It is unclear whether soup will actually be served Thursday night when Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero takes up an invitation from the Vatican's envoy in Madrid to talk over "a bowl of broth." But the menu for Zapatero and Manuel Monteiro de Castro is certain to feature the Spanish clergy's recent charge onto the electoral battleground, where it appears to be trying to turn Catholic voters away from Zapatero's Socialist Party in elections next month.
A statement issued by the Spanish Council of Bishops on Jan. 30, which implicitly advised Roman Catholic voters against casting their ballots for the Socialist Party on March 9, enraged the government and has provoked a public dispute between Zapatero and his allies and members of the church leadership.
The church has clashed repeatedly with the government over social reforms in the last four years and sought an increasingly aggressive role in the political sphere, experts in political and church affairs said.
Caught between a dwindling flock and a government whose policies on gay rights, sexuality and divorce have placed Spain at the vanguard of Europe, the clergy is edging further and further into the political arena, they said.
The January communiqué came one month after the church leadership drew thousands of supporters to a rally in central Madrid in support of the traditional family. Agustín García-Gasco, archbishop of Valencia, told the gathering that the government's "radical lay culture" was dragging Spain toward "the dissolution of democracy."
"This is one of the most visible confrontations between the church and the government in the past 30 years," said José María Martinez Patino, a Jesuit priest and head of the Meeting Foundation, an independent research organization. The Spanish church's position stems directly from the conservative thinking of Pope Benedict XVI, he believes.
"Zapatero is very radical," he said. "But his laws simply reflect the conscience of society. The church needs to be open to dialogue."
The bishops' statement warned Catholics of "the danger of political and legislative choices that contradict fundamental values," including abortion and euthanasia, social reforms that redefine marriage and the introduction of civic education, which the clergy argues impinges on the rights of the parent to shape a child's moral vision.
"Not all political programs are equally compatible with our faith and with the demands of a Christian life," it said, without naming any specific political party.
Such proclamations are not unusual in Spain ahead of an election, but what angered the government, Zapatero said last week, was that the clergy suggested voters shun the Socialist Party because it had negotiated with ETA, the Basque militant group.
Socialist Party representatives noted that the clergy had acted as a go-between in contacts between ETA and the government of Zapatero's predecessor, José María Aznar, during the late 1990s.
"A society that wants to be free and just cannot explicitly or implicitly recognize a terrorist organization as a political representative," the communiqué said.
"It's unheard of," Zapatero said during a lunch with businesspeople and journalists last week that was attended by Monteiro.
Zaptero called for "more respect" from the clergy when debating with Spain's elected leader and added that the possibility of reviewing agreements under which the church gets millions of euros a year in state funding, "is always open."
An official close to the presidential palace said the government had no specific goals for the meeting with Monteiro, who has a reputation for moderation, but hoped it would be able to help defuse tensions.
Some defenders of the church's position said that the clergy was within its rights to comment on the issue of terrorist negotiations and that the Socialist government was inflating the controversy to mobilize voters on the far left.
"I wouldn't exaggerate the current tensions," said Jorge Otaduy, a professor of ecclesiastical law at the University of Navarra. The very fact that the bishops had caused such a stir was testament to their relevance, he said.
"Muslim groups in Spain have called directly for people to vote for the Socialists," he said. "But the Catholic Church raises its voice and it causes an absolute storm. The church can't be as irrelevant as people would have us believe."
While the church may be trying to motivate its followers to vote for the opposition, it is not clear that the Popular Party wants its explicit support. One senior Popular Party strategist said the party, which has struggled to shed a right-wing, reactionary image, saw no profit in being associated too closely with the conservative clergy.
If the Socialists win re-election, the government and the church will have to calm their rhetoric and try to engage one another, supporters and critics of both sides said.
Part of what has prompted the bishop's posturing is a battle for the leadership of the Council of Bishops, which will select its new leader on March 5, they said.
The bishops might re-elect Ricardo Blázquez, the moderate archbishop of Bilbao, or opt for his conservative rival, Antonio María Rouco Varela, archbishop of Madrid.
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