THE Reverend Father Eubilio Rodriguez's church is a prefabricated
building in a part of this city hard hit by Spain's economic crisis.
In
front of the altar are a few scraggly potted plants.
Behind it, some
plastic chairs.
How, he asks, can the Catholic Church be getting ready
for a lavish $US72 million ($A69 million) celebration in Madrid - some
of it paid for with tax dollars - when Spain is in the midst of an
austerity drive, the unemployment rate for young people is 40 per cent
and his parishioners are losing their homes to foreclosure every day?
''It is scandalous, the price,'' he said. ''It is
shameful. It discredits the church.''
Father Rodriguez, 67, is among the
120 clergymen working among Madrid's poor who have signed a lengthy
petition deploring the Pope's visit this week on many grounds - from its
cost to what they see as an inappropriate melding of church and state.
Madrid's lamp posts are gaily decorated with banners.
Retiro Park has been decked out with 200 portable confessional booths.
But bitter debates are raging over the festivities and the role of the
church in Spanish politics.
The priests, along with dozens of left-leaning groups
demanding a secular state and young people who occupied many of Spain's
main squares for months to protest against the government's handling of
the economy, are planning at least one major protest march a day.
About
450,000 have already registered, and three times as many were expected,
organisers sais.
To accommodate their activities - which will include a
daylong vigil at the airport, with temperatures likely to reach nearly
40 degrees, and an all-night procession - some of Madrid's main avenues
will be closed to traffic for up to six days.
Government and church officials insist the cost to taxpayers will be minimal and the lift to local businesses substantial.
Spain's business community came up with $US23 million to
pay for some events and the pilgrims will pay $US44 million themselves.
Other donations should cover the rest, the officials said.
''The public administration helped us in only two ways,''
said Fernando Gimenez Barriocanal, the financial director of World
Youth Day 2011.
The pilgrims would be allowed to sleep in public
buildings, such as schools, and businesses would get tax deductions for
their contributions, he said.
Father Rodriguez and others who signed the 10-page
petition say the costs are always fuzzy when the Pope comes to town.
They suspect that the cost of extra security, of collecting rubbish and
of stress on health systems will add up to millions.
For one thing, the pilgrims have been granted an 80 per
cent discount on public transport, which some find particularly galling
because subway fares just went up by 50 per cent.
The priests are not
alone in making such claims.
''They still can't tell us how much the
Pope's visit cost two years ago,'' said Esther Lopez Barcelo, youth
co-ordinator for the small United Left Party.
Ms Lopez began a Twitter
campaign this month against the Pope's visit.
''Every time he comes here, the figures become opaque,'' she said.
Spain is less solidly Catholic than it once was.
A
government survey released last month found that 71.7 per cent of
Spaniards declared themselves Catholic, compared with 82.1 per cent in
2001.
But the church is eager to keep a spiritual hold on Spain - a
country where people can still tick a box diverting a part of their
taxes to the church.
A Vatican spokesman said the protests planned against
Benedict's visit were ''not worrying or surprising'', particularly
because hundreds of thousands of young people would be happy to
welcome the Pope.
''It's part of life in a democratic country,'' he
said.