Holidays in Spanish-Speaking Countries!
You know how there are many holidays in the U.S. although very few of them are religious. In Mexico and other Spanish speaking countries, are there a lot of religious holidays or are most of them designed just to honor the country?
2 Answers
There is a difference between a holiday for religious celebrations, which there are many for any country with a high population or history of Catholicism, and a national holiday.
But, there are also many national holidays and celebrations of independence like Chile's Dieciocho de Septiembre.
It depends where you are in Spain but while most of the fiestas are "Saints days" that isn't really what they are for. ¡Fiesta es fiesta!
I'm more familiar with the Catalan influenced areas where, if you know your Spanish Civil War, means that religion is far from being a respected institution or even of particular significance in day to day life.
However there's no way the Catalans are going to sacrifice their fiestas and their puentes. Furthermore there are political points to be made through invoking the saints in astutely staged demonstrations. Examples:
Franco's regime banned the use of Catalan names and all new born children were by law to be named after a saint. Therefore most girls from that generation are called Montserrat after the black female saint of Catalunya thus denoting that the bearer is Catalana. For the boys the name Jordi, the male saint of Catalunya was equally invoked for political reasons. There are lots of examples of this kind of game where politics stands behind the curtain of religion and winks and jeers
