Zapatero refuses to attend papal Mass

Controversy clouded Pope's Spanish trip, writes Freddy Gray ALMOST A million Catholics filled the streets of the Spanish city of Valencia last Sunday to hear Pope Benedict XVI speak out in defence of marriage and the family, but their Prime Minister was not among them.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain's socialist leader, greeted Benedict XVI on Saturday as the Pontiff stepped off the plane outside Spain's third largest city, but failed to attend the Mass.
The snub has angered Church officials. An editorial of the Italian Bishops Conference's newspaper Avventre expressed outrage at Mr Zapatero's "rudeness".
It said: "It is a grave discourtesy that the head of the Spanish government had to, through this new impoliteness, show his hostility to the Catholic tradition that is a sign of Spain's historical past."
The bishops added that the Spanish government had already demonstrated its antiCatholicism by introducing a series of anti-family, anti-life laws.
Dr Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Vatican Press officer, pointed out that even Fidel Castro — who was excommunicated in 1962 — attended Mass when Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998. As Spain's Prime Minister since 2004, Mr Zapatero has made gay marriage and adoption legal and relaxed regulations against abortion, divorce and embryonic stem cell research — all reforms that the Church considers harmful to life and the family.
Pope Benedict's visit to Spain for the Fifth World Meeting of Families (WMF) was therefore of particular importance.
The Pontiff chose not to attack the Zapatero government directly, rather he issued a forthright, positive defence of heterosexual marriage and the traditional family.
He said that the family must be founded on the "indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman".
"In contemporary culture we often see an excessive exaltation of the freedom of the individual ," he told the cheering crowd of pilgrims.
"Attempts are being made to organise the life of society on the basis of subjective and ephemeral desire alone, without reference to objective, prior truths."
The crowd roared with approval when Pope Benedict announced that "governments and legislators... [need to] reflect on the evident good of the traditional family".
"The object of laws is the good of man," he added.
It is almost certain that the Pope raised his concerns about recent developments in Spain during a private meeting with Mr Zapatero on Saturday.
The Spanish leader was booed and whistled by a crowd of the faithful as he arrived for the audience.
No photographs were taken and no official statements were released afterwards, but government sources reported that the meeting had been "extremely cordial" and the two men had discussed "peace, the family, immigra
tion, the future of Europe and, especially, the situation in Africa".
Speaking to journalists on the aeroplane from Rome to Valencia, the Pope explained that he wanted to offer Spain a positive message about the family rather than a criticism of the government.
"I only wish to take a message of encouragement," he said. "1 would not like to begin immediately with the negative aspects, because I am thinking of families that love one another, that are happy. We want to encourage this reality which is really the reality that gives hope for the future," However, he did add that there are "problems" that need to be addressed in Spain.
"Them are points where the Christian faith says `no'," he said. "It is true, and we want to make it understood that, precisely according to the nature of the human being, man and woman are ordered one for the other, and that they are also ordered to give a future to humanity. Therefore,
we underline these positive things and in that way we make it understood why the Church cannot accept certain things."
In his homily on Sunday, Pope Benedict said that families have a duty to make sure "the good news of Christ will reach their children with the utmost clarity and authenticity".
The Pope urged husbands and wives to be open to the gift of life, saying each human is not created by accident or random selection, but is part of "a loving plan of God".
"Married couples must accept the child born to them. not simply as theirs alone. but also as a child of God, loved for his or her own sake and called to be a son or daughter of God," he said.
Children must be bathed in love, the Pope added, stressing that "the experience of being welcomed and loved by God and by our parents is always the firm foundation for authentic human growth".
At a vigil on Saturday the Pontiff had reiterated the Church's teaching against divorce.
The Pope also spoke to Spain's bishops, urging them to "continue dauntlessly" in their efforts. He asked them to remind their flocks that distancing man from God "undermines the truth about humankind and compromises the future of culture and society".
The Pope announced that the next WMF week would be held in Mexico in 2009.
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