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Try to remember:
Religion Does Not Trump Basic Civil and Human Rights.
Bloomberg.com
Spain's Zapatero
Assailed by Church
Over Gay Marriage
By Flavia
Krause-Jackson and Ben Sills, February 8, 2008
It isn't just People's Party leader
Mariano Rajoy who's running against Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero.
Spain's Catholic bishops, angered by the prime minister's decisions to legalize
gay marriage and speed divorce procedures, are targeting his re-election effort
with messages urging their flock to use the March 9 election to overturn what
they call "seriously unjust" policies.
While the Spanish clergy has released moral-guidance notes in most elections
since Spain became a democracy in 1978, it has never before so pointedly
targeted a candidate.
With Mass attendance at its lowest level ever, the nation's Catholic leaders
"feel they are under attack by secular forces, and are defending themselves like
a wounded beast by lashing back," said Sebastian Balfour, professor of Spanish
studies at the London School of Economics. "This shows the extent of the
politicization of the church."
In December, the first church-organized protest in 30 years drew 1 million
supporters in Madrid; Pope Benedict XVI spoke via video link. The
capital's archbishop accused the premier of taking a "step backward for human
rights."
Belligerent Bishops
Zapatero, 47, shows no signs of bowing to the pressure. The day after the
Jan. 31 bishops' note labeling his policies unjust, his Socialist Party
announced plans to increase access to abortion. A party spokesman said the
election manifesto, to be released this week, will include a pledge to increase
availability of the morning-after pill.
"I can't accept that they say laws made in this legislature are undermining
democracy or are a reversal for human rights," Zapatero, who will have lunch
with the Vatican's emissary in Madrid next week, said today in a radio
interview. The church's attitude "has to change."
Zapatero's government has also curbed church control of religious education and
passed a law honoring Republican soldiers who fought against the church's side
in the 1936-1939 civil war. The Socialist leader cites his grandfather, a
Republican soldier shot by General Francisco Franco's firing squads, as the
inspiration for his political career.
The premier also declined to attend Mass with 1.5 million pilgrims in Valencia
during the pope's July 2006 visit; even Communist dictator Fidel Castro attended
Pope John Paul II's 1998 Mass in Cuba, Vatican spokesmen pointed out to the
press.
Zapatero's Lead
Zapatero's Socialists led Rajoy's People's Party by 44.6 percent to 38.2 percent
in a Jan. 21-31 poll by the newspaper Publico, and it isn't a given that Rajoy
will benefit from the church's efforts against the government. While 78
percent of Spain's 45 million people identify themselves as Catholics, regular
church attendance fell to as low as 27 percent last year from 36 percent a
decade ago, according to polling by the Center for Sociological Research.
The church "isn't doing the PP any favors," said Francisco Llera, professor of
political science at the University of the Basque Country in Leioa, northern
Spain. "It may undermine the party's support among moderate, liberal and
non-religious voters."
The People's Party "can't afford to ignore a long-standing and steadfast ally
like the church, yet with the shifting nature of Spanish society it's not in
their interest to pander to the bishops," said Vanessa Rossi, associate fellow
with the International Economics Program at London-based Chatham House.
No Rollback
Rajoy, 52, doesn't promise to roll back Zapatero's gay-marriage and divorce
policies, but says the social agenda would go no further under him. At a
Feb. 2 political rally in the northern town of Valladolid, he accused Zapatero
of using the "same old trick" of getting into an argument with the clergy to
divert attention from signs that the economy is sputtering.
"We are not a Christian Democrat party and never have been," said Gabriel
Elorriaga, the People's Party communication secretary. The church's advice
to the faithful is something it "has always done before elections. The
only thing that's new is the reaction of the government."
The church's ties with Spain's political right date back to the Franco era, when
it came under a government-supported financial system that defied the changes of
the 1965 Second Vatican Council calling for a separation of church and state.
Those subsidies were maintained through the nation's transition to democracy;
under a January 2007 agreement, the Socialists actually raised the amount that
taxpayers can opt to contribute to religious institutions, giving the church a
total subsidy of about 152.4 million euros ($223 million) this year.
Reassessed
That deal may be reassessed after the elections, Socialist party secretary Jose
Blanco said in a Feb. 4 interview. "Nothing can be the same after March 9
now that the church hierarchy has shown such a belligerent attitude," he said.
Meanwhile, the Spanish Episcopal Conference, the organization of the country's
85 bishops, has kept up the anti- Zapatero drumbeat. The church-owned
radio station Cadena Cope has branded the prime minister a "traitor."
Zapatero's government is "shaking the foundations of the family with its wicked
and unjust laws," Cardinal Antonio Canizares, the archbishop of Toledo, said at
the December rally.
To contact the reporters on this story: Flavia
Krause-Jackson in Rome at
fjackson@bloomberg.net; Ben Sills in Madrid at
bsills@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 7, 2008 05:40 EST
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