Dawn

Dawn

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Under Franco, the Roman Catholic church was given an annual subvention by the state, partly to recognise the part it played in education. 27 years ago the government and the church agreed this would stop and the latter would become self-financing. Since then, taxpayers have been given the chance to tick a box on their annual return authorising a small payment to the church. But this has been a complete sham as the subvention never ceased and the amount handed over by the state has been a fixed sum, bearing no relation at all to the notional personal gifts. However, the reform is finally being implemented and the church will now lose its subsidy and, instead, receive whatever funds the faithful give via the tax option. To compensate, the amount votable to will be a slightly higher percentage than before. It strikes me this is somewhat short of self-financing in that it’s a proportion of their tax [i. e. the state’s income] that the faithful are allocating to the church but I suppose, if none of them are feeling generous, then it really will have to fund its expenditure entirely from its own resources. So, a step forward at least. But I fear we can now expect an ad campaign on behalf of the RC hierarchy. Which should be interesting.

I suppose there must be some Spaniards who resent the fact us Anglos regard them as a pretty law-avoiding lot. Though I wouldn’t bank on it as everyone here seems aware of the general norm that you don’t obey any rules which you find personally inconvenient. And then there are the very visible examples such as the flagrant ignoral by the TV companies of the law obliging them to give at least 11 days notice of a change of program. This offence is committed frequently and with complete impunity, most often as ‘counter-programming’ designed to torpedo the first episode of a competitor’s new series. Which is what was done to Ana to Obregon last week. But the government has said it’s had enough of this abuse and is going to put a stop to it. Demonstrating yet again that core Spanish quality of pragmatism, it’s announced the 11 day notice requirement will be reduced to 3. This will do wonders for the statistics and, of course, send out the message that crime doesn’t pay. As if. What it also means is the TV schedules will now be even less useful than they were before. But this, of course, is the very essence of Spanish planning; it’s not to be taken too seriously. There’s always teletext if you want to know what’s possibly coming on in the next 5 minutes. What more do you need?

A final word on the Ana Obregon program. Well, two. Firstly, it’s now been described as the Spanish version of Sex in the City, as well as the Spanish version of Desperate Housewives. Though both of these were rather more successful, of course. Secondly, one of the 6 women in the hostel for betrayed females is a nun. I wonder who cheated on her. As they’re traditionally regarded as being married to God, there seems to be only one candidate.

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