Spanish Government, Catholic Church spar over liberal policies

The confrontation between the Spanish Government and the Roman Catholic Church took a bitter turn after the government said it "cannot go back in time" on social liberal policies.

The Church, meanwhile, has likened the Spanish Government to the "Third Reich" for introducing gay "marriage" and fast-track divorces.

The Socialist-led government has fired back against criticism from the Roman Catholic Church claiming that its policies are supported by the majority of Spaniards.

"Society is not ready to go back to the time when a single moral standard was imposed on all Spaniards," Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega recently told a parliamentary commission on relations between the Church and the government, according to AFP news agency.

"Fortunately, these times have been overtaken by the desire expressed by the majority (of Spaniards), a majority that is not ready to go back in time," she said.

The remarks were in response to the rally held by Catholic Church on December 30 in defence of family values. The rally drew tens of thousands to Madrid.

The relationship between the Catholic Church and the Spanish Government turned sour after the Socialist Party came into power in 2004 and began accelerating its social liberal policies with the legalisation of gay "marriage," the introduction of fast-track divorces and the end of religious education in schools.

Spain has undergone a liberal transformation in the more than three decades since the death of right-wing dictator General Francisco Franco, who was in power from 1939 to 1975.

Alfredo Dagnino, president of the Asociación Católica de Propagandistas, says the government intends to strip public life of religious beliefs, and to build belief on individualism - a theory with "similar roots" to the Third Reich or to Marxist countries, according to the news website Typically Spanish.

He said that religious, pacifist, and healthy campaigning as that seen in the Plaza de Colón in December did not warrant such statements from the Socialist Party. He said that that some of the government's policies had the deliberate intention to do away with God, the Church and Christianity in the vision of the world.

During the December 30 rally, Cardinal Antonio Canizares of Toledo said that the government was "shaking the foundations of the family with its wicked and unjust laws".

"The culture of radical secularism is a fraud which only leads to abortions and fast-track divorces," Cardinal Agustin Garcia-Gasco of Valencia told the gathering.

In response, Deputy PM De la Vega said the government respected "the expression of opinions and the right to criticism".

But she said it was "intolerable" that part of the Catholic hierarchy "is undermining the respect due to the legitimate authority, which is the government and the parliament".

Criticism of the rally also came from one of the leading Catholic socialists, Francisco Vázquez, who is also the Spanish ambassador to the Vatican. He told El País newspaper that Cardinals Antonio María Rouco Varela and García-Gasco had led a Church attack against the government which was unheard of in the times of democracy in Spain.

Meanwhile, discussions and debates are expected to escalate as Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is seeking a new mandate to continue the policies in the March 9 elections.