his successor, announced he would
still visit Val ncia for the World Meeting of the Family.
In principle, I would have no problems with him come visit the city, even if
I have no sympathy at all towards his figure or the role of the Catholic
church either in Spain or other places of the world. For example, I think the
last two popes are direct responsables for the AIDS drama in many countries of
the African continent. It is unacceptable and quite unethical that still today,
after decades of fight against this deadly plage, the Vatican keep saying no
to the usage of condoms.
As I said, I would have no problems with his visit, if it was a
normal
visit. But no, this is the Val ncia, and the government likes to show
that they can do things in a grand way. Not so long ago, Ratzinger visited
Poland, and from what I've read, the authorities there didn't organise
anything grotesque like what's going on here, in the sense that people living
in the areas affected could more or less keep on with their lives, and the
visit didn't cost much of their tax money.
Val ncia won't work like this. Anyone who has visited us will probably know
what I mean: the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ci ncies, Terra M tica, the America's
Cup harbour... are examples of pharaonic projects, all funded with public
money that are real black holes of budgets that never end up growing.
The Pope will stay in Val ncia around 24 hours, and will give a series of
sermons and speeches. For the ocassion, the Valencian local government has
gone all the way to make his visit the most spectacular event of the
decade. Although the government won't disclose it officially, the press talks
about a cost of 30 or 40 million Euros, paid by all of us, including atheists,
agnostics or muslims.
Spain is not a catholic state, officially. Sadly, it is in practice.
According to Vatican sources, 94% of Spaniards are catholic. The number goes
down to 76.1% according to
CIS, but the
reality is that just a small fraction of these people are practising catholics.
The Spanish church uses these figures to get funds from the state. I am
included in that 76% just because I was baptised soon after I was born. There
are people trying to
apostatise, but it
seems in most cases their efforts are futile, as the documentation sent to
the eclesiastic authorities is either ignored or sent back with a hilarious
excuse such as your baptism is a historic event and cannot be changed .
Parts of Val ncia have been closed to transit for two months. This is
because the authorities found that the optimal place to build his giant altar
with a special microclimate was on top of the bridge of Mont Olivet, one of
the arteries of south Val ncia if you want to leave the city. The neighbours
of the area now popularly called "ground zero" have been subject to all kind
of annoyances: the access to their houses is restricted, they've had to give
lists of people living in each place, and they are now not allowed to use
the upper terraces of their buildings (they are taken by snippers).
The local police has designed a
plan to restrict any kind of transit
that affects basically half of the city, even my area which is like 6
kilometres away from the event.
For months, our authorities have used this great opportunity to make
religion and the greatness of our pope something normal and quotidian. I
haven't seen such a big interference of my life by the church before, not
even with the Aznar government, or when I was a small child and the
dictatorship had just ended. They are also using the event to promote the
achivements of the right-wing local government (via speeches and the propaganda
that is distributed in the backpacks given to volunteers) and to bash the
socialist central government (which recently approved gay marriage, a new
education law that weakens the weight of religion study in public schools,
etc.).
I could go on and on, but this rant would get even more boring. I, like
many others, think that all of this is not acceptable. As we tend to not shut
up when things like these happen, a civic movement appeared two months ago,
with a main goal of letting people know that we are not waiting for him,
contrary to what the mayor says. The
Jo no t'espere campaign has managed
to make opposition to this pompous week by placing banners on balconies. Of
course, I have my own, and I've also distributed a few more among my
friends, one of them being placed a mere 70 metres away from the pope's
altar.
No, jo tampoc t'espere
Of course, the amount of Vatican flags outnumbers us greatly, in a ratio of
at least 1:100, but anyway. There are so many Vatican flags that this looks
more like St. Peter's Square. Others have taken the opportunity to exhibit
Spanish flags all over the place, something that probably had not happened
in Val ncia since the most obscure years of Franquism. Oh well, this is
Val ncia.
One piece of good news: due the chaos starting in just two hours, we're
allowed to leave offices early today, so we can actually get back home.
As soon as I get home and have lunch, I'll flee away to the mountains, like
a maqui until the madness is over. The 1.5 million pilgrims can
have my holy city. Have a
nice time, Ratzinger!