Spain

Santa in España

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Señor Rafael Cavero of Madrid is a collector, indeed the foremost collector of Papá Noel (Santa Claus) in all of Spain.

In the door which gives access to the garden of the house in which he has lived more than thirty years, a heap of little men with white beards receives visitors. They hide themselves, climb the balconies, go up the lanterns, laugh. And once you have crossed the threshold of the residence, the spectacle surpasses all expectations. “Lola, my wife, is a fan of the Three Kings, and what she hates most of all in the world, although you won’t believe it, is Santa Claus. At this time of year she is always annoyed and wants to leave the house. For this reason, and in revenge, she installs a nativity scene of gigantic size,” he explained.

A collector of many things, among which are music boxes and masks, his fondness for Santa Claus began by accident. He discovered the oldest piece of his collection at a fair and it pleased him so much that since then he looks for pieces here and there, everywhere in the world, on the internet, in catalogues, in shops…”The last ones which I acquired came from Denmark. And especially the best are those from there and from Norway. They are the most expensive; they cost almost as much as a car! Nevertheless, today many are made in China and the quality is evident. Of those which I possess, many have almost five movements. Others read stories and there are even  those who sing thirty Christmas carols with the voice of Ray Charles.”

The display in the Cavero house involves emptying the living room over three days of intense work (“I do it with two of my daughters, Ana and Piedy, with a guitarist and a carpenter”). Lola’s collection of boxes and porcelain dogs “disappears” in their place there is put up an incredible scene of crystal balls, gnomes, rabbits, and reindeer. And thousands of Santa Clauses in all postures and attitudes: playing the saxophone, getting on a motorcycle, with eyeglasses like Stevie Wonder, soaping up in  a bathtub, swinging, crossing the room at high speed, juggling on the swing, on the stairs…and all this in the middle of a great racket of songs, laughs, and train whistles.

And what does Señor Cavero want from Santa Claus? “That when in Spain almost everything is lost, that the hope in Santa Claus is not lost and to assure the whole world that the Three Kings exist. Ours (i.e., Spanish royalty] are in La Zarazuela [the royal palace], but they have some pages [Spanish politicians?] who leave much to be desired.”

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José and the Ham – or – Eurabia and España

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You can’t make these things up:

 

A teacher in the secondary school Institute Menénez Tola has been denounced by the family of a Moslem student for talking about ham in class.  

Un profesor de secundaria del Instituto Menénez Tolosa…ha sido denunciado por la familia de un alumno musulmán por hablar de jamón en clase. En concreto, el docente impartía clase de Geografía cuando, al hacer referencia a los distintos climas de España, comentó que el frío propio de Trévelez, en Granada, favorecía la curación del jamón.

Fuen ese momento cuando un alumno de origen musulmán consideró que el ejemplo era una ofensa para su credo. Tras la denuncia interpuesta por la familia del menor, la Policía se personó en el Instituto para interrogar al profesor.

The teacher was lecturing about climate and mentioned that the climate of a Spanish city favored the curing of hams.

 

A snotty Moslem kid (13 years old – what else) took offense at the word “ham,” raised his hand, told the teacher that he was not to use that word in class, the teacher told the snotty kid off, the kid then told his parents, the parents went to the police,  the police went to the school and interrogated the teacher.

 

José Reyes Fernández, the teacher, was livid. He said the denunciation to the police was “ridiculous, intolerable, and grotesque,” and that the mother had resorted to “defamation, lies, and calumny.” She had attacked “his honor, his image, and his professional ethics.”

 

The local school officials supported the teacher, who still has a police complaint on his record.

 

Two points —  one minor, one major – you decide which  is which.

 

The Spanish may have abandoned Catholicism, but they are still devoted to ham. There are ham shops throughout Spain, I walked past a Museum of Ham in one city, and my wife tried the ham ice cream in Madrid.

 

The snotty Moslem kid may have known his complaint wouldn’t get far, but he put teachers on notice that they had better not say anything offensive to Moslems. How do teachers talk about Spanish history, the Reconquest, or terrorism?

