The atmosphere was a little tense. While the city is currently hosting the World Youth Day (WYD), thousands of supporters of secularism demonstrated Wednesday in Madrid against the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, whose arrival is scheduled for Thursday.
Seperated by a cordon of police, protestors and WYD pilgrims met face to face on the square of the Puerta del Sol, in the center of the Spanish capital. The anti-secularists greeted the protestors with cries of "long live the pope", "we are the youth of the pope". Other pilgrims chanted "Alleluia", prayed, or played music.
The "indignés" among the protestors
The tone sometimes grows ugly, with cries of "Pederast, look at the children" or "Your pope is a nazi" bursting out from the side of the protestors. Several thousand of them gathered in the evening behind a banner reading "This is a secular state, these are my taxes, zero cents for the pope", responding to the appeal of nearly 140 varied associations, some for the defense of secularism, some progressive Christians, militant leftists or homosexual activists.
Of all ages, they shout slogans or carry placards with the words "We are not the popes children", "Stop transphobia, sexism, homophobia", "No, no, not with my taxes", or "We demand a genuinely secular state, freedom of conscience is a right."
The protestors parade a fake Popemobile, occupied by a fake dancing pope, a devils head installed on the hood, followed by a small cohort of nuns. Protestors from the movement known as the "indignes" participate in the parade, marching around two giant photos of the pope and the French writer Stéphane Hessel, author of the manifesto "Time for Outrage." The two photos are captioned "Clash of the Titans", "Joseph 'His Holiness' Ratzinger, Stéphane 'Outraged" Hessel".
A flashmob for the pope
"They are provided with aide which is not given to anyone else simply because they are religious, such as the use of the public schools and the gymnasiums, and reduced fares for the subway," says the "indigne" Irene, a 20-year-old student bearing a red, yellow and purple Republican flag. "Let everyone believe what they want, but when their leader comes, let them pay."
Thursday, Benedict XVI will be greeted in Madrid by a kiss-in, organized on Facebook by a collective for the defense of homosexuals and transexuals, modeled after the "flashmobs" which greeted his previous visit to Spain in November 2010.
Polemic on the cost of WYD
Spain, where homosexual marriage was legalized in 2005 by the Socialist government, is one of the countries where the Catholic tradition has seen its sharpest declines, confronted by strong secular currents which have aroused the condemnations of the Vatican. The defenders of secularism have calculated that government agencies have spent over one hundred million euros on WYD, which is expected to draw one million pilgrims through Sunday, a cost judged exorbitant when Spain, strangled by an economic crisis, has an unemployment rate of over 20%.
They especially denounce the costs linked to security (over 10,000 policeman will be mobilized), and of accommodations, for which schools and gymnasiums are being made available to the pilgrims. Or the reduced fares accorded to pilgrims for transport, at a time when the price of a subway ticket has risen suddenly from one euro to 1.50 euros.
The organizers of WYD counter that the event, with an estimated cost of 50.5 million euros, is self-financed by youth registration fees and donations, and that the event will pump 100 million euros into the local economy.
Read the article in the original French here.
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| Photo: AFP/Pedro Armestre; protestors at WYD 2011 |
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