Pope Benedict XVI receives the official World Youth Day 2011 backpack from Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela of Madrid during a private meeting at the Vatican in early February. The cardinal was the archbishop of Santiago de Compostela in 1989 when Pope John Paul II met young people there for World Youth Day. Spain is preparing to host World Youth Day in Madrid Aug. 16-21. (Photo courtesy Catholic News Service.)
Spain is a functionally athetictic “modern” society at below replacement level demographically.
Typical of all white European liberal pluralistic democracies, it has legalized abortion and gay marriage — which was the focus of the pope last trip to Spain.
Of course, Vatican II played a role in this deleterious situation.
Under the influence of the controversial “Religious Liberty Declaration” and in the spirit of Vatican II ecumenism, in 1973 the Spanish Bishops Conference demanded the separation of church and state, and they called for a revision of the 1953 Concordat.
Given this background, I can see no grounds for the pope to object to “gay marriage” or abortion.
Don’t kid yourself, people work very hard, with great zeal to push things like abortion and gay marriage.
Why, then, should the Catholic Church lie down and play dead?
The Church’s job is the fight for the good and oppose evil – that means speaking out, being “controversial”, “offending” people.
It doesn’t mean “religious liberty” and “ecumenism” – that is NOT the mission Jesus gave to His Church!
This is why you have abortion and gay marriage – it is the Catholic Church’s fault!