The perplexity of what we have all experienced in these days of papal fervor and the passion of those who govern us for this religious leader still lingers. The attendance of our representatives at strange rituals and other performances called liturgies is a nauseating ignominy, there is no other name for it. The right is labeled hypocritical for proudly proclaiming their Catholicism while defending values supposedly contrary to those promoted by this particular sect on issues like immigration, but the most blatant hypocrisy is that practiced by the left. They embrace the Pope to project an anti-fascist image (forgetting the Church's long history of good relations with totalitarian regimes) while deliberately overlooking the rest of Catholic principles that are contrary to everything progressivism represents. They thus demonstrate the extent of the ethical and moral downfall of those who claim to be defenders of individual rights and freedoms. More than hypocrisy, it is, in fact, pure and simple cynicism. And a shameful betrayal of everything that has cost centuries of struggles, deaths, and suffering. There are two glaring examples: that of women and that of gay men. Seeing the entire Congress standing and applauding for seven minutes with religious fervor the leader of a particular organization that has used all its power to keep women subjugated and condemned to reproduce against their will is an image that definitively confirms the death of institutional feminism. With Francina Armengol saying "su Santidad", socialist deputies, others from Sumar, from ERC, all servile and prostrate before a man who, of course, tells them to their faces what they are doing by having abortions. All of them must be willing to return to forced reproduction. Their applause is the fertilizer that will contribute to the already initiated campaign of regression in the advances achieved by the struggle for equality. And the gay men who have attended mass and have communed with the millstones of those who have always been their executioners, those who have denied their mere and simple existence, these men also betray the long history of the struggle to decriminalize free love and sex and shamelessly adore the head of a State all too known for its homophobia. 

An old politician once said to the one who called him president: "I am not the president. I am the person temporarily holding the presidency".Something similar happens with monarchies. Charles III has succeeded Elizabeth II. Inheriting a crown does not mean automatically inheriting the emotional bond that the previous person built over decades. The symbol remains, but it must be re-housed in the newcomer.And in the same way, because no one is saved from this, when a pope dies, it's not just one person who changes. The emotional relationship of millions of people with this position also changes.For years, the pontificate is embodied in a face, a voice, gestures, a way of greeting. At first, the new pope seems almost an intruder. Not because of him, but because he is not yet part of the collective imagination. The office is already his. The affection, not yet.This is why the visit of Leo XIV to Spain is of interest beyond religion. It can also be read from the economy of intangibles: reputation, trust, authority, legitimacy, public presence. Intangibles sustain companies and institutions.The Vatican knows it. It is one of the oldest and most sophisticated organizations in the world. It does not improvise its gestures. A papal visit combines pastoral, diplomacy, communication, and narrative. Every setting, image, photograph, and crowd around it contributes to building the narrative. The new narrative.Spain is an ideal place for a pope who is beginning to build his position. He does not come just to evangelize. He also comes to be seen. To receive warmth. To produce images of continuity. To stop being a distant figure from Rome and to gradually become a recognizable presence.Our country offers something very valuable: cultural Catholicism, street, Mediterranean emotion, and universal heritage. Madrid, Montserrat, the Sagrada Familia, or the Canary Islands are settings with an enormous symbolic charge. The Sagrada Familia, moreover, has this dual condition so useful for Rome: a temple and a global icon.Spain lives an interesting paradox. Religious practice has decreased, but the Catholic symbol is preserved. There are fewer Sunday masses, but processions, shrines, and patron saint festivals continue. This mixture allows the Pope to appear surrounded by affection without seeming trapped in the past.It would be poor to see it as a cold marketing maneuver. But it would also be naive to think that these visits are just pious displacements. In institutions of this scale, public presence builds authority. And authority needs emotion.A pope does not become "the Pope" on the day of his election. On that day he receives the office. Then another task begins: to occupy it before the eyes of the world. Spain, this week, has lent him its squares, its temples, and its crowds to begin doing so.

