{"id":13522,"date":"2011-08-18T11:48:57","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T08:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=13522"},"modified":"2011-08-18T11:48:57","modified_gmt":"2011-08-18T08:48:57","slug":"spain-popes-visit-stirs-criticism-and-protest-13522","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/spain-popes-visit-stirs-criticism-and-protest-13522\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain: Pope’s Visit stirs criticism and protest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nothing
Nothing for the Pope from my taxes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dozens of Spanish social organizations participated in a so-called lay march to protest the high cost of Pope Benedict XVI”s visit to Madrid for\u00a0World Youth Day\u00a0at a time of drastic budget cuts and\u00a0economic hardship in the country.<\/h1>\n

Demonstrators filled downtown Madrid one day before the Pope arrives to take part in World Youth Day in Spain, which as of Tuesday had attracted close to one million pilgrims from around the world.<\/p>\n

Nothing for the Pope from my taxes<\/h2>\n

Lay associations, social organizations, trade unions, and left-wing political parties expressed opposition to the Pope’s visit being financed with public funds. Thousands of protesters marched in Madrid on Wednesday evening against the cost of the Pope\u2019s visit to Spain this week at a time of growing public anxiety and drastic budget cuts and economic hardship in the country. Protesters of all ages, but majority of them being young people, walked in the old city centre under the slogan \u2018Nothing for the Pope from my taxes\u2019, as hundreds of thousands of young people gather in the capital of the mainly Catholic country of Spain to celebrate World Youth Day this weekend.<\/p>\n

Spain tax payers : ‘Your Pope is a Nazi’<\/h3>\n

“None of my taxes for the Pope” and “For a lay state” were two of the main slogans of the protest, in which the “Outraged” or 15-M social movement will also participate. Pilgrims and protestors exchanged shouts when they were separated by the police cordon. \u201cYour Pope is a Nazi,\u201d chanted some protesters, as young Catholics replied \u201cBenedict, Benedict.\u201d Subsequently, the cordon was relaxed and pilgrims and protesters got into discussions \u2013 some heated \u2013 while some young Catholics knelt to pray, to the amazement of the protesters.<\/p>\n

In Diego de Ordas square, 15-M activists collected signatures for a petition against the visit, which stated that 50 to 60 million euros would be spent for the event, an amount similiar to cuts made in education spending.<\/p>\n

Thousands rally, clash with police in Spain over Pope Benedict\u2019s visit<\/h4>\n

\u201cWe are not against the people celebrating the Pope\u2019s visit, but we don\u2019t agree that we have to pay without anyone asking us,\u201d said 20-year old Nora. Others were more critical stated the Catholic Church had too much power and held banners such as \u2018Papa don\u2019t Preach\u2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dozens of Spanish social organizations participated in a so-called lay march to protest the high cost of Pope Benedict XVI”s visit to Madrid for World Youth Day at a time of drastic budget cuts and economic hardship in the country<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":562,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,17,118,895,101,14],"tags":[17191,17193,17189,3717,17192,17188,17187,8575,17190,17100,17102],"class_list":["post-13522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-europe","category-hot","category-life","category-politics","category-world","tag-catholic-church-protests","tag-cost-of-pope-visit-spain","tag-pope-benedict-visit-spain","tag-pope-benedict-xvi","tag-pope-is-a-nazi","tag-pope-visit-madrid","tag-pope-visit-spain","tag-spain-madrid","tag-spain-protests-pope","tag-world-youth-day","tag-world-youth-day-madrid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/562"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}