In Spain last Sunday, the Socialist government returned to power with the backing of 44 per cent of the electorate.Socialist rule has meant running battles between the Government and the Church.
The Spanish bishops had issued a pre-election statement urging Catholic voters to weigh the candidates' stands on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, embryo research, and religious education.
That statement drew the ire of Socialist leaders and the ruling Cabinet complained that the bishops' conference had entered into partisan political campaigning.
The post-election period does not promise a truce or a peace accord between the Church and state in Spain. In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Spanish former director of the Vatican press office, said that in last Sunday's parliamentary elections Spaniards had cast their ballots for material welfare rather than moral standards.
Navarro-Valls said the Socialist government's re-election would not worsen Church-state relations, because "everything that could insult Catholic sentiment has already taken place", pointing to the legalisation of homosexual marriage, the adoption of children by homosexuals and the introduction of 'express divorce' in his native country.
On the other hand, Spain's Catholic bishops have pledged to co-operate with the newly re-elected Socialist government, but a cardinal warned the Church would oppose secularising reforms.
In a March 10 statement, the bishops' conference said its president, Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela of Madrid, and secretary-general, Auxiliary Bishop Juan Martinez Camino of Madrid, had written to congratulate Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on his March 9 election victory.
They expressed the willingness "of the bishops' conference to collaborate sincerely with the legitimate state authorities in order better to serve the common good".
But in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera of Toledo accused Zapatero's government of being "against democracy" and "leading the country to disaster", and warned the Church would oppose further secularising reforms.
"The Church wants to collaborate to build a society of cohabitation and peace," he said, "but what kind of cohabitation can there be if it means eliminating God from social life? What kind of cohabitation is possible if it means denying the right to life?"
Cardinal Canizares said Spain represented "a more advanced point" in a "cultural revolution" sweeping Western society, adding that Church leaders would go on defending "endangered values" and opposing Zapatero's policies on abortion, euthanasia and other practices.
Meanwhile, the daily El Pais reported on March 12 that Zapatero had pledged to "put the bishops in their place" after his party's victory and predicted that the recent election of Cardinal Rouco as bishops' conference president would accelerate a Church-government confrontation.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce