Organisers use Facebook to form 'queer kissing flashmob' in front of Barcelona's cathedral on Sunday

This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

Spanish gays and lesbians will welcome Pope Benedict XVI to their country at the weekend with a massive homosexual kiss-in to be staged in front of Barcelona's cathedral.

Organisers have invited gays and lesbians from around Spain to congregate in Barcelona during the papal visit on Sunday to form what, on their Facebook page, they call a "queer kissing flashmob".

The plan is for participants to meet at the city's gothic cathedral and start kissing as soon as the pope steps out of the building at 10am.

"No placards, no flags, no shouting and no slogans. Only kissing allowed," the Facebook page reads.

"When Benedict XVI passes in front of us we will kiss, man-to-man and woman-to-woman," Marylene Carole, one of the organisers, told the Spanish news agency EFE.

A whistle or horn will mark the beginning of a two-minute period during which couples are expected to maintain mouth-to-mouth contact. "Once the kiss is over we will go on our way as if nothing had happened," she said.

Some 1,500 people have pledged, via Facebook, to take part in the event. Invitations have been sent out via the social networking site to 12,000 more.

The planned kiss-in has provoked the fury of some Spanish Catholics, and even saw the group's page temporarily erased by Facebook.

"It is strange that such a noble act as kissing can still be considered revolutionary today, in the 21st century," said Carole. "This is a battle for sexual and affective rights, based on passion rather than violence."

A Facebook spokesman explained that the page and event have been reinstated after being taken down last week.

"The Spanish team took down the event and pages because of the use of the slur 'queer'," a spokeswoman said. "Since the term was used in a self-referential manner – the only instance in which we allow slurs against protected collectives – Facebook have reinstated both the event and the page."

The pope will be visiting a country that is fast shedding its traditionally tight embrace of Roman Catholicism.

The number of 20- to 24-year-olds who define themselves as practising Catholics is just 7%, with a further 51% saying they are non-practising Catholics. Civil weddings outnumbered church weddings for the first time last year.

Spain's prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, an avowed secularist, has clashed with the church over divorce, abortion and education.