Dear Friends at the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,

We celebrated last Friday the event of the reference. It took place at the "Plaza de la Paz" [Right in front of the Metropolitan Catholic Cathedral] in Barranquilla, Colombia. Though we were only 25 Pastafarians, the presence of his Noodliness was strong. The opportunity served us to settle an agenda of activities that are planned in order to promote the idea of the separation of church & state, a secular view of the world, and of course, the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I´m not sure of how well informed are you about what´s going on here in Colombia, but under the Uribe administration freedom of beliefs was not cherished [measures that undermine the spirit of the Constitution of 1991 were taken, like forcing the teaching of religion again in schools and granting privileges to the Catholic Church]. The previous constitution was adopted in1886, which made Colombia a confesional state, namely, a Catholic one. This means that in the past 9 years we got back over a 100 years on the subject of rights, having to witness cases related to the discrimination towards other beliefs, not to mention those who are agnostic or atheists. The situation is really one to worry about: picture yourself the General Prosecutor boycotting a law that allows women to abort if (1) Malformation of the fetus, (2) Grave risk for the mother´s life & (3) Pregnancy being a result of rape. Guess what? This member of the government is affiliated to the "Legionaries of Christ"[!!!], and offered a number of different phony legal explanations to promote the figure of "conscientious objection of institutions" [Yeah, right, that´s what he argued] so as to allow different hospitals to deny the services to women that requested the practice of abortions under the above mentioned three circumstances [as granted by a Sentence of the Constitutional Court]. In the practice, he has put forward an agenda that implicitly accepts it is good to be first a believer and then a member of the government. Going beyond the discussion on abortion, no matter if one is in favor or against it, it is simply outrageous that a member of the government decides that it is legal to brake the law.

Since some of us got sick & tired of this & other similar cases, we decided to open a FB group called "Primera Iglesia del Monstruo de Spaghetti Volador de Barranquilla". The attached pictures were taken the day of the meeting. We hope to make a small contribution & that you include this news on the site.

May he touch & enlighten us all with his noodly appendage!

Sincerely yours,

René J. Campis C.

Pastafarian