Pope Benedict in Valencia

On the one hand, Pope Benedict was teaching:
The family is an intermediate institution between the individual and society and nothing can entirely replace it. It is itself founded above all on a profound interpersonal relationship between husband and wife, sustained by affection and mutual understanding. Therefore it receives abundant help from God in the sacrament of matrimony which carreis with it a true vocation to sanctity. May children experience moments of harmony and affecton between their parents more than those of discord or indifference, because the love between father and mother offers to children a great security, and teaches them the beauty of faithful and enduring love.
and on the other hand, protesters were engaged in a naked bicycle ride past the train station to call for "sexual freedom". Yeah - like all these oppressed people round Spain want to engage in sexual freedom but just can't bring themselves to do it unless Pope Benedict changes the teaching of the Catholic Church!

Several people yesterday commented to me on the virtually non-existent television coverage of the Pope's visit to Valencia. Read my lips:

Throw away your television.

Television is yesterday's technology. You do not have to be limited by the news values determined by the BBC, Rupert Murdoch or any other dictator of relativism. The BBC does not care about what about the Catholic Church teaches or values. Do not, as a Catholic, bow down to what the BBC teaches or values. Get your "news" from elsewhere. That way, you get to hear, for example, how the Pope prayed for victims of a tragedy on the underground and met some of their relatives, and how a million Spaniards booed Zapatero when the TV screens showed him in some footage before the Papal Mass.

Just to help you along, here are a few photos culled from the Papa Ratzinger Forum to give you a taste of the emotions in Valencia over the past couple of days. (Click on them to get larger versions.)





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