There Are More Tears Shed Over Answered Prayers

Some boorish materialists from the Basque country have been persecuting humble Christians with impertinent questions about their mystical insights. The Spanish employment minister has praised the Virgin of El Rocío, a mediaeval graven image, for helping the country recover from its economic difficulties; a recovery which has so far left only one in four adults out of work and only one in three children at risk of poverty. The interior minister has proclaimed that Teresa of Ávila, who was posthumously a personal chum of General Franco, is interceding in Spain's affairs; given that Teresa in her days of nature was apparently something of a poverty fetishist, this might well be the case. A pesky, literal-minded Basque left-winger has written to the government asking for further details of these supernatural interventions, and inquiring whether further miracles are expected.