Medieval Spanish pilgrim’s guide missing from Santiago de Compostela cathedral
Spanish police are investigating the disappearance of the Codex Calixtinus, a valuable 12th century manuscript, from the Santiago de Compostela cathedral in northwestern region of Galicia, a spokesman said on Thursday. The manuscript is a collection of sermons and liturgical texts and served as a guide for the historical Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, which dates back to the Middle Ages.
The elaborately illustrated document disappeared from a safe deposit box in the cathedral last week. Its suspected theft, only reported to police on Wednesday, is considered a major loss for Spain’s cultural and religious heritage.
Santiago Cathedral is the reputed burial place of Saint James the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ who according to legend arrived in Spain to preach Christianity. Another version of the story says the remains of St James – Santiago is Spanish for St James – were brought to Spain by two of his followers after he was beheaded in Jerusalem in AD 42.
The tomb was lost or kept secret for centuries until 813 when it was rediscovered by a bishop who was guided to the spot by a star. In the 11th century, work started on the cathedral whose ornate baroque towers, an 18th century addition visible from miles away, guide pilgrims towards their destination.
Spanish Catholic priests criticise corporate sponsorships for papal visit
A group of 120 Spanish Catholic priests have criticised church leaders for signing up a list of high-profile corporate sponsors for a visit by the Pope in August, saying authorities had given in to temptation. In a rare joint letter, the priests told Archbishop of Madrid Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela the sponsorship deals reinforced the impression the church was a privileged institution.
“It’s been necessary to form a pact with the economic and political powers which reinforces the image of the church as a privileged institution, close to power, and the social scandal this implies, especially in the context of the economic crisis,” the priests said in an open letter. Organisers of Pope Benedict’s visit, scheduled for August 18-21 as part of the celebrations of World Youth Day, have mounted a nationwide advertising campaign, backed by well-known multinationals and Spain’s top companies.
Corporate logos of the companies, including Coca Cola , Telefonica , Santander and Iberia , fill the sponsorship page of the official visit website www.madrid11.com/.
“To trust in the strength of power and money … is to give in to a temptation as old as the Church,” said the letter. “No one can serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and money,” the letter said, citing the passage from the Bible, Matthew 6:24.
Read the full story by Paul Day here.
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Pope puts his stamp on Catholic Church future with new cardinals
Pope Benedict installed 24 new Roman Catholic cardinals from around the world on Saturday in his latest batch of appointments that could include his successor as leader of the 1.2 billion member church.
Twenty of the new cardinals are under 80 and thus eligible under church rules to take part in the conclave that chooses a successor after the death or resignation of the current pope.
The new cardinals include Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington D.C., who, as a senior figure in the American capital, will likely play a leading role in the U.S. church’s response to the sexual abuse scandal.
At a pre-consistory meeting on Friday, the Vatican told bishops they would have to take more responsibility to prevent sexual abuse of children by priests and said it was preparing new guidelines for bishops on how to deal with the sexual abuse, including cooperation with local authorities.
The German pope has now named 50 of the 121 electors who can pick his successor from among their own ranks, raising the possibility that the next pontiff will be a conservative in Benedict’s own image. Popes usually reign for life but Benedict, 83, has not ruled out the possibility of resigning for health reasons. The last time a pope resigned willingly was in the 13th century.
Guestview: Why has Pope Benedict chosen a European strategy?
Pope Benedict will boost the European majority among the men due to elect his successor when he creates 24 new cardinals at the Vatican on Saturday. The nominations are part of a wider strategy by the German-born pope to strengthen Roman Catholicism in Europe. The following is a guest contribution and the views expressed are the authors’ alone. Jean-Marie Guénois is deputy editor-in-chief of the Paris daily Le Figaro and a specialist on religion. The article first appeared in French on his Religioblog.*
By Jean-Marie Guénois
We always knew that Benedict XVI is a European pope, but lately he’s been proving this more and more clearly. In this phase of his five-year papacy, the the old continent is clearly his priority. For the past two years, the European destinations have taken precedence over all his travel (France, Czech Republic, Malta, Cyprus, Portugal, United Kingdom). Twelve of his 18 international trips have also been devoted to Europe. As for the visits due next year, they will all be in Europe: Croatia, Spain and Germany (his third visit there as pope).
The choice of these medium-haul flights could be explained, of course, by his age. At 83-1/2, Benedict takes it slow and easy. Must we recall the health of John Paul II at the same age, six months before his death in 2005? But the real explanation for these short-distance, time-saving trips is surely elsewhere. How can we best explain this? It can be done explicitly, through the speeches the pope delivered in those countries. But also implicitly, through the diagnosis bishops bring to Rome on the state of the European churches.
The diagnosis has led to a strategy that can be seen more and more clearly. After his visit to Spain, this seems confirmed by the clear priority given to the Iberian Peninsula. In fact, Spain, Italy and Poland are emerging emerge as the three pillars which underpin this implicit strategy by the Holy See.
