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Kynes on 18 August 2011
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sapphi_snake said:
Kynes said:


No, you don't seem to understand that you don't have to be a theocracy or a secular country, you have other government types. I will repeat again, we don't have an official religion, and we aren't a secular country. The presence of the religion in public acts isn't forbidden. Is the USA a secular country? Is UK one? Norway? Israel?

 

Related to taxpayers money, nowadays the Catholic Church only has that direct benefit, the 0.7% of the income tax of the users who decide to provide it. It used to have exemptions in the VAT, and some direct funding, as any other religion based on the percentage of believers, but several years ago they were overruled. Some people argue that the use of catholic schools as state-subsidized ones is an indirect way of funding it, but as I have mentioned before, one student in a catholic school is way cheaper to the Spanish taxpayer than a student in a public school one.

So, Spain's not a theocracy, yet it gives benefits to a particular religion? That just seems wrong, and I think Spaniards (who care about religious freedom of course) should fight to change that.  And the US constitution actually forbids the Government and religious institutions for interferring with eachother. In the US the Government would never fund a religious event like the Pope visiting.

And if the state subsidizes catholic schools, then it's pretty obvious that it's funded by the state. Which means that catholic schools should follow the same rules as normal public schools do: no prayers, no religious symbols in the classroom etc.

Read again the edited post, the Catholic Church isn't the only one with benefits, any religion with a high enough number of followers has in some way or another public funding.

This isn't the first time the Pope has gone to any country, and it always is partly funded via taxpayers money. Do you really believe that when the Pope went to the USA, the Vatican paid everything? If you believe so, then you're less clever than you seem to believe you are.