The visit of Pope Leo XIV to Madrid and Catalonia has turned public television into Vatican TV. And not only because of the hours they are dedicating to covering the event, but because of a treatment more akin to catechists than journalists, dragged uncritically by the show. The level of inflammation became grotesque in the pontiff's meeting with the diocesan community of Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu. Any religious act practiced en masse in a stadium (it also applies to Barcelona's Lluís Companys) is of a disturbing industrialism that exposes the most fragile gears. The supposed recollection becomes a cathartic act of indoctrination through offerings of dubious results. In Madrid, the production brought the camera to the throat of David Bustamante, who sang with ecstatic shrieks that caused bewilderment. The most regrettable came with a kind of football choreography narrated by Manolo Lama and Paco González with a traditional passion that caused secondhand embarrassment. Through a ridiculous metaphor, they sang the supposed goals of the Church: “An open parish! Perfect attendance against loneliness! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goooal! [...] Next play, Paquito! Full dining room! No one asks where it comes from! They welcome you with a smile and make you feel at home! [...] Impeccable finish! Goal against inequality!” It is a disturbing infantilism.At Montjuïc it was not much different. The only thing that marked cultural differences were the Castellers de Vilafranca, with a tower so far from the Pope that the visual and emotional impact of this tradition was lost.It is understandable that the visit to Montserrat, perfectly carried out, was as it was. It is what befits the institution and television is limited to showing it. But the television wrapping of Tot es mou, with views of the Sagrada Família, was cloying. At TV3, broadcasts have forgotten the non-believing spectator or one disconnected from the Church. An audience, incidentally, for whom they have left few alternatives. On Wednesday morning, Helena Garcia Melero's program, imbued with a kind of celestial spirit, gradually lost its tone until it deflated. Public television should not force this transcendence. That is the job of the Church, not journalists. Even the program's team seemed dressed to go to a baptism. Melero, moved and excited, interviewed some experts with a discourse more suited to evangelization and indoctrination than to the desire to disseminate to the general public. They subjected us to an intensive and soporific course in catechism, but also very revealing. "The person who is visiting Catalonia and Barcelona, who need it so much these days, is precisely Jesus," they even told us. The banality and emptiness of the messages, typical of the most basic self-help, connect only with those who are already convinced. For the rest, good luck. There's less to go.

The Barcelona Court has ordered a judge in Mataró to reopen the case of the far-right group Hazte Oír against the magazine Mongolia for having published a satirical illustration of a nativity scene on a 2022 cover. A year ago, the Barcelona Court decided to investigate the three co-editors of the magazine for a crime of offending religious feelings in this case.

On this Sunday's 30 minuts, Power and Glory, kept you glued to the sofa. The investigation into the rise of evangelical churches in Catalonia might initially seem like a matter rather tangential to the country's reality, especially in less religious environments. Perhaps for this reason, they began with three testimonies from Catalans who have become involved. A carpenter from Bellcaire d'Empordà and a couple from Girona served as bait to introduce us to a story that, little by little, took on an unexpected dimension. The 30 minuts sought the viewer's perplexity at scenes of religious fervor and spiritual ecstasy, amidst chants and the pastor's shouts. The difference between the Catalan temperament, more reserved, and the Latin American one, more passionate, was highlighted, with an imprecise use of 'us' and 'them'. us and them.The subsequent examples of neo-Pentecostal Churches in Catalonia made one impatiently await some turn that went beyond that incomprehensible showcase. The overacted pushes to the heads of the faithful to make them fall backward as if fainting, the promises to "dry up cancer," and the cries to heaven to ask for "a new womb" for a woman caused consternation. It took courage to record it without hidden cameras and with the testimony of the very pastors who lead these spectacles. Fortunately, the turning point arrived: the manipulation of people and economic interests. However, the indulgence and fear with which experts in religious matters evaluated that panorama were disappointing. After these images of healing rituals with shouts, roars, and fits of hysteria, Guillem Correa, general secretary of the Evangelical Council of Catalonia – and director of the program Néixer de nou on 3Cat –, remained mute and immobile. He did not want to comment on what we had just seen. We heard the journalist ask him if that was manipulation, but he did not even blink and remained silent. Silence implies consent. It is obvious that talking about religion and its tentacles, not always honest, still generates fear, especially when the line between a Church and a sect becomes more blurred.

We already have a fairly clear diagnosis of Donald Trump. The question now –assuming Trump does not manage to become a lifelong dictator– is: what comes next? The American empire is losing credibility in the world. And, internally, it shows growing difficulties in coexisting with itself.

