Days of Vatican diplomacy

On Sunday Benedict XVI concluded the third visit to Spain in six years. Unlike the previous visits, on this occasion there has been no friction with the Socialist government. This has likely been influenced by the Spanish political situation, with general elections set for November, and the opinion surveys highly unfavorable to the ruling Socialist Party. But it may also be interpreted that Vatican-inspired diplomacy has finally prevailed over the radical hard line defended by the Spanish Episcopal Conference.

The nucleus of the papal message in Madrid was aimed at the followers of the Catholic faith, at all times abstaining from overreaching the limits of a pastoral visit. In this terrain the line taken by the head of the Church has not varied, remaining within the most conservative trends of Catholicism. The pope has reiterated the defense of celibacy, and of the traditional principles of ecclesiastical morality, though many believers have decided not to observe these, and nevertheless to remain within the faith. The pedophilia scandals that have shaken the Church during recent years were mentioned only in an indirect manner, in the form of a demand for irreproachable conduct in monks and priests.

While the Church's highest authority has thus behaved within the framework of relations appropriate to the separation of Church and state, it has been some of the representatives of this state who have adopted questionable postures. It is legitimate to debate the desirability and the ostentation of the visit, the second since the World Youth Day religious event was created in 1985, amid the sluggish economic situation brought about by the crisis.

Even more questionable is the fact that much of the center of Madrid was closed to traffic for more than a week, quite apart from the nature, religious or otherwise, of the public events concerned. The decision to reduce the price of certain public services for participants in this mass gathering has also annoyed some people. Many, indeed, feel affronted by what they see as a vexatious gesture of contempt, as the papal discount coincides with a steep hike in the price of public transport in Madrid.

These controversial decisions show that the temptation to mix Church and state matters has on this occasion proceeded not from the Catholic hierarchy, but from public powers, that is, the municipal and regional governments.

The Vatican's diplomacy would be in error if it believed that what has taken place in Madrid, no doubt an extraordinary organizational and participative success, is a foretaste of the supposed return to normality that would result from a change of government in Spain. Excesses on one side of the fence may well translate into excesses on the other. Because the much-abused phrase "Spain has ceased to be Catholic" was never intended to mean that the Spanish have ceased to believe. It means, rather, that the Spanish state has ceased to have an official creed, precisely so that the Spanish are free to believe, or not to believe.