Spain Rejects Pope's Criticism of Gov't

Spain's defense minister on Tuesday rejected Pope John Paul II's criticism of its Socialist government, which wants to legalize gay marriage and streamline laws on divorce and abortion, and he said some church positions go against the teachings of Jesus Christ.

``Faith is not something a government can impose. It is not something that it is up to the state, but rather to people,'' Defense Minister Jose Bono told Spanish radio, the news agency Efe reported.

He said some of the church's positions, such as its opposition to homosexuality and use of condoms, go against the message of Jesus Christ, according to the report.

``Today, Christ would be more worried about the 25,000 children who die each day of hunger or in wars. I think Christ would side with those who are peaceful,'' Bono was quoted as saying.

Actually, I think there's a resistance growing in Spain. For one thing, the Church has been very outspoken, particularly the Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, Rouco. Spain may well end up like the rest of Europe, but I think there are people there who will at least put up a fight.

Zapatero has launched an all out attack on the Church, which he is doing in a two-pronged way: single-handedly passing laws that violate Catholic teachings and threatening Church property if there is a protest (shades of 1934); and privileging Islam, for which the Spanish government is constructing mosques and hiring imams.

Personally, I think things are going to get really rough in Spain in the not too distant future.

Another writer about Spain history in english is Paul Preston. For sure he has a bio of Franco and another one of Juan Carlos. I've not red them but considering the great debate that the one of Franco caused here I guess it was at least supportive or comprehensive with him. Any list of bibliography I have about civil war is coming from books written by spanish writers and they are not very open to include references of foreign writers but anyway I'll take a look when I go back home.If I find something I'll let you know.

Yes it is weird but not so much seen from inside. Spain is a very Catholic country (in fact it is the ONLY religion for people born here) and 80% or 90% of the people declare themselves Catholic believers but when the question is about practicing then the share goes down to 10% or 15%. Some of this non-practicing believers argue that the reason that they cannot forgive the close link that existed between Franco's regime and the church others don't give any reason. To feed your curiosity... the share of believers/practicers does not depend on the political orientation, it is similar from left to right.

Even more weird, in the south there is a great tradition of praying to different "Virgenes" and in fact there are a lot of andalusians who never go to church but become extremely passionate when praying to the "Virgen" of their area and participate very actively in any event related with her.

You will hardly find someone in Spain who can quote anythig with scriptures because here the Bible is not tought through reading it, the tradition is to do it orally. I don't know if the reason is this one but the fact is that in the 40's, 50's and even the 60's a good share of the spanish population was not able to read properly and much less to understand what they were reading. That was an inheritance of war and misery.

I don't know if you are really aware about what Franco did to this country but we are and here very very few people miss those days.Franco's commemoration day normally calls just some hundreds. I had relatives on both sides and I can only tell you that the real problem of our war was that it didn't matter who won we were in trouble. Anyway, it is quite clear for me that a republican victory had been worse.

Have you ever read the black book of communism? Franco didn't systemantically murder everyone who disagreed with him, the communists would have.

That would be great. I loved my trip to Spain in 96, so much that I cancelled the week I was supposed to spend in France & stayed in Barcelona. I still make tapas at every opportunity.

I don't know if you're aware of the way the Spanish Civil War is portrayed in American culture - the Brave Democratic Republican (good) side and the Murdering Fascist Nationalist (evil) side. Much of that is due to American Communists who fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and came home to become teachers, some is due to Hemingway's novels.

One book I read in English was Combat Over Spain by a Duke or Marquis or some such (I'm not at home so can't check) - a Nationalist pilot.

I read Spanish probably on a third-grade level, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any children's books about the war.

I wonder how much of the resentment against Franco is due to the Gibraltar issue? I believe closing the frontier was his idea, not that of the British.

Anyway, it is quite clear for me that a republican victory had been worse.

I have had many older people in Spain, who lived through the war, tell me this as well. One person also made the perceptive comment that many Spaniards supported Franco's harshness after the war, because it was the only way to keep the Communists from regrouping and trying to start the fight up again. However, he simply went on too long with the heavy-handed approach, although certainly it was nowhere near as harsh as it would have been if the Communists had won. Then you would have seen genuine tortue and Gulags.

By the end of his reign, things were loosening up, and Spain did make a fairly easy transition to democracy. But he would probably have been looked upon more fondly by Spaniards had he (and some of his more rigid advisors) relaxed their control a bit earlier.

No luck. I've nothing in english.