This strategy does not aim to reconquer old ground, because the past will not return. It’s not exclusive either, because the world is wide and complex. The aim is to survive and face up to the decline of European Christianity now seen in Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands. The former bastions of Catholicism there may still be very much alive but they are in the minority.
So there is a tactical withdrawal underway to focus on these three countries where the Catholic Church still is a major force in society. There, the Holy See wants to reassure, consolidate, preserve and revitalize the role it can play. Benedict has understood that while the global epicenter of Catholicism shifts every day to the southern hemisphere, that vast region can never replace the weight of history and culture. Given that fact, he believes, Christianity has not spoken its last word in Europe.
Pope visit costs criticized in austerity-hit Spain
Cost to the taxpayer seems to be the latest target for protesters when Pope Benedict comes to town. After a lively debate about the price the public had to pay for his visit to Britain in September, Spanish protesters have picked up the torch with complaints about the estimated 3.7 million to 5 million euros the state will spend on logistics and security for the pope. And this at a time when Spain is burdened with 20 percent unemployment and is struggling to emerge from recession and austerity measures that have slashed public sector wages.
“I think it’s bad, I mean really bad, to spend so much money on a guy who comes, gives a speech, stays an hour and leaves,” said Pedro Barral Gonzalez, 18, in Santiago de Compostela, the city in northwestern Spain that the pope visited on Saturday.
Spending on papal visits is often controversial, and Spanish spending on the 32-hour visit is dwarfed by other recent trips, but it still drew criticism.
“Funding this liturgical event with public money, we believe it should be funded by the religion’s faithful,” said Jouffre Villanueva, head of the Secular and Progressive Movement.
Catalan newspaper El Periodico, based in Barcelona, where the pope was scheduled to visit on Sunday, said that the Barcelona Archbishopric had raised donations of 500,000 euros to fund the visit, over and above the state spending.
I wonder how many meals for the poor this Popes trip cost.
I wonder how many blankets for the homeless that Cathedral costs.
I wonder if religious leaders even remember who Christ was.
Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia finally becomes a church
For decades tourists have visited the twisting spires of Barcelona’s iconic Sagrada Familia church, but 128 years after construction began Catholic faithful will worship there for the first time on Sunday.
Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate Mass to give his official blessing to the church designed by architect Antoni Gaudi, whose sculptural masterpieces dot the city in the region of Catalonia.
The pope consecrates Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) during a visit to northern Spain where on Saturday he joins pilgrims at the shrine to St. James, Spain’s patron saint, in Santiago de Compostela.
While work is not scheduled to finish for many more years on the intricate and colorful Sagrada Familia, enough has been done to welcome the pontiff, including installing last minute stained-glass windows.
Jordi Bonet Armengol, chief architect of the cathedral and seventh successor to Gaudi, hopes the pope’s visit will provide the boost needed to finish the work.
Protesters… yawn. Had to put them into the article, didn’t ya? How many protesters were there? Something like three of them, or maybe four.
If it was a mosque, you would have called it “The most holy islamic site in Barcelona” or some such thing. And not a protester would be in site.
Tim Hollingworth
Acworth, Ga, USA
Strong support to outlaw face veils as France prepares to vote ban
France’s plan to ban full face veils, which comes up for a vote in the National Assembly on Tuesday, enjoys 82% popular support in the country, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project. Its neighbours also approve — 71% of those polled in Germany, 62% in Britain and 59% in Spain agreed that there should be laws prohibiting the Muslim veils known as niqabs and burqas in public.
The poll, conducted from April 7 to May 8, did not range further afield, but reports from other countries show support there as well. The lower house of the Belgian parliament has voted for a ban, which should be approved by the Senate after the summer. In the Netherlands, several bills to ban full veils in certain sectors such as schools and public service are in preparation. Switzerland’s justice minister has suggested the cantons there should pass partial bans but make exceptions for visiting Muslim tourists (the wives of rich sheikhs visiting their bankers in Zurich or Geneva?)
The big exception in the Pew poll is the United States, where 65% of those polled disapprove of a ban and only 28% support the idea. The poll did not investigate the reasons for this difference, so we can only assume it has to do with the more widespread acceptance of religion in public life in the U.S. and a more open approach to immigration.
The brief analysis that Pew published showed that support for a “burqa ban” seems pretty strong across the pollsters’ demographic categories. It said:
“Opinions about banning Muslim women from wearing a full veil do not vary along gender lines in any of the five countries where the question was asked. In France, Britain and the U.S., views on this matter are also similar across education and income groups. However, in Spain and Germany, those in higher income groups are more likely than the less affluent to approve of such a ban; for example, a slim majority (51%) of low-income respondents in Spain favor a ban on full veils, compared with 62% of those in the middle-income range and 68% of those with high incomes.
“Ideologically, those on the right in France, Britain and Germany are more likely than those on the left to approve of a ban on women wearing the full Islamic veil in public places, but majorities across the political spectrum in these countries endorse such a ban. In France, 87% of those on the right support prohibiting women from wearing full veils in public, and 75% of those on the political left agree. Spain is the only Western European country surveyed where those on both ends of the ideology scale express nearly identical views; 59% of those on the right and 57% of those on the left approve of a ban on Muslim women wearing veils that cover the whole face. Ideological differences are also insignificant in the U.S.”
