Madrid, July 2nd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
Spanish women are having fewer children than they would like due to a lack of money and the difficulty of combining professional and family life.

A government study into the phenomenon of low birth rates interviewed 1,500 women aged between 20 and 45 years old. 51% of them have two children, 38% of them just one, and 10% have got three. This works out at an average of 1.7 children per mother, which falls far short of the average 2.7 that they would like to have. Yet only 12% say they would be willing to give up their job to devote more time to their family.

37.7% say they don’t have more children due to lack of money, while 25.1% say it is because of the difficulty of combining parenthood and career. 28% think government aid would help increase the birth rate, almost the same proportion of mothers asked believe allowing them to work part-time would be beneficial, while a further 27% say more nurseries would do the trick.

Madrid, July 2nd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
The Secretary of the Papal Commission on Social Communications, Monsignor Enrique Planas, and the Auxiliary Bishop of Madrid, César Franco, presented an ‘Internet Guide to the Catholic Church’ which includes 15,000 websites run by different ecclesiastical and non-confessional organisations.

The Guide has been compiled by the Madrid Archbishopric, the Computer Network of the Catholic Church in Latin America, and the Local Education Authority in the Spanish capital. Planas said it was only the first step in getting to know websites which give information about the Catholic Church, and there are some obvious omissions such as Press agencies which give religious news, such as Europa Press, EFE or Religiondigital.

The presenters highlighted the cheapness of placing and searching for information on the Web, and the fact that there is no censorship. The Guide, which is not actually going to be on sale until September, is intended to contain around 45,000 addresses eventually. The Guide includes the Mormon Church among a list of cults, and when asked about this by a journalist, one of the presenters said this was because they did not accept Jesus Christ as God and thereby could be defined as a cult.

Madrid, July 3rd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
As expected, the Spanish Baptist Union (UEBE) has opted to re-affirm its commitment to the World Baptist Alliance, in the light of the decision of the American Southern Baptists to leave the Alliance on the grounds of that organisation’s liberal stance on various issues.

The UEBE says it laments the division caused. The Southern Baptists represented by far the single largest grouping in the Alliance, but could no longer put up with such things as tolerance towards homosexuals, allowing women ministers, and anti-American pronouncements (the Alliance has publicly criticised the policy of the current American government). The Alliance has denied the accusations made against it, but its defence has a hollow ring to it. Its criticism of the Bush administration over the Iraq war was probably the last straw, though doctrinal differences have been emerging over several years.

The Southern Baptists is the biggest denomination to back Coalition action against Saddam Hussein, whereas European groups have generally been critical. The General Secretary of the UEBE, Manuel Sarrias, told ACPress that their position, already made clear in official statements, is that they support the World Baptist Alliance and are very saddened by the split.

Madrid, July 3rd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
Protestant writer and historian, César Vidal, has won the Spirituality Prize for Literature 2004 awarded by a publishing house in Barcelona, for a book about Jesus.

The book, with echoes of the 1960s best-seller ‘The Great Fisherman’, is a novel written from Peter’s perspective, and in which Jesus is the central character. Its title is ‘The Fisherman’s Trial’.

Martínez Roca Publishers, which belongs to the Planeta group, began awarding the Spirituality Prize in 1999, with the aim of promoting literature which helped people’s inner search, touched the deepest longings of the human soul, and elevated the spirit from the day-to-day to the transcendent. The prize is worth 3 million pesetas (18,000 euros, app.), and 6,000 euros for the runner-up.

César Vidal is without doubt the best-known Spanish evangelical in secular circles, for his many books on a wide variety of subjects, and for his frequent appearances on television on chat shows.

Madrid, July 3rd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
Setting the seal on Princess Letizia’s ‘return’ to Catholicism, she and her husband ­ Prince Felipe ­ went to the Vatican and received the papal blessing on their marriage ­ despite the fact that she is a divorcée.

This is the latest in a series of events designed to identify the royal couple with Roman Catholicism. They had a private 6-minute audience with the Pontiff, before being joined by such dignitaries as the Head of the Royal Household, Alberto Aza, and the Spanish Ambassador to the Vatican, Jorge Dezcállar. This brought the whole time spent with the Pope to 25 minutes, which were described as ‘cordial’. The Pope made a short speech in Spanish in which he thanked the newly-weds for coming to see him, adding that “the birth of a new family is a great event for the husband and wife, and for society.”

The couple gave the Pope a silver statuette of the Virgin of Pilar signed by them both, and the Pope returned the compliment (?) by giving them 20 medals explaining the mysteries of the rosary. Another great mystery waiting to be revealed is whether the royal couple will follow with the same devotion the Vatican’s teaching on family planning.

Madrid, July 3rd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
A study carried out by a German Internet dating agency shows that men suffer more from loneliness than women.

More than a third of the unattached men interviewed said they wanted a woman with whom to share their life. It seems that the alleged tendency of men towards ‘polygamy’ is actually only a cover for amorous ‘adventures’. The German website ‘Liebe.de’ found that Germans, at least, do not like changing partner much. Only 2% said that variety in this regard was the spice of life. More than two-thirds though said they would rather have a settled, serious relationship. The most liberal replies on this issue came from girls under 20, but even then only accounted for 6% of those interviewed.

The older people get, the more conservative they become in matters of love. This explains why men over 50 are those who suffer most from loneliness. However, women over this age do not seem to mind being on their own nearly as much. The proportion of teenage girls who think being on their own is terrible is around a third, but this drops to merely a sixth of women over the age of 50. 20% of women think money is important in a relationship, whereas only 10% of men do, and more than half of the males asked said that love was a gift from heaven, whatever the financial situation.

Madrid, July 3rd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
The Spanish Bible Society has given its Portuguese counterpart 1,000 copies of an edition of the New Testament entitled ‘Win or Lose’, to hand out to footballers at the European Championship being held there.

The edition also includes testimonies from various well-known Christian sports personalities. The Bible Society also sent 250 New Testaments in Italian to hand out free of charge.

 Valencia, July 3rd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
The centrepiece of the 13th Valencia Book Fair is undoubtedly the Guttemberg Bible.

Fifteen publishers have stalls and offer a wide variety of literature for sale, including children’s books, history, art catalogues and dictionaries. Vicent García Publishers are offering a 2nd edition of the 1455 Guttemberg Bible, priced at 3,000 euros, well below the tag of 7,800 euros which the 1st edition cost and which sold out within a few days. The Bible was the first work published by the German printer on the machine he built himself, a machine which caused a cultural revolution and led to a much greater spread of ideas.

Another gem on offer is the book called the best edited work in the world, an edition of Virgil printed on parchment leaves and costing almost 4,000 euros.

Madrid, July 3rd, 2004 (ACPress.net).
What previous governments have perhaps feared is now coming true; withdraw exclusivity of privilege from the Catholic Church and you open the floodgates to every weird and wonderful religious group who want state recognition.

 The Bahai Community, which numbers about 3,500 in Spain, has asked the government to afford the group’s marriage ceremonies legal recognition. The request was made public by Miguel Gil, a Bahai spokesman, to a group of journalists who report religious affairs. Gil was married in Australia as an immigrant to an Iranian woman who followed the Bahai religion. He wants the rule which covers the four ‘historically-recognised’ confessions to be extended to cover all religious groups. Currently, only Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim weddings are recognised legally. All other unions must be ratified in a civil ceremony.

Gil complained that numbers should not be determinative, and that anyway there were only 10,000 Jews in Spain. Gil also called for the state to recognise the Bahai ‘holy days’ and for state aid to be made available to them.