Thanks for the nice words about my city, I also have enjoyed my trips to the US, from both, land and people.

I am aware, Hemingway made a lot of damage. Curiously he is a widely unknown writer in Spain and probably no one would recall him if you ask about great writers.The only people who could recall a book would be after the movie (i.e. myself).
This image is also the one in spanish media and cinema, but if you ask to people the answer will depend on what side they where in war, take into account that civil population was cought in of the sides just depending on where they were living (geographically). Normally everyone hates the side that was ruling the place where he was living.My father didn't go to war because he was 11 years old so he stayed at home, he was ideologically against Franco all his life but what he really hated was the Republica because he had to shoot the retiring soldiers to protect his family's farm.Curiously his future father in law was in the red army retreating through that area, they never knew if they had once upon a time shooted each other.

The names you tell me doesn't sound like spanish, must be another one.

The most spreaded opinion here is that children should be kept away from the nasty things of life until at least they are teenagers so books the text books about war are ridiculous.

Believe me, no one here cares about Gibraltar excepting the government in charge and the journalists.Yes, closing the border was his idea, that's one of the reasons why Gibraltar's people feel for us something that is not exactly friendship.

"Have you ever read the black book of communism?"

No, I listened to my father who was a kid along the war so he has quite a ideologically free view of what happened in war.

Along the war BOTH sides sistematically murdered the male population, take food and destroy property of the places they retreated or advanced through.People called that the 2 waves, first you have to hide from retreating soldiers and the next day from the advancing ones.

Franco was smart enough to see that there was a lot of people who were ideologically unrevertable so when he invaded the north of Catalunya he didn't reached the coast (being not able then to make a perfect clip around Barcelona) allowing in that way most of the republican army (that had already realised that the war was lost) to flee to France. This for me was a quite simple but smart idea that avoided several deaths.
After the war there was a short moment of executions but in a few time physical repression was only focused in the ex-soldiers and sometime their families.Several kids were taken from this families and given to significant families of the nationalist side.

After that, for ten or 15 years people was too focused in finding food so no one had time or energy to complain ideologically. There is a sentence that everyone in my generation (born in 70) heard when being a kid you don't want to eat something:"it is clear you don't know what hunger is"

Then... 20 years of ideological repression. It was passive, that is true, so the favourite slogan of my father's generation was "as long as you don't get interested in politics this is a good country to live".

As I've said in other posts if the war had been wun by the republicans it would have been muuuuch worse but you know, we would have still preferred to have some kind of democracy like you already had in those days or like we have now.Nothing more nothing less.

It's so nice to find an american who really know about spanish people...

We did know gulags and torture but just along the war. People disappeared suddenly and... Here in Catalunya people called that "non existing" torturing and executing cells "txecas", I know every area in Spain had its own name for those prisons. Also the tortures over priests got to limits that would make nazis look like clowns. For those reasons everyone in red area hated... the red army!!!
Franco's army was not so undiscrimanted in the occupied areas, only when they were advancing or retreating it was a real problem. I think this was conciously planned by Franco, he knew he was going to win the war and didn't want the civilians to hate him in such way.

Repression after the war was strong for 1 or 2 years but after that it became passive, you just had to be careful to not to be related with politics and life was quite OK.

Anyway this is tired too and people at the end gets sick, just as an example, I remember that my mother used to make me learn a list of words that I might heard at home but that were A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-Y forbidden to say outside home, even to friends or second line family (cousins...). And I remember it because she used to tell me that, every day for 5 years, since I started to talk until the constitution was approved. I hated that because most of words were meaningless for me but she seemed so serious that I used to give to it the greatest importance. Having something written against Franco meant 7/14 years serving... well, in my case my father would have been responsible. You can understand I have a true feeling of... let's say repulse for Franco even though he died when I was 5. It was the first and last time I have had a celebration at home because of the death of someone, maybe that doesn't fair but...we were so tired of him.If you want to know if this feeling is much spread just check this, I saw a guy dancing on Franco's grave and no one, even the police, said a word.

By the way, transition was far from being fairly easy but we can talk about that another day if you want. Anecdote, in 82 I asked my mother if she could buy me a bike and her answer was "I don't know, because if socialist party wins elections no one knows what can happen" can you guess what the poor woman was worried about in that moment? another war, of course. It is quite impressive to see your parents scared about the future when you are 11, that's one of the reasons because this country is so blindly pacifist, we have our own circumpstances but we are good people believe me...:-)

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