Vogue Spain Can't Help Pope Benedict Inspire Marriage Vows

Tiiu Kuik | Michelle Ferrara | ‘Tentación Blanca | Vogue Novias, Fall/Winter 2010

Unfortunately, the fashion industry and Vogue can’t help Pope Benedict’s massive problems inspiring Spanish Catholics to get married. Even though the vast majority of Spaniards still declare themselves Catholic, not objecting to the $9 billion annually that the Vatican gets in direct and indirect government funds for financing Catholic shools, rings aren’t finding their rightful place on virginal fingers as they did in 1970.

The Spanish Church is the second biggest property owner in the country, trailing only the government. Spain is not officially secular, as are most countries in Europe. Yet, no amount of papal browbeating is persuading Spaniards to marry. (continued below)

Pope Benedict XVI launched a determined and dedicated defence of the traditional family as he consecrated Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia church this morning, using the occasion to take aim at Spain’s growing secularism and sensual lifestyle, declaring it a battleground for the faithful in Europe.

Is Pope Benedict asking for a call to arms in Europe, a return to the Crusades? We’re not clear.

“The generous and indissoluble love of a man and a woman is the effective context and foundation of human life in its gestation, birth, growth and natural end,” he said in the first mass to be held before the main altar in the vast and as yet unfinished church. via Telegraph UK (a Conservative publication)

Outside, 200 homosexual men and lesbians locked lips as the Pope approached. Same-sex marriage is legal in Spain. Women groups marched in protest of their second-class status in the church, the Vatican’s opposition to birth control, Rome’s condemnation of female sensuality, and women’s right to choose to terminate pregnancies.

Flags waved with frank intended messages: “The woman decides to be a mother” and “Condoms save, the pope damns.” European cultures increasing embrace sensuality and responsible pleasure, while Pope Benedict condemns it as the root of all evil.

Pope calls for ‘traditional’ values in Spain

The Pope compared the “aggressive lay mentality, anticlericalism and secularisation” of modern Spain to that of the 1930s, when the church suffered a wave of violence and persecution under the power of General Francisco Franco.

Ordinary Spaniards didn’t appreciate being compared to Franco and declared the Pope’s opinion to be based on ignorance.

About 6500 people attended mass today, about one-quarter of them associated with the Catholic Church. It seems next to impossible for the Pope to turn the tide of emerging lifestyles in Europe, psychologically flogging his flock into shape. Watching the drama unfold is a key focus at Anne of Carversville.