FaithWorld

Spanish Catholic priests criticise corporate sponsorships for papal visit

Reuters Staff

Jun 22, 2011 12:30 EDT

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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What’s said and unsaid in French pre-visit pope cover

Tom Heneghan

Sep 10, 2008 12:07 EDT

France wouldn’t be France if it didn’t satirise the high and mighty — especially when the target is none other than head of the Roman Catholic Church which once held so much power here.

With Pope Benedict due to arrive on Friday for his first official visit, the French satirical press is having a field day poking fun at him, Catholics, Church doctrine and anything else to do with religion. Being militantly anti-Catholic is a badge of honour for a certain type of secularist French intellectual, so this week’s editions of their favourite journals were bound to zero in on Benedict. But there’s an interesting twist…

Le Canard enchaîné (picture above), a weekly that mixes satire and investigative journalism, something like Private Eye in Britain, leads its front page with a spoof story claiming Benedict (Benoît XVI in French) has been listed in a controversial classified police registry dubbed Edvige. Pretty tame stuff. Its main scoop — the Canard is a must-read for Parisian political gossip — is the claim that President Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to attend just about every important event during Benedict’s stay in France. Like many other anonymously sourced Canard scoops, this may or may not be true. Sounds likely, though…

The other satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo, loves to provoke with much cruder fare. This is the magazine that reprinted the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad and was taken to court by French Muslims for defamation (it won easily, because free speech was bound to trump the Muslims’ charges of blasphemy in court). This week’s Numéro Spécial Pape (Special Pope Edition) won’t disappoint its readers. It has a long editorial denouncing the Church, cartoons satirising Sarkozy for speaking positively about religion and a list of planned anti-pope petitions and protests (all a safe distance from any papal events). There are also pages of polemical cartoons, some of them downright pornographic and insulting. The cover (at right) was the tamest of them all.

The most interesting aspect of this criticism, though, is what the French like to call the “non-dit” — the “unsaid”. There is much less snide criticism in the media now than there used to be. Just before the 1997 World Youth Day (WYD) in Paris, the media poured cold water on the idea and made fun of the Catholic Church and the ailing Pope John Paul. Commentators announced in advance that it would be a flop. In the end, it was a stunning success. The final Mass at Longchamp racetrack drew over a million Catholics, twice as many as expected.

“There was a change with the 1997 WYD. Catholics were proud to turn out in numbers,” explained Frédéric Lenoir, editor-in-chief of the bimonthly Le Monde des Religions. “All of a sudden, that gave the media — and French society in general — the feeling that religion was important now and one had to reckon with it. Contrary to what the sociologists had been saying for years, it wasn’t a phenomenon that was disappearing. To the contrary, it was a phenomenon that had never disappeared, it had just gone underground a bit.”

Sydneysiders refuse to turn the other cheek for Pope Benedict

Sydney is not a city famous for protests. In fact, people usually only get angry at traffic congestion, if their football team loses on the weekend or if rain stops them hitting the city’s sandy beaches. But Sydneysiders have become angry and many are aiming to vent their spleen at Pope Benedict and pilgrims attending the Roman Catholic Church’s World Youth Day here this month.

Except for a handful of people promoting the safe sex message of using condoms, nobody was publicly planning to protest during the Pope’s first visit to Australia. Australians mostly come from a Christian background and Catholics make up the biggest congregation.

But now every man and his dog seems to be planning to take to the streets in protest. What changed?

Sydneysiders believe their civil liberties have been crushed with police introducing tough new anti-protest powers for the papal visit that allows them to arrest and fine people A$5,5000 (US$52,885) for annoying or disturbing Catholic pilgrims. Wearing a T-shirt with an anti-Catholic message or handing out condoms can break the law. Police have asked anyone planning to protest to send them photographs of their banners and what they will be wearing so they can be approved.

“I’ve had it up to my rosaries with my city…Thou shalt not annoy or trespass on World Youth Day,” Bianca Nogrady wrote in protest to the Sydney Morning Herald. “This is religious oppression. Despite being a contented heathen, I am driven by sheer outrage to take up the mantle and T-shirt of every other religion and march proudly through the streets of my secular city.”

The anti-protest laws cover hundreds of city precincts, like cinemas, schools, train and bus stops, and allow police to partially strip-search people.

Before news of the extra police powers, most Sydneysiders were merely annoyed at the traffic inconvenience of World Youth Day, which organisers say could attract 500,000 pilgrims. Now talkback radio is jammed with irate listeners and newspapers have been flooded with letters and emails from angry people, many who now say they will protest. “World Youth Day arrives and roads are closed, parks cordoned off and traffic tipped to be a nightmare, but if we wear a T-shirt that might annoy the visitors we cop a A$5,500 fine. Jesus Christ,” wrote Andrea Kerekes.