Spain's
Roman Catholic church has lost control over the personal lives of
teachers of religious education in state schools after the country's
highest court ruled that they cannot be sacked for disobeying Vatican
rules on marriage.
In a historic decision, the constitutional court ruled that Resurrección Galera could not be fired for marrying a divorcee.
The decision prevents the church, which hires and fires religion teachers, from dismissing teachers who do not follow Catholic precepts in their relationships.
The
ruling that Galera's marriage bore "no relation to the plaintiff's work
as a teacher" overturned the decisions of lower courts, which backed
the church.
"The truly important thing is that these men cannot
get away with this and treat people as if they were in the age of the
inquisition," Galera, a practising Catholic, told El País newspaper in
reference to the country's bishops.
Hundreds of teachers of
religion have reportedly been fired for similar reasons over the past
decade. Some have won court cases forcing either the Spanish state or
the church itself to pay compensation.
The constitutional court's decision establishes a precedent for the lower courts in similar cases.
"We
have been informed that you are living with a married man. That is an
unsustainable situation," officials from the diocese of Almería told
Galera when she was sacked in 2001 after seven years teaching at a state
school in Los Llanos de la Cañada, south-east Spain.
In fact, she had married a divorced Catholic who was waiting for an annulment of his previous marriage.
For
the past decade she has had to find other work, and set up a guest
house with her German husband.
A lower court must now rule on whether
she should be reinstated and receive compensation.
Spain's bishops
controlled the hiring of religion teachers, whose classes are optional,
after a deal signed with the Vatican in 1979.
About 70% of Spanish
families opt for their children to study what the church defines as
"religion and catholic morals", though numbers are declining.
"The
least one can ask of a teacher of the Roman Catholic religion is that
she should believe in what she teaches," the partly church-owned COPE
radio station said in an editorial.