to give context and to vent a little more:
this week is the World Youth Day (stupid ass name its a whole damned week) which is basically comic con but for catholic youth. this year, the event is happening in lisbon and its been a Whole Thing for several reasons:
for starters, this event has cost us, so far, over 40 million euros, payed with taxpayer money. im atheist and my boyfriend is muslim but our money is being used for this catholic event fyi. we're a secular state btw, if you care, so im not sure how this is being justified. they built like 3 different stages for the pope, one them cost like 4 million euros. why?
"oh but the 40 million will be payed for by the pilgrims and their spending" Wrong :3 most pilgrims are staying in volunteers' homes (volunteers who played to be volunteers btw) and there is a network of hundreds of restaurants giving out free meals for pilgrims and there is also a meal plan to give these people food. so no, not only are they not spending enough money here to pay off this nonsense, but we're spending more to make sure they have everything for free
the event is happening in lisbon, the capital, and so what they decided to do was shut down roads, meaning the centre is practically closed off to everyone who is not participating in the event. local businesses are fucked this week and people working there can't work either. this also messes up a whole bunch of other businesses around lisbon because traffic is a mess and services are chaotic
they removed all homeless people from the city centre because its "a bad look"
all of this btw, mere months after an investigation found over 4 800 cases of sexual abuse involving priests and catholic clergy where no one was brought to justice. signs and billboards about this (all legal) have been taken down and protests against the event have been prohibited (which is unconstitutional. btw)
portugal has over 2 million people on the verge of poverty and food banks have recorded an increase of people asking for help. our public transport is a mess on a good day and we have no money to pay decent pensions to retired folk.
but suddenly we have 40 million to spend on this joke. suddenly public transport works just fine and we have plenty of food to give out to pilgrims.
this country is a joke, this whole thing is a joke i dont care about your faith, you can believe in whatever, i care about my government using our money and resources that should be for us to clean up the catholic church's image after all these horrific crimes came to light.
everyone involved should be ashamed
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