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Benedict and Spanish Laicism

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I finished my Camino on October 31, met my wife, and we stayed in Santiago until November 4, just before the arrival of the Pope. We went to Madrid for a few days and observed, among other things, the controversy started by the remarks that Benedict made to reporters on his plane: 

“In Spain, a strong, aggressive laicity, an anti-clericalism, a secularization has been born as we experienced in the 1930’s,” Benedict said. 

Along the Camino I had seen the memorials to the priests and religious murdered by the Republican side in 1936-1939 – and also the memorials to the leftists murdered by the Nationalist forces. With the wayside crosses, such memorials put the aches and pains I was feeling into a proper perspective.

 

At the Prado we saw Goya’s overwhelming paintings of the violence and repression in Madrid during the battle between the Spanish people and the French forces in 1808. At the Queen Sofia museum we saw an exhibition about the Spanish Civil War – of which Picasso’s “Guernica” was the centerpiece. The Republican propaganda showed the Catholic clergy as murderous allies of the Nazi-dominated fascists. We saw the newsreels of the battle of Madrid, newsreels of the children killed by bombs and artillery.

 

On Saturday we attended mass at the Augustinian church – the  mass of the martyrs of the order, murdered in Spain 1936-1939. We were given cards with their pictures, and the relics were in the church. The priest pointed to the martyrs during his sermon, as he spoke too of the Catholics murdered during the All Saints day mass in Iraq. 

 

Those who know Spain far better than I do say that conditions have changed so much that another civil war is impossible – I hope they are right. But the memories of the war are bitter on both the Catholic and laicist sides.

 

Franco was ruthless in his conduct of the war as a matter of policy and was not magnanimous in victory. The Republican side let mobs massacre soldiers and clergy and suppressed all Catholic activity. It was hardly surprising that Catholics turned to Franco to save them from being slaughtered, but they turned a blind eye to Franco’s slaughter of  Republicans who had done nothing criminal.

 

Are the Pope’s comments justified? I do not know enough about Spanish life to know whether the consumerist secularism of today’s Spain is as dangerous as the murderous “Laicismo” of the 1930s. Catholics and laicists have learned to live together in Spain, but they still do not like or respect each other.

 

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Enlightened European Attitudes

in sexual abuse, Spain No Comments Tags: , ,

Some Americans praise the more sophisticated European attitude to sexuality. The fuss about the Palin pregnancy, or about Clinton’s affairs, would be unimaginable in Europe.

The Catholic Church hierarchy in the United States is heavily influenced by Europe: rising stars among the priesthood were educated at the North American College or at other European seminaries to pick up the attitudes of Romanita. They may also have picked up other European attitudes, which may explain why they let sexually abusive priests continue to abuse children for decades.

The Spanish newspaper ABC has a story about Marcelino Fernández Arnaiz. Three days after getting out of prison, he was suspected of immediately abusing a six year old girl. It was not his first time in prison: he had previoudly been jailed for sexual abuse in 1980, 1983, 1986, 1990, 1999, 2000, 2002  and 2003. Every time he got out, he reoffended. Spain has become, like the Catholic Church, a forgiving community for pederasts where everyone gets a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth…chance.

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The War and Cartagena

in Spain, war 1 Comment Tags: , ,

We were in Cartagena, Spain, recently before we left for our cruise.

In the town square at the waterfront is an unusual war memorial: A Spanish memorial to the Spanish-American war, which Spain lost.

The monument has a sailor holding a dying soldier.

The victories are holding their laurel wreaths down.

The monument lists the great battle at Santiago, Cuba, and the names of the young men from the area who fought and who died in battles against Americans.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the war, two additional statues were added on the pier by the monument.

One is of a soldier with his head resting on his hand.

 

One shows a sailor weary walking home with his duffle bag.

What else can way say about a distant, lost war.

 

The Spanish-American war was one of the least justified wars in American history, and it had a human cost.

 

Even far more justified wars have human costs. In the Kolpinghaus (similar to a Catholic YMCA) in Eichstaett in Bavaria is a simple marble plaque with the names of the young Catholic men from the town who died in World War II. At the end, not even the dates of their death were known: they simply never came home.

 

Eichstaett was an intensely Catholic town and known for its opposition to Nazism. But the young Catholics of the town were drafted and died fighting for an evil cause. It is well for both the world and for the Germans that Nazism was defeated – but the young men of Eichstaett are dead, and almost forgotten.

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