Spain Is a Battleground for Catholic Church’s Future

I have posted a number of times about the Roman Catholic Church's efforts to interfere with the civil laws in a number of countries, including Spain. The New York Times has a story that takes another look at the Church's efforts to intermix the civil laws in Spain with the Church's anti-gay, anti-divorce and anti-abortion religious crusade. As the article notes, the Church and its Nazi Pope worry that Spain's embrace of liberalism and modern science and knowledge may spill over to former Spanish colonies which contain a significant chunk of the Church's worldwide membership. One can only hope that modern knowledge and civil equality of all citizens will triumph over the Church's efforts to drag society back to a Medieval mindset. Here are some story highlights:

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The Macías Picavea primary school hardly looks like the seat of revolution. But this unassuming brick building in a sleepy industrial town has become a battleground in an intensifying war between church and state in Spain. In an unprecedented decision here, a judge ruled in November that the public school must remove the crucifixes from classroom walls, saying they violated the “nonconfessional” nature of the Spanish state.

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If the judge’s ruling was the latest blow to the Catholic Church’s once mighty grip on Spain, the church’s response showed Spain to be a crucible for the future of church-state relations in Europe.

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For Pope Benedict XVI, who has staked his three-year-old papacy on keeping Europe Catholic, Spain, with its 90 percent Catholic population and rich history, represents a last hope in an increasingly irreligious continent.

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That hope is quickly dimming. Since 2004, the Socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has legalized gay marriage and fast-track divorce, and it is seeking to loosen laws on abortion and euthanasia. But in response, the church and religious Catholics have been pushing back, seeking a greater voice in public life. The result is that the church is in a full-throated war with the government.

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At stake is the vision of the country: Will Spain join the rest of secular Europe or stand as a final Catholic foothold? . . . Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said of Spain. “It’s a critical point in the church’s confrontation against secularization in Europe and in the Western world.”

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The implications are broader, since Spain, with its 42 million Catholics, remains a touchstone for Latin America. South America alone has 324 million Catholics, the world’s largest concentration.

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[D]uring Franco’s four-decade dictatorship, Catholicism was the official state religion. Until after Franco’s death in 1975, women could not open bank accounts without their fathers or husbands co-signing. Today, they hold many of the highest political offices in the country.

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“Spain changed very, very quickly,” said José María Contreras Mazarío, the director of religious affairs at the Justice Ministry. Today, he said, “Spain isn’t Catholic theoretically, culturally or politically.” In an increasingly multicultural society, he said, the government wants to revise its definition of religious liberty so all religions are effectively equal. Indeed, many see the church as a reactionary force trying to hold the country back.

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The Church IS a reactionary force and I truly hope that it is defeated and perhaps ultimately forced to reform itself, including the dismissal of corrupt and morally bankrupt members of the hierarchy - including Benedict XVI.