Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
from People For Peace
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2011
Pope Benedict XVI’s general intention this month is for the World Youth Day taking place in Madrid from August 15-21, 2011. He prays that the world youth day may encourage all the young people of the world to root and found their lives in Christ.
His missionary intention is that Christians of the West, docile to the action of the Holy Spirit, may re-encounter the freshness and enthusiasm of their faith-click here to read Spanish Episcopal Conference’s WYD Invitation
The prayer is being offered at the time abortion among the youth is increasingly worrying. Abortion was fully legalized on July 5, 2010. According to new government study released in 2006 shows the rate of abortion has increased among Spanish young people.
According to the Spanish news agency EFE, the National Institute for Statistics reports that abortions among women under 19 in Spain rose to 8.8 abortions for every 1,000 women, up from 5.5 for every 1,000 women in 1995.
The government report confirms the findings of the Institute of Family Policy (IFP), which reported that in Spain approximately one in every six pregnancies ended in abortion, and one in seven abortions were carried out by women under 19. IFP also reported that the largest percentage of Spanish women aborting were under 24 in 2003.
Even though the Roman Catholic Church in Spain has denied it condones the use of condoms as a way of combating the Aids virus, the fact remains that due to abortion rates among the youth which have risen concomitantly, the government has publicly and massive lobbying for “safe sex” programs and promotion of condom use over the years.
While Spanish laws officially restrict abortion to situations involving rape, malformation of the baby, or threats to the physical or mental health of the mother, nearly 95.7 percent of all abortions are justified for concern for the mother’s health, while 2.5 percent are for fetal deformity, and just 0.1 percent for rape.
Recent surveys also show the number of practicing Catholics is dropping fast, to around 20 percent currently despite the fact that 94 percent of Spaniards are Catholic. Mass attendance has dropped from 44 percent in 1980 to only 19 percent in 2008.
Spain, of course, is not the only European nation to have largely abandoned the Faith. 2008 attendance among German Catholics was at 22 percent, among the French only 12 percent, and in the Netherlands a minuscule 7 percent of Catholics attended Mass weekly.
Apart from abortion, the Spanish parliament also approved a same-sex marriage law in 2005. Spain’s action follows similar moves by the Netherlands and Belgium, where same-sex marriage has been legal. Same-sex marriage officially became legal in Spain on Sunday, 3 July 2005.
Although the Spanish law also gives same-sex couples the right to adopt children and receive inheritances, Catholic authorities are adamantly opposed to it, fearing the weakening of the meaning of marriage. Pope Benedict XVI has condemned gay marriage as an expression of “anarchic freedom” that threatens the future of the family.
Approximately 4,500 same-sex couples have married in Spain during the first year of the law. At least one partner must be a Spanish citizen to marry, although two non-Spaniards may marry if they both have legal residence in Spain.
Jobless is yet another big problem among the youth in Spain, to the extent that tens of thousands of Spaniards angry over joblessness went to the street to protest in cities all over the country.
Although Spain has no official religion, the constitution of 1978 disestablished the Roman Catholic Church as the official state religion, while recognizing the role it plays in Spanish society. According to the National Institute of Statistics (April 2010), 73.2 percent of the population are Catholic, 2.3 percent belong to another religion, 14.6 percent are agnostic, and 7.6 percent are atheists.
Spain has maintained its special identification with Latin America. Its policy emphasizes the concept of Hispanidad, a mixture of linguistic, religious, ethnic, cultural, and historical ties binding Spanish-speaking America to Spain.
With the Third Council of Toledo in 859 Catholicism became the official religion of Spain despite the fact that article 3 of this Constitution established that Spain has no official religion. This aspect was one of the reasons that led to the coup d’état followed by a bloody civil war between 1936 and 1939.
But even so the Spanish system is neither a denominational model nor a separatist model in the strict sense. It can be characterised by two ideas: the idea of some recognition of religious groups by the state and secondly the idea of religious freedom.
The treatment of religious groups can be described as a pyramidal structure. At the first level there is the Catholic Church which receives maximum rights with the help of Concordats.
The second level consists of minority religious communities having signed agreements. At the third level there are registered minority religious communities and finally those having no specific legal status.
In Spain there are no Theological Faculties in the State Universities. But you can find four Universities of the Catholic Church (Salamanca, Navarre, Deusto and Comillas) having a specific status regulated by the Agreement of 5 April 1962. Other religious groups can establish universities in the same way as any other body or individual.
Every religious group has the right to set up television stations, radio or press.
The Catholic Church is in contrast to all other religious groups financed directly by the State. All religious communities having signed an agreement are treated as non-profit organisations. Due to this regulation they profit from certain tax advantages. In Spain we can find only one class of matrimony: the civil matrimony. But there are certain different forms such as the civil, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Islamic form.
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