From her small convent in the mountains near Barcelona, Sister Teresa Forcades, a Harvard-educated Catalan nun, has emerged as a leading advocate of Spain’s “indignant” protest movement against the excesses of capitalism. In an interview, Forcades denounced the austerity measures implemented by Spain’s conservative government.
The government imposed the cuts to rein in the public deficit.
However, “the cuts go against the needs of the majority and go in favor of the interests of a minority,” Forcades said.
Photo: AFP
Forcades, wearing her nun’s black habit, spoke seated in the leafy garden of the convent at Sant Benet, about 50km north of Barcelona, which she shares with 35 other nuns.
This feminist and radical thinker has lived at the convent near the Montserrat mountain since 1997.
Forcades is a doctor by training. She rose to prominence during the height of the global swine flu outbreak in 2009 when she argued that vaccines against the disease rushed out by pharmaceutical companies had not been properly tested for public use.
Now, together with Arcadi Oliveres, a 67-year-old economist who is one of the ideologues behind Spain’s “indignant” movement, she has launched a political manifesto. And in just two days it has collected 14,000 signatures.
Among her proposals is a unilateral declaration of independence by Catalonia, a region of about 7.5 million people, which has its own language and culture.
She also advocates the nationalization of banks and energy firms, housing rights and tough measures against corruption.
“Why should there be a tax on basic goods and no tax on financial trading?” she asked.
However, while she said she was against the abuses of capitalism, she did not oppose private enterprise.
The goal of the two campaigners is to present a “citizen’s list” of candidates to stand in the next regional elections in Catalonia in northeastern Spain. Those elections are scheduled for 2016 — two years after the region is set to hold an independence referendum.
“We think it is imperative, necessary and possible to change society” by non-violent means, Forcades said.
Born in 1966 in Barcelona, Forcades said her family considered “the Church, like the monarchy, to be an outdated institution.”
However, when she was 15-years-old she read the Bible for the first time and discovered her religious vocation.
“It had an impact on me,” said Forcades, who expresses her strong convictions in a soft voice and a friendly demeanor.
She studied theology in the US and in Barcelona after completing her studies as a doctor.
However, she said the basis of her religious convictions lay in Liberation Theology, a strand of Catholicism that emerged in the 1960s in Latin America which seeks to empower the poor.
Forcades said the first theology book which she read was Jesus Christ Liberator: A Critical Christology for Our Time by Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian Franciscan professor.
The author of three books herself, including one on feminist theology, Forcades criticized the “misogyny” which she sees within the Church.
“I would like it if within the Church, and within society, nobody, neither a man or a woman, has their access to the government or a liturgical position blocked because of their gender,” she said.
An advocate of contraceptives, Forcades argues the Catholic Church needs to “humanize” its position on abortion.
Reforms would likely advance under Pope Francis, who may be more receptive than his predecessors to an “internal democratization” of the Church, she said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese