¨Catholic¨ Spain or Galicia

Coming from a Catholic family, when I announced I'd be moving to Spain, they were pleased since Spain is such a Catholic country. But as my parents can attest to on their recent Christmastime visit, in practice Spain isn't as Catholic as it's cracked up to be.

A small church somewhere between greenery and sea

I wanted to take my parents to a local mass in one of the over 3,000 small churches that dot the Galician countryside. But I knew that mass is not said in every parish every week. You do the math: there are around 3,700 parishes throughout Galicia and how many priests? A few hundred, if that? Fortunately for us, my parents' visit coincided with our parish's turn to host mass. So off we went, to be the talk of the town. Foreigners in our tiny village church, which isn't even on the Camiño de Santiago. Imagine!

At the end of mass, the priest mentioned seeing everyone in two weeks time, since the rotation goes every two weeks. After being dismissed, I asked the one neighbor who I am relatively friendly with about mass for Christmas day. ¨There is no Christmas mass in the village. Do you want to go? I guess you'd have to go to the city.¨ So let me get this straight. One of the holiest days of the Catholic calendar, and you just check out because there isn't mass in the parish?! Huh? Similarly, every other weekend when the priest goes to another parish, it would appear nobody makes an effort to seek out mass in another church. The neighbors in attendance couldn't even tell me which parish the priest alternates with. So that was interesting if not astounding. It would appear that mass is a social activity for 90% of people. When there's mass in the village, they go to it as a social outing to chat after mass in the churchyard. And if there's no mass, well, it's no skin off their nose. 

The world-famous Cathedral of Santiago

Another example of this blasé attitude which I'm sure shocked my parents was Communion. Where I'm from in the USA, just about everybody (kids who have made their first communion and older) goes to Communion during the mass. That's the whole point of going to church. When about 30 people attended mass in the village alongside us, a total of five people went to Communion. Including my two parents! My folks were taken aback. (Me, not so much, as I had discovered this phenomenon previously). When we went to mass at the Cathedral the following week, logically more people went up to Communion, but still not the same percentage of participation we are used to seeing back home.

I'm sure after these experiences, my parents went home rethinking their concept of a Catholic Spain. Lots of relics and churches hundreds of years old? Absolutely. Lots of faithful gathered on a weekly basis? Not so much. 

Note: I should add that while this attitude is common in Galicia, I can't confirm it in the rest of Spain. I remember the Basque Country being similar. Northerners tend to think alike in some regards. But people in the southern half of Spain (especially Andalucía, ahem) have a reputation of being very religious. So maybe they are keeping Catholic Spain alive.