VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI visits Portugal this week to mark key anniversaries surrounding Fatima, the famous shrine beloved by his predecessor. What he will find is an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country that like much of western Europe has strayed far from church teaching on key issues and is in the throes of Europe's spreading financial crisis
The center-left Socialist government passed a law in 2007 allowing abortion on demand. In 2008, the Socialists introduced a law allowing a judge to grant a divorce even if one of the spouses is opposed. In January, Parliament passed a bill seeking to make the country the sixth in Europe allowing same-sex couples to marry.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, didn’t rule out that the pontiff would raise the gay marriage issue during the four-day visit, which starts Tuesday and will bring the 83-year-old pontiff to the capital Lisbon, Fatima, and Porto, the country’s second-largest city.
Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins was more blunt: "Certainly during the trip he will confront many arguments that aren’t strictly religious, concerning those values and principles which – aside from being Christian – are human, such as the value of life, the value of family," he told Associated Press Television News.
Those terms are Vatican-speak for the church’s opposition to abortion and its belief that a family is based on marriage between a man and a woman.
Portugal is nearly 90 percent Catholic, but only around 2 million of the country’s 10.6 million people describe themselves as practicing Catholics. Like much of western Europe, it has seen the number of priests drop sharply and Benedict himself lamented the "growing sea of non-practicing Christians" when he met with Portuguese bishops at the Vatican in 2007.
Speaking to pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Benedict told them he would have the "joy" of visiting Portugal, and he asked faithful for their prayers. He also asked them to pray for the church, "in particular for priests", but made no mention of the clerical sex abuse scandals rocking the church in much of Europe.
Prime Minister Jose Socrates has been the driving force behind the abortion and gay marriage initiatives, saying they are part of his attempt to "modernize" Portugal, western Europe’s poorest country.
Portugal’s Catholic bishops strongly opposed the gay marriage bill, and tried unsuccessfully to put it to a referendum; the conservative President Anibal Cavaco Silvo must now decide whether to veto or ratify the bill.
Portugal has also been hard hit by the financial crisis and is currently striving to avoid becoming the next victim of Europe’s debt problems. Mounting debts have forced the government to enact an austerity plan, including a public sector pay freeze, sparking outrage from unions and leftist parties.
Portugal’s Minister for the Cabinet, Pedro Silva Pereira, told the church’s news agency Ecclesia he expected Benedict to address the crisis, noting the pontiff’s 2009 encyclical "Charity in Truth" dealt specifically with the global financial meltdown.
He called the visit a "mobilization of hope" that was important not just for Portugal but other countries facing a "very painful crisis."
Technically, though, the heart of Benedict’s trip is in Fatima, where he will celebrate a Mass on May 13, the anniversary of the day in 1917 when three Portuguese shepherd children reported having visions of the Virgin Mary.
Since then, the Fatima shrine has drawn millions of pilgrims a year and was a favorite of Pope John Paul II, who made his third and final visit in 2000 when he beatified two of the three shepherds.
During that visit, the Vatican revealed the so-called third secret of Fatima, the third part of the message the Virgin allegedly told the children: a description of the May 13, 1983 assassination attempt on John Paul.
John Paul believed the Virgin intervened to spare his life after a Turkish gunman fired on him in St. Peter’s Square. In gratitude, he gave the bullet extracted from his wound to the Fatima shrine and it now adorns the crown of a statue of the Virgin where Benedict will pray.
The gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, has said he wanted to travel to Fatima to meet with Benedict; no such meeting is on the pontiff’s schedule.
Agca’s lawyer, Haci Ali Ozhan, said he received a telephone call from the Portuguese prime minister’s office asking Agca to postpone his visit to Fatima because authorities there will be overwhelmed with the pope’s pilgrimage. Ozhan said Agca will be traveling there at a later, unspecified, date.
The prime minister’s spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
The first two secrets of Fatima have long been known and were said to have foretold the end of World War I and the outbreak of World War II and the rise and fall of Soviet communism.
No new secrets are expected during Benedict’s visit, which marks the 10th anniversary of the beatification of the two shepherds and the fifth anniversary of the death of the third — Sister Lucia. Lucia is on an accelerated path to beatification, the first step before possible sainthood. Saraiva Martins, the retired head of the Vatican’s saint-making office, says no announcements on her case are expected.
___
