Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
From: People For Peace
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST10, 2011
The more than 100 priests from Madrid’s poorest parishes who have joined the clamour of protest over the cost of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Madrid next week reminds me of the Biblical story where the disciples of Jesus complained to him when Mary Magdalene anointed his feet with expensive oil. The disciples complained to Jesus saying that oil would have been sold and money given to the poor.
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Jesus answered them saying the poor people are always with you but myself will not be with you for long -so let the woman play her part. Of course, the different here is that the disciples of Jesus were rich so they did not need the money, but here are the priests who are just poor like their flocks and need money direly.
You have heard priests fighting in a parish over the offertory-they do that because they are poor and need money. Sometimes offertories are not even enough for parish priest himself-leave alone his curate. Some priests cannot even be able to pay efficient salaries for his workers.
You have also heard of priests who indulge in alcoholism because they are stressed. Their family members at home depend on them, paying school fees for his siblings, children of his diseased brothers, sisters, cousins and relatives. When he is not bale to do all these he is either stressed or become very aggressive and alcohol is used to cope up with the stress.
An umbrella group – the Priests’ Forum – says the estimated €60 million cost of the papal visit, not counting security, cannot be justified at a time of massive public sector cuts and 20 per cent unemployment in Spain.
Evaristo Villar (68), a member of the group, said he objected to the multinationals with which the Catholic Church had had to ally itself to cover the costs of the “showmanship” of the event when majority of Spanish faithful cannot afford copping up with high cost of life.
Opponents of the visit have set up a Facebook page calling for a boycott of the sponsors. Some 140 groups, among them the secular organisation Europa Laica (Secular Europe), are also against the papal visit.
Fr Europa Laica plans to march under the slogans “Not a penny of my taxes for the Pope” and “For a secular state”. There is particular ire that the some 500,000 pilgrims expected in the city will get free transport. Madrid metro fares rose by 50 per cent on Monday.
“With the economic crisis we are going through, we can’t pay for this. The church should set the example,” said a spokesman for the Indignados movement, which has staged high-profile protests in central Madrid. “They propose to spend €60 million when the regional government has just cut €40 million from the education budget.”
This is not the first time Pope Benedict’s visit has been protested. His visit to Barcelona last November was poorly received, with the popemobile forced to drive at top speed past small groups of the faithful along mainly deserted streets (Guardian service).
There was similar complain last year when senior Vatican officials who accompanied the Pope on his historic visit to Britain stayed in a luxury hotel where rooms cost up to £900 a night – courtesy of UK taxpayers.
The Government confirmed it met the accommodation bill for 11 members of Pope Benedict XVI’s entourage during the visit from September 16-19, 2010. The Government had also decided to give all 11 a daily spending allowance of £150 for the trip.
The money had been set aside for expenses such as food, dry cleaning, UK telephone calls and drinks – as long as they were not from the hotel mini-bar. Some critics had questioned why the Government had to pay so much when the Roman Catholic Church has a reported fortune of around £30billion. The hotel is close to Westminster and boasts a swimming pool and 24-hour room service. The event was the first visit to Britain by a Pope since 1982.
The pope is scheduled to visit Madrid next week to lead World Youth Day celebrations, which take place August 16-21. More than one million faithful are expected to flock to the Spanish capital for the Roman Catholic Church’s youth festivities.
According to Caritas Spain the economic crisis has seen a jump in Spanish people needing help by 40 percent in the first six months of 2008. According to a nationwide survey carried out by Caritas among vulnerable people, the charity predicts it will top 50 percent by the end of the year.
According to the Caritas survey, those asking for more help are single mothers, unemployed over 40 years with low qualifications, young families with small children, and migrant women looking for their first job when their husbands are out of work.
The life has become so difficult to them to the extent that the Caritas Spain’s Secretary General Silverio Agea has called for more support, “In difficult times, our people respond with generosity. Caritas knows from its own experience that there are many people ready to share in order to reach out to those who are more disadvantaged”.
“Poverty is immoral because it has a solution. More public spending if we are to uproot poverty. Let us not forget that with the money the world spends in perfumes or in arms it would be possible to end the scourge of poverty.”
Caritas Spain has supported nearly 1 million people in Spain (it also helps over 9 million in developing countries). Over 200 million euro have been spent by Caritas Spain in its actions against social exclusion inside Spain and overseas. They included programmes with the elderly (29.7 million euro), employment and social integration (23.5 million), and the homeless (16.5 million).
The World Youth Day celebrations were instituted by Pope John Paul II in 1986 as a way to revitalize the faith among young Catholics. It was in Spain once before, in 1989 in the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela.
People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya
Tel 254-20-4441372
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org