El Papa is Here
Pope John Paul is here in Madrid ("El Papa" or "Juan Pablo") and he's speaking to like a zillion youngsters from all over Spain. Oh goody, goody. The church is having a bit of resurgence here lately because of it's strong stance against the war which 90% of Spanish people were against as well. This is his first trip in 9 months or so and his fourth time here. People have been doing the waiting 15 hours to seem him thing... Woohoo. He's talking now and covering all the basics it seems: War is bad, homosexuals are evil, you're going to hell for having protected sex, don't worry about those Arch-bishops fondling your kids, etc.
Yeah, the Catholic Church is up there with Republicans and Microsoft on my list of favorite things. (Not "Catholics" by the way, just the church, unless you're one of those real hardcore Churchlady-type wackos). You might think that would make my life really difficult living here in a "Catholic country" where 98% of the Spanish consider themselves Catholic - but since 96% of those people are complete hypocrites when it comes to religion it really doesn't affect day to day life much except that Easter is really, really boring (no bunnies). I'm happily married to a Spanish Catholic, by the way. Alex was even baptized. I eventually lose these battles despite long hours of swearing up and down that I'm never entering a church again... Welcome to married life.
This reminds me, what was the war coverage like in the U.S.? I'm SURE that the networks santized it like a PG movie. They have no qualms about showing full-on bloody dead bodies stacked up on the evening news here (as they should), but somehow I'm willing to bet that not one bloody arm stump was shown on American TV during the entire war...
-Russ