In the latest twist to this story in France, businessman Rachid Nekkaz is offering to sell properties to set up a one million euro fund to help Muslim women pay the 150 euro fine they may receive for wearing the full veil in public if the ban becomes law.
Spanish town council bans Muslim veils in public buildings
A Spanish town council has voted to ban the wearing of the face-covering Muslim veil in public buildings, the first authority in the predominantly Catholic country to do so.
The Catalan council of Lleida approved a law prohibiting the use of full veils such as the Afghan burqa or the niqab, which leave only the eyes visible, according to a release on its website (here in Catalan).
The French cabinet approved a bill this month to outlaw the wearing of niqabs and burqas in public, and Belgium’s lower house voted in favour of prohibiting the full veil last month, provoking strong reactions and stoking debate across Europe.
Read the full story here in English or a longer version here in Spanish.
Spanish RC Church to deny communion to pro-abortion pols
The Spanish Catholic Church will deny communion to members of parliament who have voted in favour of a bill to make abortion more readily available, the spokesman of Spain’s Bishops’ Conference said on Friday.
“This is a warning to Catholics, that they can’t vote in favour of this and that they won’t be able to receive communion unless they ask forgiveness,” Rev. Juan Antonio Martinez Camino told a news conference in Madrid. “They are in an objective state of sin.”
The government-sponsored bill, which passed the first of a series of votes in parliament on Thursday, will allow abortion until the 14th week of pregnancy and, in cases of extreme foetal deformity, at any time in the pregnancy. The bill will also allow girls to obtain abortions from the age of 16 without parental consent, a clause that has generated dissent even within the governing Socialist Party.
In the United States, Congressman Patrick Kennedy has said his bishop has slapped a communion ban on him for his support for abortion rights.
Read our full story from Madrid here. See also Reuters in Spanish –Votar a favor del aborto es pecado, según los obispos.
You cannot vote for someone who’s promoting a reasonable social/health policy without threat of being excommunicated but it is perfectly ok for a catholic to vote for war criminals like Mr. Bush?
Or for proponents of the death penalty?
Of for those too stupid to understand the world is not made in 6 days?
The RC Church is losing it’s credibility by the hour.
Could abortion law backfire on Spain’s Zapatero?
In a country like Spain, where a large majority still identify themselves as at least more-or-less Catholic, you’d think the government would shy away from taking on the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, there are probably few things Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero likes better than a brawl with the bishops.
Lingering anti-clerical sentiment in sectors of Zapatero’s Socialist Party, particularly on its left-most fringes, means the PM has few more effective tools for rallying his voters than the sight of a protest march led by priests and nuns.
At a time when unemployment is closing in on 20 percent, Zapatero knows matters economic are not going to provide anything to cheer his supporters. So there was little surprise when the government rolled out a bill to liberalise abortion laws, including a provision to allow 16 year olds to abort without parental consent, in time for the European elections. At present, Spanish law allows abortion only in certain circumstances, such as if the birth poses a psychogical risk to the mother, although in practice it is easily available.
Just in case the bill didn’t drive the Church into a sufficient paroxysm of rage, the government’s Equality Minister Bibiana Aido, defended the proposal to allow legal minors to seek terminations without their parents’ knowledge by comparing the procedure to breast-enlargement surgery. So, last Friday it must have seemed like mission accomplished to the Socialists when Spain’s bishops duly rebuked them for undermining the country’s moral fabric (see Spanish text of their statement here).
Only one thing is now missing for the manoeuvre to attain political perfection, i.e. to lure the main opposition Popular Party, traditionally allied to the Church, into aligning itself with the religious authorities. From there, thanks to the historical closeness of the Church to the former dictator Francisco Franco, it is but a short rhetorical jump for the Socialists to accuse the PP of being on the extreme right and out of touch.
From a political point of view, it looks like a neat way of keeping your voters amused while you wait for 150 billion euros in extraordinary public spending to revive the economy. And using the strategy of exploiting Spain’s deep divides on social issues has already been very profitable to Zapatero over the past few years, becoming still more important as it has allowed him to steal voters from the fading force of Izquierda Unida, the United Left coalition located to the left of the Socialists.
But this time, the abortion battle looks like it is in danger of proving a miscalculation. The Popular Party is doing its best not to fall into the prime minister’s trap, claiming that its opposition to the law has nothing to do with the position of the Church. Opposition leader Mariano Rajoy now bases his strategy on targetting moderate centrist voters and would sprint across across a busy motorway to avoid getting drawn into any heated debate on social issues.
There is a Spanish saying, “Zapatero a tus zapatos”, meaning “cobbler to your shoes” that it, mind your own business. Zapatero might be pulling the thread too tight.The Catholic Church is still powerful in Spain and you should not buzz it as a gadfly.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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