Spain: Vatican intensifies campaign against Socialist Party government

[IndianaGreen]

This is the same Church that sided with Franco and Hitler, and that gave birth to the rightwing Catholic cult Opus Dei.

Spain: Vatican intensifies campaign against Socialist Party government
By Paul Stuart
16 July 2005

Spain’s Catholic Church has organised a series of demonstrations against the Socialist Party (PSOE) government’s legalization of homosexual marriage. The largest of these took place on June 18 in Madrid.

On June 30, Spain’s congress voted 187 to 147 to pass the legislation. The protests nevertheless demonstrate how the Vatican and the highest echelons of the Church have joined hands with the right-wing Popular Party (PP) in a campaign to destabilize and drive the PSOE from power.

Nineteen bishops joined the protests against the legislation. The presence of Madrid’s cardinal in a protest against an incumbent government has not been seen since the 1930s. Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela described the legislation as the negation of “human reason” and an expression of “anarchic freedom.”

The demonstration was officially organized by the Forum for the Family, but was dominated by right-wing Catholic groups such as Communion and Liberation, Opus Dei as well as the PP itself.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/spai-j16.shtml

[bullimiami]

1. child rape, sexual abuse, murder, war .....

not too big a deal to the church but.

homosexuality.....GOD FORBID!!!!!!

[aresef]

2. I'm not gay, but it's kinda funny that...

They interpret some of the bible in a way that makes them rally so hard against homosexuality, but then when the big rules, The Ten Commandments, are broken, they say nothing.

[Cha]

3. It's too weird beyond

comprehension.

And that is why they come off as HYPOCRITES and UNTRUSTWORTHY!

And aren't too be taken seriouly by thinking people.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Catholic Church has become one of the most distrusted institutions

The Spanish Catholic Church is using tactics well-known to American fundies: portray yourself as the victim!

The protests were launched after a series of polls revealed that the Catholic Church has become one of the most distrusted institutions in Spain. The poll also revealed that only 14 percent of young Spaniards attend church—a decline of 50 percent in the last five years. The Church denounced the polls as government propaganda.

The Vatican is using the protests in part in order to portray itself as a persecuted minority under siege by rampant secularism.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/spai-j16.shtml

[LeftyDarthBrodie]

11. If the Catholic Church is so unpopular

and are siding with Spain's right wing party don't you think they are doing them a disservice and helping the PSOE by not being associated with that antiquated, oppressive institution.

[CatholicEdHead]

13. Reading Catholic World News

one of our domestic ultra-tradionalist online far right news sources, they blame homosexuality for EVERYTHING bad nowadays. It is the ultimate scapegoat. Besides the usual talking points against gay marriage, the entire sex scandel is blamed on "gays in the seminaries". (serious) Meaning "the Church is blameless" because those "evil gays infiltrated the holy institution".

If you read enough comments there, you will see the trend. Most comments appear to come from posters who are almost Freepers/Republicans first and Catholics second.

http://www.cwnews.com

[Emendator]

5. It's also

the same Church that brought down communism.

[IndianaGreen]

6. and the same Church that protected pedophile priests

and advocates violence against gays.

[Emendator]

7. You win some you lose some

But it has been around for 2000 years, surviving crises much worse than that.

[IndianaGreen]

8. 2,000 years of oppressing and persecuting people

and 2,000 years without answers!

[Emendator]

9. LOL

According to you. We'd all be either living in huts or facing Mecca if it wasn't for the Catholic Church. And more people died thanks to the ideology of the person in your avatar in the 20th century than they did at the hands of the Church in its entire history. Your assertion is laughable.

[IndianaGreen]

10. When the Moors ruled Spain...

Jews lived unmolested under an enlightened Muslim rule. Science and the arts prospered! Then came the Catholic fanatics, the bloody Ferdinand and Isabella, and the brutal war that imposed their bankrupt religion at the point of the sword. The Inquisition soon followed, and the Jews were expelled from what had been the glorious Spain.

[Emendator]

14. Then the communists came

and tried to eliminate all culture and religion. And failed. Your Andalucian example is a PC myth.

[IndianaGreen]

15. That's not true, and you know it!

Unless you find Spanish dictator Franco attractive, not to mention his close personal friendship to Hitler. The planes that bombed Barcelona had swastikas on their wings. Nothing like an admirer of Franco's Christian Phalange!

I suppose that you also supported the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile, and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.

Nothing like murdering millions for the Church and the corporations!

UN conceals Picasso’s “Guernica” for Powell’s presentation
By David Walsh
8 February 2003

In an act with extraordinary historical resonance, United Nations officials covered up a tapestry reproduction of Pablo Picasso’s anti-war mural “Guernica” during US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 5 presentation of the American case for war against Iraq.

Picasso’s painting commemorates a small Basque village bombed by German forces in April 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. The painter, in desolate black, white and grey, depicts a nightmarish scene of men, women, children and animals under bombardment. The twisted, writhing forms include images of a screaming mother holding a dead child, a corpse with wide-open eyes and a gored horse. Art historian Herbert Read described the work as “a cry of outrage and horror amplified by a great genius.”

The reproduction has hung outside the Security Council chamber at UN headquarters in New York since its donation by the estate of Nelson A. Rockefeller in 1985. As the council gathered to hear Powell on Wednesday, workers placed a blue curtain and flags of the council’s member countries in front of the tapestry.

UN officials claimed that the cover-up was simply a matter of creating a more effective backdrop for the television cameras. “When we do have large crowds we put the flags up and the UN logo in front of the tapestry,” asserted Stephane Dujarric. New York Newsday, however, reported that “Diplomats at the United Nations, speaking on condition they not be named, have been quoted in recent days telling journalists that they believe the United States leaned on UN officials to cover the tapestry, rather than have it in the background while Powell or other US diplomats argued for war on Iraq.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/guer-f08.shtml

[cheeseit]

17. Talking of laughable assertions...

"We'd a'll be living in huts or facing Mecca if it wasn't for the Catholic Church>"

Putting aside the apparent horror you seem to view the idea of being a Muslim with, where on earth did you get the "living in huts" bit from? I know my own people were way beyond huts long before Catholicism was even a twinkle in St Augustine's eye, but...

[LeftyDarthBrodie]

12. Did they bring down Communism

or did Reagan. I'm not sure which revisionist history book I'm supposed to be reading.

[cheeseit]

16. lol

Don't you realise Reagan and JPII pulled down the Berlin Wall with their bare hands?!

[LeftyDarthBrodie]

18. Thats in the new book I'm reading

but can't believe I forgot that "fact."