Saturated with Dad

Pope Leo XIV has not yet set foot in Catalonia and we are already saturated with religious events thanks to an extraordinarily devout television. TVE's La 1 is assuming the broadcast of all ceremonies with unprecedented faith and joy. To top it off, in some television slots (for example, Monday afternoon), it offered triple coverage: La 1, La 2, and the 24h channel in unison offering the same religious content.Beyond the bows and kisses on the hand at the airport, of all the experts praising the Pope with devotion and of the teenagers singing mass songs in front of the public TV microphone, the profile of the parishioner that has been shown to us in the mass events in Madrid stands out. The same way of dressing, with shared color tones, a certain social class, a very similar family style, and medals hanging from the neck that seem mass-produced. In this era of religious fervor that we have to endure and that transcends the Church itself, television shows us a believer of a certain homogeneity in appearance and conduct that distorts the idea of faith and confuses it with status and an ideological temperament.With the Pope's visit to the Congress of Deputies, television showed us another type of uniformity that is very unusual in the broadcasts that normally reach us from there. In recent years, in the hemicycle we have seen shouts, grimaces, aggressive confrontations, contempt, and unpleasant gesticulations that the deputies directed at each other. On Monday morning, beyond the red carpet and the pomp to receive the Vatican authority, in the seat of legislative power we discovered docile and quiet deputies lining up to greet the pontiff. In the hemicycle, all together in their seats, very elegant and polite. Full to the brim, even to the visitors' balconies. In some programs, they even revealed that the authorities had only spent two minutes in the stands to go through the motions. All attentive to the Pope's words and, to conclude the speech, La 1 emphasized that the seven minutes of applause the deputies had dedicated to him were a record for a parliamentary ovation. In times of polarization and maximum political tension, it turns out that the audience, from their homes, observes that the one who holds conciliation power in the State, believe it or not, is the Church. A Church that does not precisely have very democratic values. Not only because of its convictions regarding abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, or equality between men and women, but also because it is an institution that has inflicted much pain with sexual abuse and has remained silent about its crimes. What message does a Pope give to citizens, giving a sermon from the presidential lectern of Congress with all the deputies acting as obedient altar boys? An ultraconservative one, with the Church and faith as the only possible unifier, which does not correspond to that of a non-confessional state nor to the values of a large part of the citizenry.