Summer greetings

To avoid the impression that I am rambling, I think the best way to organize this collection of topical observations is to proceed point by point.

One. In view of recent events in the euro zone, the best solution would be the mass resignation of all the governments in all the 27 states of the EU. Then we could commend our destinies to God and Holy Mother Church — and to Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch — in the hope that, if not all, then at least a select few of us (all in the same boat) will be skippered to a safe harbor in a tax haven.

Two. His Holiness Benedict XVI is about to set foot in Spain, which he has called "a vineyard devastated by the boars of secularism." His pastoral visit to Madrid will bring out all the decent souls faithful to the sage doctrine of the Church. It will also enjoy a budget of 50 million euros, subsidized by major Spanish banks and by the Spanish taxpayer. Perhaps the cheering crowds will console the Pontiff for the havoc wrought by recent secular encroachments such as the gay marriage law and the abortion law. A collection to be made under the slogan "another pearl for the Pope's tiara" will show that the poor too, and not only the rich, are capable of reaching deep into their pockets and finding there a few euros for the beleaguered occupant of St Peter's chair.

Three. In my far-off school days (in a Church-run school) the history teacher used to moan about the "plundering" of the Spanish Church's property (that is, the disentailment and sale of Church lands, then amounting to about a third of the land in Spain) perpetrated in 1837 by the Liberal government of "the Jew Mendizábal." Now the Church, so unjustly dispossessed, has been moving to get its own back, exploiting a legal loophole opened by the right-wing government of Aznar, to register hundreds of properties in its name — and not only Church dependencies, but things like garages, vineyards and olive groves. This has been going on principally in Navarre (a stronghold of the Catholic right), but has also been spreading throughout Spain.

This is like the Russian oligarchs around Yeltsin. "How did you come to possess such a colossal fortune?" a certain Russian magnate was asked. "Very simple. I was the director of a big state consortium, and I registered it in my name."

Four. As if the attempt (organized by two far-right organizations, including the Falange, Franco's fascist party) to put Judge Garzón on trial were not enough impudence for one year, now we are looking at the new Dictionary of Spanish Biography, prepared by the Spanish Academy of History and financed with 6 million euros of public money. This work reads like a product of the days of Franco. The entry on Franco never once uses the word dictator, and suggests that his tough military virtues saved our land from communist tyranny; and that the Civil War caused sound Hispanic, Catholic principles to prevail over the pernicious daydreams of lefty freethinkers and unbelievers. Such truths abound on every page of the Dictionary.

This is the sort of "academic" work that still receives public money in Spain. As Juan Tamayo wrote in his article in this newspaper on the recent fuss over the existence of chapels in the public universities, "Spain is far from achieving a real separation between Church and State."

Five. The news from Mexico is also encouraging. It seems that the prayers of two bishops helped to bring about the miraculous release of Jorge Hank, former mayor of Tijuana — whose impressive arsenal of weapons, seized by the army, was perhaps intended to defend these churchmen's congregations from the encroachments of Satan.

Turning back to Spain, we read that the Bishopric of Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid — perhaps alarmed by the words of Demetrio, bishop of Córdoba, to the effect that Unesco has a secret plan to convert 50 percent of the human race to homosexuality within 20 years — has posted on its website a list of reading material to demonstrate, to those who already suffer the widespread disease of homosexuality, "that hope is possible."