Some days ago, I listened to the Spanish national radio, as they interviewed an old journalist about what happened the day Franco died.
The journalist remembered how the Franco administration reacted very badly to the fact that "normal" journalists announced the news before it was official , with the words "Franco is dead. Franco is dead. Franco is dead". It was true, he was dead, but the journalist got into trouble because the regime wanted to stay in control of all information - as a good, dictator-ruled country should...
I tend to forget that Spain was a dictatorship only 35 years ago, and that this of course influences how things work in the country today. The most upsetting thing I´ve learned about the Franco regime though, is its extremely tight relationship to the catholic church.. The scandals just keep coming... what about that baby-stealing nun that recently died - “sor Maria” - that just refused to say anything and to go to "tribunal", when they knew she had been stealing babies saying they were dead (and giving them away for adoption to fascist families with no children?).
I used to consider myself as a religious person, but after baptising my two children in the catholic church, I´ve been having some regrets. Maybe I should have thought it over once more when I asked for the liturgy so that I could translate it into Norwegian for my friends and family, and discovered they were actually performing an exorcism on my little baby girl? Maybe I should have refused when "el cura" asked for my sons name and insisted we´d give him a "good catholic name" as well, because of the need of a protecting saint? (I´ve always found their obsession with saints kind of cute, but when I think of it, I find it more and more disturbing. I think they see their saints as gods, contrary to the third amendment) La Virgen del mar, la Virgen del Pino, La Virgen de la panaderia...seems "la Virgen" has been seen everywhere, and so we worship a stick (Check out "la Virgen de Guadalupe”, Spain) or a statue and carry her around and put her on a boat every August while we sing for her...)
This brings me to "the news of the century": the pope´s resignation. I think it´s a very decent thing to do when you´re 86 and feel you can´t to the job anymore. I really can´t see how it´s possible to do a good job ruling 1 billion faithful catholics when you´re too old to walk and hardly can talk. Cannot say I´m eagerly awaiting the words "habemus papam" from Rome, still it will be interesting to see if it´ll be one of the ten Spanish cardinals or if they have the courage to choose an African. Or maybe a woman....HA HA HA...women can´t speak in church, we all know that of course. Shouldn´t be allowed to speak publicly, even.
So, while I´m having all these negative thoughts about the Catholic Church, I find myself in an awkward position. I love the fiestas, I love that people dress up and do crazy things, I love to mingle with the locals and to listen to the music, I even love to enter the churches and lighting candles and to admire the art (even though I always ask myself how on earth they got the money, and I answer that I don´t want to know and it was surely a gift from someone rich, not a result of exploiting poor believers). I can do as most people do, of course, just pretend there´s nothing religious about the fiestas. Maybe it isn´t. Maybe the church just adopted the fiestas and put a virgin into it, so that people could be allowed to continue their much loved partying.
I´m quite sure nobody at my children`s school think about carnival as a religious celebration, for example. At least I heard nothing about eating meat and preparing for 40 days of fast. The preparation last week was quite secular and wonderfully Spanish: they celebrated it for a whole week. So, tuesday last week I sent my children to school wearing wigs. The next day I added ties. And the day after an apron. Friday was the big party with carnival-queen and king and children are asked to dress up in dresses made from "recycled material". And still they wonder why Spanish children score low on the international PISA-tests? Hm. That´s another story, I guess I´ll write about that another day.
Links:
On the stolen-babies scandal:
(in Spanish) http://www.elpais.com/especial/vidas-robadas/
(in English) http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2112003,00.html