The Pope Invades Spain

My comments are embedded in the following Reuter's article:

Pope stresses family values in Spain, PM booed
By Philip Pullella and Jane Barrett

VALENCIA, Spain (Reuters) - Pope Benedict urged Spain to defend the traditional family on Saturday as he began a lightning trip to the country which has clashed head-on with the Church over the legalization of gay marriage.

The Pope said there were certain things to which the Church must just say "No," [a Nancy Reaganism?] and that the family based on heterosexual marriage was "a unique institution in God's plan." "We want to make people understand that according to human nature, it is a man and a woman who are made for each other and made to give humanity a future," he added.

[How simplistic can you get? Actually, according to all mammalian, reptilian and even some floral natures, it is a male and female who ‘are made for each other and made to give [life] a future'. That is a "duh..." Does the man think he is preaching to morons?

What does that have to do with gay marriage and other laws involving society? The laws certainly don't outlaw procreation or sexuality - I don't see Christian churches addressing any of the more serious problems involving sexuality including health and over population. ...AG]

As well as the gay marriage law, which gives gays the same adoption and inheritance rights as heterosexual couples, the Church has criticized new Spanish laws making divorce and fertility treatment easier and cutting religious education.

[‘religious education' is certainly a misnomer! It is religious indoctrination actually. True religious education would be courses in comparative religion and philosophy. ...AG]

The 79-year-old Pope received a tumultuous welcome in the coastal city of Valencia, where he will spend little more than 24 hours at a global gathering of Roman Catholic families.

But Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose government legalized gay marriage last year, was whistled as he arrived at the archbishop's residence for an audience with the Pope, which lasted just 15 minutes. The crowd booed Zapatero while he was inside and when he left. [Reminds me of the fable of Daniel in the lion's den"]

FAMILY RALLY
In an address, the Pope paid tribute to historical Spain, once ruled by the Catholic kings, and urged bishops to hold firm "at a time of rapid secularization."

[Is he actually advocating the return of the Inquisition?...]

"Acting as if (God) did not exist or relegating faith to the purely private sphere, undermines the truth about man and compromises the future of culture and society," he said.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims have swarmed into Valencia for the family rally and lined the streets cheering and waving yellow and white Vatican flags as the Pope made his way from the airport to the town center. On his way, the Pope stopped at the site of an underground train crash that killed 42 people on Monday. Bowing his head in silence toward the pavement outside Jesus station, Benedict made the sign of the cross, laid a wreath of flowers and asked the Madonna to console the bereaved.

Later on Saturday, the Pope was due to preside at a huge rally with families at a futuristic arts and science complex near the sea which will also be the venue of a mass dedicated to families on Sunday morning before he returns to Rome.

A senior Vatican source on the plane said there was a "certain irritation" within the Pope's entourage over Zapatero's decision not to attend the Sunday mass. The source noted that in the past, Cuba's Communist leader Fidel Castro, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and former Polish President Wojciech Jaruzelski attended masses presided over by the late Pope John Paul II when he visited their countries. [How else do you make a point?]