Joan Vinyes Miralpeix (Anglès, 1918 - Barcelona, 2009) could not long resist the hypocrisy of priestly life, the total submission of the Church to Francoism, nor the celibacy (only apparent) that his condition as a priest imposed on him. All these contradictions, and some more, converged in his last mass, on Sunday, October 1, 1950, when from the pulpit of the church of l'Escala he announced to his astonished parishioners that he was ceasing to be a priest. It was the first case of apostasy in Francoist Girona, which tried by all means to bring him back into the fold of the Church, even through institutional conspiracies to make him appear mad and lock him up in a mental asylum. "In the time of national-Catholicism, it was an act of total rebellion and they could not tolerate it, which is why they considered that he could only be mad," explains Josep Maria Vinyes i Vilà, who has taken care of the memoirs written by his father.

Holy Week. In Spain it means processions, floats, saetas, brotherhoods and entire cities organized around a calendar that is not only religious, but also cultural. In Catalonia it also means jesters, palms and palmons, family getaways and visits to emblematic places linked to the Christian tradition. Many Catalans of Andalusian origin return to their land these days to reconnect with Holy Week, which continues to have enormous strength.All this coexists with a certain intellectual contempt. Not on the part of everyone, of course. But in a large part of the political and urban progressivism, the Catholic religious tradition is usually viewed with a mixture of contempt, irony, and moral superiority. It is tolerated as a picturesque custom, an ancient remnant. Religion is questioned and its symbols are caricatured.The curious thing is that this same country that despises its traditions turns them, when April arrives, into a formidable economic machine. Renfe has scheduled three million places for this Holy Week. In many destinations, hotel reservations are close to full: Cuenca, Toledo, Andalusia, to give some examples. Tradition moves people, fills hotels, sustains restaurants, activates businesses, generates temporary employment, and gives economic meaning to many territories.Seville has even sophisticated the public management of its processions with maps, capacity control, and special mobility devices. Barcelona maintains the Fira de Rams on Rambla de Catalunya, where palms and laurel are sold. Catalan pastry shops are already exhibiting their "monas" as small works of competitive craftsmanship. All of this is real economy.The paradox deserves attention. The legacy is undervalued and then its impact on hospitality, transport, and domestic tourism is celebrated. The symbol is criticized and the box is applauded.Welcome to all this economic activity. But that is not the important thing. The important thing is that they are part of our legacy. Of a historical, cultural and moral heritage that has contributed to shaping us as a society. One may not be a believer, not practice, not share the Catholic faith and, even so, perfectly understand that one cannot live ignoring the Judeo-Christian tradition that has shaped a large part of our culture, our sensitivity, our idea of good and evil, our way of understanding life in common.Each person embraces these dates from a different place: from faith, from family emotion, from memory, from custom, or from simple inheritance. All of this is legitimate. What is poorer is to look at them with dogmatic contempt, as if they were an uncomfortable relic that is only tolerated because it makes money. They are part of us. And it would be advisable to remember this also for Easter.

Asking for extra energy from an indeterminate person or object to pass an exam. Saying "please" while looking at the sky, wishing you were given a job. Interrogating relatives who are no longer here so they push your football team to win a crucial match. Three examples of everyday spirituality, of spontaneous forms of belief often detached from religious practice. According to the information we have from various polls and studies, these forms of instinctive, even automatic and intuitive belief are common in contemporary societies, and Catalonia is no exception. A subjective spirituality that, in the words of Linda Woodhead, prioritizes internal experience and personal development over dogmatic beliefs and hierarchical structures. A form of religiosity or mysticism that has shown no sign of exhaustion as modernity has progressed.

One of the fields that has changed the most in recent decades is how the personal and collective sense of life is experienced. What we also call religiosity. Perhaps more so than politics. So much so that it now offers an extremely complex, not to say confusing, panorama. And wanting to approach it with opinion polls based on how the old schemes of belief and institutional ecclesiastical belonging have been only adds confusion to confusion. The question is no longer even whether one believes in God. The social phenomenon of belief and spirituality overflows all the models used until now.

