Pedro Fernández Barbadillo (Bilbao, 1965) holds a PhD in Public Law from the Universidad San Pablo CEU and a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the newspaper El País. He works as a journalist for several Spanish media such as libertaddigital.com and gaceta.es. He was director of the news services of 7NN channel (2022-2023). He has written two humorous books about Basque nationalism and the socialist Prime Minister Rodríguez Zapatero, another about Spain under Franco’s regime (Eternamente Franco), a selection of characters and episodes of the Spanish Golden Age (Eso no estaba en mi libro de historia del Imperio español) and a history of the United States through its presidents, its Constitution and its electoral system (Los césares del imperio americano). He coordinated the book edited in 2020 by the ECR group of the European Parliament entitled Historical Memory: threat to peace in Europe.

Spain has a very serious problem of national unity, due to the Basque and, above all, Catalan separatists. In 2017, these last organized a coup d’état to proclaim a separate republic. Then, the secessionists counted on the neglect of the PP Government. The situation has worsened because the Socialist Pedro Sanchez has agreed his investitures and numerous laws with the separatists’ parties and pays them with money, pardons and privileges.

The Catalan and Basque bourgeois nationalisms survived during Franco’s regime under the protection of a sector of the clergy, in Spain and in Rome. The arrival of the Polish Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła (1920-2005) to the Throne of St. Peter’s in October 1978 brought about new relations with these nationalist groups, both of confessional origin. The Catalan nationalist Jordi Pujol discovered with surprise that the new Pope preferred a united Spain. And for this very reason, millions of Spaniards will always be grateful to St. John Paul II.

The interest in having the backing of John Paul II in the promotion of a 'nation without a state’ persuaded Pujol, president of the Generalitat (the Catalan regional government) between 1980 and 2003, travel to Rome in January 1981 to present two issues to the Pope: the visit to the sanctuary of Montserrat as part of his official trip to Spain and the demand that the bishops of the Catalan dioceses continue to be nationalist. He also opened an embassy under the guise of a cultural office to flatter the more cardinals the better.

The first disappointment with John Paul II occurred during the papal visit to Spain in October and November 1982. Jordi Pujol and his wife, Marta Ferrusola (both indicted for immense corruption, along with their children, although the lady has been declared unimpeachable due to illness), noticed him distant during their visit to Montserrat.

This is how Pujol told it: “I have two mainstays since I was young: Catalanism and Christianity. I value the joys they give me and the disenchantments hurt me. And John Paul II’s coldness hurt me. I know when they listen to you and are interested in you. And he, as a Christian and as a guest of a country in dramatic circumstances, had the obligation to take an interest or, at least, to show it” (El Periódico de Cataluña, 18-10-2009).

John Paul II, who received his doctorate degree with a thesis on the Spanish poet St. John of the Cross, did not sympathize with nationalism and opposed its plans, although he made some very questionable appointments of bishops, undoubtedly due to the lists of three bishops sended to Rome by the nuncios.

Among the pains of the Catholic Catalanists is the fact that the Pope didn’t use the Catalan language in any of its messages to the faithful on the occasion of the great feasts of the Church. However, the greatest sin of John Paul II was the division of the ecclesiastical province of Barcelona into two others, because it broke a supposed “pastoral unity of Catalonia”.

In addition, John Paul II tried to stop the politicization of the Catholic hierarchy in Catalonia by appointing Valencian bishops. The rot is so deep that this remedy failed.

Today Catalonia is the most de-Christianized region in Spain, as evidenced by religious practice, empty seminaries and the falling birth rate. The Catalanists, nurtured by many Catholic sacristies and schools, have failed to transmit their faith even to their children and also to maintain a united Catalonia. The division among Catalans is so sharpe that even young people reject the use of Catalan lenguaje in their daily life. And the small groups of Catholics that do exist reject nationalist sentiment.