Portugal's general discussion (general events)

[jojoju1998]

The controversy surrounding the 4 million euros stage for the Catholic World Youth Days:

This slowmotion trainwreck continued during the day:

- According to RTP, the Vatican rejected the first stage project, costing around 2 million euros, and forced changes like more space and a big starcase. These changes would increase the cost to 4 million, adding to this the foundations of the stage, a further 2 million;

- Adding to this, transparency in this event is close to... well, zero. Lisbon city has announced that will spend 36,5 million euros, Loures city hall 10 million and the Government 35 million euros. But the Portuguese Catholic Church is refusing to disclose their spending as is Oeiras city hall. The known spending is around 80 million euros, but it could be much more;

- Plus, because everything is being made in "botched" way, organizations, local government that is, are recurring to direct contracts to have things done, from actual construction to simple t-shirts;

Further more, this is just my opinion, if the organization expects more than 1,5 million people in Lisbon during a single week in August, how will the "bursting" Lisbon airport handle all of this people? We'll see.

Of course, the jokes regarding all of "this" are spreading on social media:
https://twitter.com/insoniascarvao/status/1618232544532762626

I saw the project now and 4.2 million doesn't seem like that much anymore

Can't the world youth day organizers try to get some Private funding in to defray the costs ?

[jojoju1998]

Can't the world youth day organizers try to get some Private funding in to defray the costs ?

That's one question that the media and many are asking, why isn't private organizations financing the event? There are some reasons: organizations in Portugal, from businesses to other profit base companies, don't want to invest in an event in which they could lose money and have few control in its organization. Plus, because there was the initial decision to upgrade a whole part of Lisbon city just to hold this event, private and public funding would mix, and in Portugal, when that happens, there's always trouble. Civil society would also be a solution, but it's not strong enough or wealthy enough to pay for the cost of this event. And then you have the Church, and here's the complicated part. The government could actually say "well, it's a religious event, the Church should pay it", but the relationship between the State and Church is close and there's also the "mystery" about the real wealth of the Catholic Church in Portugal. For example, Fátima Sanctuary hasn't published their accounts in more than 10 years and the Church itself isn't detailing precisely how much they will spend in this event.

So, when you have private business unwilling to spend money in an event they don't know if it will profit them, a civil society too poor to contribute and a Church who isn't transparent in its accounts, what's left? The State.

The main criticism of this event is that there is no organization and/or planning what so ever. Adding to this, there are the political rivalries, aka blame game, between the PSD controlled Lisbon city hall and the PS national government. If things were planned with time, some private funding probably would be raised and the cost of the stage itself could have been highly reduced, but, like everything here in Portugal, it goes horribly wrong but all ends well.

When Philly hosted the World Meeting of Families in 2015, there was a bunch of private Funding. Basically Corporate America fundraised 30 million dollars for the event. https://www.ncronline.org/news/parish/funds-raised-world-meeting-families-stand-30-million-so-far

Even Blue Shield, a major private health insurance company in the US got involved because of the media exposure.

And, the crowds in return brought alot of revenue for the City.


American style Capitalism baby.

[jojoju1998]

The shockwaves of the Catholic Church sexual abuse report continue:

- Parties, left to right, support the idea to extend the statute of limitations for abuse crimes from the current 23 years to 30 years, like the report proposes. So far, party leaders from PSD, CHEGA, IL and BE support the idea;

- The abuse report points that more than 100 priests that committed sexual abuses are still active in the Church and the community. A list was compiled and it will be sent to the DA office;

- The controversial statement from President Marcelo and other Bishops, last year, that seemed to downplay the number of abuses in Portugal, infuriated, according to the report, victims and led more to come out and tell their story to the committee. In the report, abuse victims say that Marcelo's and other Bishops remarks were "insulting", "revolting" and "inadmissible";

- The report also says that parts of the Church continue to be non cooperative in denouncing abuses. The report writes that the dioceses of Setúbal and Beja did not respond to the committee nor collaborated in denouncing abuses;

Does the Portugese Catholic church have something similar to the Dallas Charter accords that the US Catholic Church developed in 2002 ?