Churches in Madrid and Barcelona

Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Barcelona

In our trip to Spain last month, we visited two important cities of Barcelona and Madrid. The cities are developing fast. My son who has been n Barcelona for the past two years at IESE has been telling of the work ethic in Spain. Government files move very slow here, and decisions take a lot of time. The people take it easy. 

While we were staying in the two cities, we came to see how the roadside pubs used to get full with customers from 9 am itself till midnight. We do not see real drunkards on the road like in India.

Toledo Cathedral

Spain was once upon a time a heavy Catholic country with great impact from the Vatican in Rome. There are more Catholics in the country in this country of 48 million people. Madrid city has a population of 3.2 million, double that of Barcelona.

Barcelona has been building a great church Sagrada Familia for the past 150 years, the construction is still continuing. I got the opportunity to enter inside the Cathedral. Really massive structure though the spiritual content was missing. The Catholic church should be aware of this aspect, the physical structure is important but the spiritual impact it creates on the human body is more important. 

The main aisle of Toledo Cathedral

After Barcelona we went to Madrid and spent a couple of days there. We went on a day long visit to Toledo which was the capital of Spain till 1560 AD. The Toledo cathedral was a marvel. I have not seen the Vatican St. Peters Basilica nor the other churches in Vatican, but I was told after the Vatican Toledo has the world's greatest churches. 

The churches are too big, but do they match with matching spiritual thoughts of the people ? 

The christian Catholic culture and traditions in Spain are too rich to be ignored. It is part and parcel of the Spanish culture. The riches Spain enjoys is partly due to their stealing the riches from North and South America from the fifteenth century.

The Spaniards were quite cruel in how they acquired land and riches from the Americas.

In America, events took their own course. The Spanish conquistadors, who went to Hispaniola and then to other Caribbean islands and finally to the mainland, were rough and violent. They took what they wanted, and when the Indians resisted--or even when they did not--the conquistadors attacked and slaughtered them. www.crf-usa.org

Spaniard history has been filled with lot of unfortunate events but we find Spain to be growing centre in Europe for automobile accessories, medical and electronics industry. Being a member of NATO, Spain has been dictating its presence to the world.

George..