Spanish cardinal calls on faithful to avoid turning Holy Week into “vacation period

Toledo, Spain, Feb 27, 2007 / 10:19 am

The Archbishop of Toledo, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, warned this week against the “secularization of Holy Week, which has been de-Christianized and even paganized and has become a time for short vacations, for tourism, or just resting.”

According to the Cardinal, as reported by Europa Press, many people have the lost the sense of sacred that characterize the days of Holy Week and no longer attend the many religions celebrations and processions even as mere spectators.

“Let’s admit it,” the Cardinal continued, “sometimes we ourselves are to blame, as in the case of Holy Week, because we often consider it more important that certain processions be declared of national or regional tourist interest than the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the accompanying of the Lord and his most Holy Mother on their paths or stations,” he said.

“This makes me very said and concerns me greatly, because we are moving towards a generalized secularization,” Cardinal Cañizares stressed.  “In new times it is necessary to find new ways of living and celebrating the faith, the only faith,” he said.

The cardinal expressed concern that the traditional Holy Week processions have lost a degree of religious meaning and have become mere “cultural expressions, devoid of the content and the faith that should animate them.”  He cautioned Catholics not to reduce Holy Week to mere participation in the processions or to strip them of genuine evangelical and Christian sentiments.

“What is most important is the Passion and Resurrection of Christ,” the Cardinal stressed, “the mystery of the Passion of Christ, of the only God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead, events that are central to our faith and to the history of humanity.”