The extraordinary global resonance of Rosalía's latest album, the success of the film Los domingos, the media coverage of the papal succession, and the more or less "spiritual" bias (the quotation marks are important here) of certain high-audience series have led to the expression "Catholic spring" being used in certain circles. I already referred to Rosalía's specific case a few months ago, because it seemed significant to me, to say the least. The fact that it is a genuine marketing product, albeit of high aesthetic and musical quality, does not discredit the real interest it has generated among many young people (and not so young). How should all this be interpreted? The CIS data show that there has been no increase in the practice of Catholicism in Spain in recent years, but rather a slow and sustained decrease. According to CIS surveys, the percentage of the population declaring themselves Catholic —practicing or not— has fallen from around 60% in 2020 to 55.4% in April 2025, with a particularly marked drop among non-practicing Catholics. In parallel, the groups of agnostics, indifferent, and atheists continue to grow, together accounting for nearly 40% of the population. The CIS does not detect, therefore, any "spring", that is, any generalized upturn; in fact, the dominant trend is progressive secularization. Catholicism continues to be the majority religion in Spain, yes, but it has not experienced any real growth, at least during the 2020-2025 period. All of this, however, does not quite align with the references we presented at the beginning. So, what is happening?There is no structural revival, nor of vocations, nor of liturgical participation, nor of the global proportion of Catholics, but there are micro-tendencies that no one expected and that suggest certain changes in attitude. Could they be symptoms of a minority but significant cultural change? We will see. What we are witnessing is not a sudden explosion of spiritual fervor, but rather the progressive exhaustion of a life model that, for decades, has presented consumption and ultra-individualistic self-sufficiency, without ties or commitments, as immediate paths to happiness. This narrative, which took root strongly from the second half of the 20th century, has been showing its cracks as younger generations have experienced firsthand the consequences of a fragmented, accelerated, and often meaningless life, which demands more and more stimuli (generally, by paying).

There are things that don't change. Like the change of time. It doesn't matter that the seasons are distorted by climate change and that we're on the time of Nazi Germany because Franco had to align himself with the prevailing fascism. Let's see who's brave enough to change it. And even less so now that fascism is trending again and there's so much nostalgia for the eagle that if you're very distracted by the world and see all those people with expired flags, you might think they're an environmental group defending an endangered animal. Of course, in Spain, the eagle on the Francoist coat of arms has never fallen into disuse. And if you confuse an environmental group with a fascist one, it means you're more lost in aesthetics than Lamine Yamal's hairstyle. But we were talking about the time. About change. About things that don't change. Like the collateral damage of a war. As if the main damage, which also doesn't change, wasn't enough. Bombs that destroy. Bombs that kill. Bombs to make more bombs. Bombs to send more bombs. Although it's logical that if your goal is to cause harm and the only human life that matters to you is your own, the more harm you do, the better. The extent of harm for an evil person is infinite. The more people suffer to survive, the better. And with this bunch of psychopaths who are constantly measuring their trumpets to see who has the longest, suffering seems assured. For everyone. Because there are things that don't change. Like resolving conflicts by creating new and worse ones. It also doesn't change that you are rewarded for peace after generating a war. Perhaps the newest thing is that since you're not rewarded by those you expected, you're rewarded by some who believe that football promotes peace. I won't be the one to question that. Because anyone can face a hooligan, a synonym for pacifist. I'm just saying that good taste certainly isn't promoted. And since so many people follow them, they could at least have houses that didn't look like a funeral home. Inside and out.

The third attempt hasn't been successful either. The assembly of the Brotherhood of the Most Pure Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ of Sagunto has once again rejected changing its statutes to allow women to participate. This decision has deeply upset all those citizens who have been working for years to shed the traditional machismo surrounding the celebration. The Ministry of Industry and Tourism also disapproved and is considering revoking the festival's designation as a Festival of National Tourist Interest. The Ministry of Equality is also considering appealing the statutes for "violating the right to equality and non-discrimination." Regardless of what the authorities do, the Inclusive Holy Week collective, made up of both women and men, has ruled out creating an alternative brotherhood, arguing that the Brotherhood of the Most Pure Blood "is the one in Sagunto." Furthermore, they have announced they will take legal action. Their spokesperson, Blanca Ribelles, details this in the newspaper ARA.

The Brotherhood of the Blood of Sagunto, which is an extraordinary name, has rejected, once again, by majority vote, the admission of women as members of the brotherhoodThe Spanish government, ever eager, pressured to make it a mixed-gender event, but alas, 267 members of the brotherhood voted against it. 114 voted in favor. Rejected, just like in 2022. This time, however, a threat loomed: the withdrawal of the National Tourist Interest designation.

