In a spectacle that left traffic wardens weeping into their hi-vis vests and the city’s gin supply dangerously depleted, His Holiness the Pope this weekend conducted an open-air Mass so colossal it could only be measured in units of sheer, unadulterated awe. Madrid, a city usually more concerned with the correct temperature of its tortilla than with matters of the soul, was turned into a giant, sprawling cathedral with no roof, where the only stained glass was the collective tears of the devout and the occasional pigeon doing a fly-past over the altar.
Let us be clear, dearest reader. I am no friend of organised religion. My own spiritual compass points firmly towards the bottom of a bottle of Plymouth Navy Strength. Yet even a cynical old soak like myself had to begrudgingly admire the logistical chutzpah of this operation. Five million souls, they say. Five million. That is more than the population of New Zealand, all gathered in one place to listen to a man in a white hat talk about mercy. You could have filled the Wembley Stadium fifty times over and still had enough leftover believers to start a small theocracy in Guadalajara.
The streets of Madrid did not merely fill. They overflowed like a poorly poured pint of San Miguel. They became a human ocean, a sea of heads bobbing in the summer heat, punctuated by the occasional raised smartphone attempting to capture the divine. The air, thick with incense and the smell of two million chorizo sandwiches, was a testament to the strange duality of the Spanish Catholic experience: deep, profound piety one minute, a fierce debate about the merits of patatas bravas the next. It was a joyous, messy, and utterly bewildering spectacle, the kind of thing that makes you wonder if humanity might not be entirely doomed after all.
But let us not get carried away. This was, after all, a political event masquerading as a spiritual one. The turnout was a slap in the face for the secularists, a pointed reminder that faith, like a bad penny or a Conservative Party scandal, keeps turning up. As one particularly enthusiastic Basque separatist told me, between mouthfuls of a croissant he had clearly bought from a stall staffed by a man who looked like he had just crawled out of a Leonard Cohen song, "This is a sign. Europe is waking up. God is back, and he's looking for a flat in the centre."
Of course, this religious resurgence raises a host of awkward questions. Does this mean we all have to start being nice? Will we now have to queue for confession on a Sunday morning instead of nursing our hangovers in a Pret? And crucially, will this sudden influx of piety improve the quality of the in-flight catering on Iberia? I suspect not. The holy trinity of bad airline food, delayed trains, and overpriced bottled water remains unshakeable.
I will admit, I approached this assignment with the weary cynicism of a man who has seen one too many papal visits dissolve into a PR disaster (see: the Pope mobile in Poland, 2006). But Madrid worked its odd magic. Even as I stood in the shadow of a giant inflatable crucifix, jostled by a nun who could have given a rugby prop forward a run for his money, I felt a tiny flicker. Not of faith, heavens no. But of something else. Perhaps it was the gin. Perhaps it was the sheer, thrilling absurdity of it all. Or perhaps, just perhaps, there is something to be said for millions of people gathering not to riot or to queue for a new iPhone, but simply to sing, pray, and contemplate something bigger than themselves. Even if that something is just the sheer, overwhelming scale of a traffic jam stretching from the Prado to the Plaza Mayor.
So raise a glass, my friends. To Madrid, to the Pope, and to the beautiful, chaotic theatre of faith in a secular age. Just make sure you top it up with something stronger than holy water.
