News, January 2005

Spain celebrates long 'Immaculate Constitution' weekend

On December 6th the Spanish Constitution is 26 years old. Two days later, the Roman Catholic festivity of the Immaculate Conception is also a bank holiday, leading to a very long weekend this year, until Wednesday 8th. As with Thanksgiving in the States, this is the official kick-off in Spain to the Christmas season, which will conclude only after the celebration of the 3 Kings, or Epiphany, on 6th January.

To remind you, Spain was for 40 years a dictatorship under general Franco. Only after his death, in 1975, did Spain become a democracy. Much has changed since then and democracy has developed strong roots in the country. Only the terrorist threat of ETA http://www.prayforspain.com/comment/index3.html all these years has been a blot on the landscape. But this year, in addition to a totally new aspect to the terror threat, (but now see previous article) there are also those democrats who are beginning to call for changes to the Constitution. Perhaps it isn't quite so immaculate as they once thought!

The Cortes (parliament) buildings are open to the public Friday, 3rd and Saturday, 4th.

N.B. if you didn't realise, the Immaculate Conception does not refer to the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary, but of Mary in the womb of Santa Anna! Look that up in your Bible, if you can.

Not Spanish, but fascinating: the diocese of Lyon, France, has distributed half a million New Testaments printed in China on the presses used to produce Mao's red book... to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, as noted not to be found in the Bible!