Sunday, January 09, 2005

A Secular Bishop

There is those within the Catholic Church that understand that there is not reason why this institution should pronounce itself in regards of the Basque self determination in general and the Plan Ibarretxe in particular.

It is only the more reactionary sectors of the Catholic Church the ones that tend to position themselves on the side of those who are still clinging to past glories in Spain.

Here is a note about what a Basque Bishop has to say regarding the reaction of the Opus Dei:

Bishop Uriarte says Church cannot judge proposal from moral standpoint

He was responding to the declarations made by the Spanish Bishops’ Conference with respect to the Basque Autonomous Community Government’s Statute Proposal

Editorial StaffDONOSTIA (San Sebastian)

In a letter made public yesterday Juan Maria Uriarte, the Bishop of Donostia (San Sebastian), said passing judgement on the recently approved New Statute Proposal of the BAC Government was not one of his ecclesiastical duties. “I do not have sufficient motives to give a moral assessment which would involve the Church’s authority,” said the Bishop in his letter.

The aim of the Bishop’s letter was to respond to the declaration the Spanish Bishops’ Conference had made the day before yesterday about the BAC Government’s proposal. In a statement put out the day before yesterday the Spanish Bishops’ Conference in fact fiercely criticised the New Statute Proposal, Basque nationalism and independence as options. Uriarte said it was not one of the Bishop’s duties “to determine the juridical or political nature of the text or to impose limits on how far the proposal should go”.


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2 comments:

  1. Unfortunately we are quite used to see the bishops here use the pulpits as places to promote their political views of everything. They talked about the new gay marriage law, calling the people to rally out against it. They do the same whenever something hits the news and they also did it with the Ibarretxe's plan.

    The good thing is that as time passes by, less people take care of their opinions.

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  2. Yes indeed, that is why I mentioned in my previous post that they should worry about the dwindling numbers among those who go to church now a days instead of playing politics.

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