Pope Benedict's trip to Spain will focus on celebrating the youthfulness and vigor of Catholic faith in a country where the Catholic majority often seems to have little impact on public life, reports the Catholic News Service.
The trip from August 18-21 will coincide with World Youth Day, and the Pope will also meet with Spain's royal family and with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose government has promoted several policies opposed by the church, including relaxing Spain's divorce laws, easing restrictions on abortion, legalizing same-sex marriage and allowing gay couples to adopt.
Welcoming a new Spanish ambassador to the Vatican in April, Pope Benedict expressed concern that in certain sectors of Spanish society, "religion is considered socially insignificant, even troublesome," with the result that faith is marginalized "through defamation, ridicule (and) even indifference to obvious cases of profanation" of religious objects and monuments.
The organisers of World Youth Day 2011, which kicks off on August 16, hope the hoards of young Catholics descending on Madrid not only will energize each other's faith, but that they'll also be powerful witnesses to the lukewarm among Spain's Catholics.
"I think the impact will be huge; at least I hope so," Yago de la Cierva, WYD Madrid director, told Catholic News Service July 28. "Spain is suffering through a process of secularisation that is very deep and moving very fast."
"Many young people in Spain have no religious training at all and we have to shake up this situation," he said in a telephone interview.
No comments:
Post a Comment