Women will continue to be barred from participating in Holy Week in Sagunto. This decision was made by the men of the Brotherhood of the Most Pure Blood, which organizes the festivities in the city, in a secret ballot held this Sunday. For years, there have been calls to allow women to participate as members of the brotherhood, and the controversy continues to grow, but the organization has decided to maintain the ban. This decision risks jeopardizing the festival's recognition as a Festival of National Tourist Interest, a distinction that did not sway the members in their decision. A total of 276 members voted against including women, while 114 voted in favor of changing the statutes to make the traditional Catholic festival more inclusive. The vote, held at the Hermitage of the Most Pure Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, involved modifying an article by changing the word "men" to "people." The Inclusive Holy Week group has called for dozens of people to gather outside the church to protest the decision. Their spokesperson, Blanca Ribelles, explained to Efe that "another great opportunity has been lost" and regretted that the City Council had not commented on the matter. Sagunto's Holy Week has over 500 years of history and a tradition that, according to the male participants—the only ones allowed to speak—is untouchable. The group that wants to make this tradition inclusive has been trying since 2022 to get women's entry into the brotherhood approved. Sunday's extraordinary assembly was held behind closed doors, and of the 1,700 members, only 403 voted (with 22 abstentions, invalid votes, and blank votes).

After proclaiming that the son of the assassinated Ayatollah Khamenei will be the new leader of the Revolution (a fact that, curiously, turns the Republic of Iran into a kind of hereditary monarchy), the voice tasked with announcing this to the Iranian people invoked the obligatory "Allah is great." Days earlier, thousands of miles away, Donald Trump, seated in his presidential office, was surrounded by evangelical pastors who placed their hands on his shoulders while offering prayers for the guidance and protection of the US president and his troops during these difficult times.

In contemporary culture, a return to fascination with the religious and its iconography is becoming evident. Rosalía and her album Lux have been the most visible and global example. But in recent years there has been a surge of expressions of liturgical inspiration and spiritual imagery in the world of fashion, advertising, and music. Sometimes with purely aesthetic pretensions and other times as an emotional resource to appeal to transcendence and feelings of devotion and ecstasy. Sacred language in a pop and kitsch version is conquering secular spaces. We even heard yesterday how a priest blessed the new RAC1 studio and recited the Lord's Prayer as if it were a broadcast from the Church.

This Wednesday, February 18th, the calendar marks an unusual coincidence: the simultaneous start of Catholic Lent and Muslim Ramadan. This exceptional occurrence is solely due to a matter of calendar calculation. Lent depends on the Christian liturgical calendar and the variable date of Easter—which is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox, making it fall between approximately March 23rd and April 25th—while Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, based on the solar calendar, which is about ten to twelve days long each year, making it movable from year to year. Because they follow different calendars and progress at different rates, Lent and Ramadan only sporadically coincide in the Gregorian calendar, as they do in 2026. This simultaneity invites us to ask how these two central periods for the two major religions are similar and how they differ.

Oriol Jara (Barcelona, ​​1980) is a screenwriter and television director. He has been, among other things, assistant director of the program Buenafuente, screenwriter of Poland and currently directs The jungle, the afternoon program on TV3. But Jara is also a Christian activist. And, with the book Why I believe in God, begins a new collection of Destiny of Thought in which various people answer the question posed in the book's title: why do they believe in God?

A lock of blond hair from Jaume I, kept in the Palau de la Música Catalana. The dramatic transformation of Plaça Sant Agustí in the Raval district when the statue of Saint Rita is brought out and the faithful leave messages filled with hopeful petitions to the patron saint of impossible causes. Splinters from the cross on which Jesus was tortured and killed, treasured in the church of Anglesola. A drop of blood from John Paul II, preserved in the church of Our Lady of Prat in Argelès. The Virgin Mary's milk held by the Old Guild of Resellers Association 1447 in Plaça del Pi, Barcelona. The bones of Saint Felix in Vilafranca del Penedès. These are just some of the relics, of legendary origin, that journalist Sergi Ramis (Barcelona, ​​1964) has been finding in chapels, museums, altars, and crypts throughout Catalonia. He explains it, with a good dose of humor, in The Path of Bones: A True Journey Through the Catalonia of Relics (Column).