National
Socialist No. 2 says nothing will be the same in relations between Church and State after the Spanish general election
By m.p.
Feb 4, 2008 - 10:45 PM

The Socialists’ No. 2, José Blanco, PSOE’s Secretary for Organisation, has spoken out about the row between the government and the Catholic Church in Spain, and said ‘nothing will be the same’ in relations between the Church and the State after the general election on 9th March. He said the Church hierarchy is constantly ‘looking for confrontation with the legitimate government of Spain,’ and mentioned the possibility of ‘definitive steps’ towards the Church becoming self-funding as, he said, the Church itself has wanted for some time.

The row began with a public note released by the Episcopal Conference last week calling on the faithful not to vote for a party which supports negotiating with terrorists, and to use their votes responsibly. It was widely seen as a call to vote for the opposition Partido Popular.

It led to a comment from the Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, that if voters were to follow the Church’s instructions they would not be able to vote for any political party: all the previous governments in democratic Spain, he said, held talks with ETA, those led by Adolfo Suárez, Felipe González, and José María Aznar. A Bishop acted as an intermediary in the case of the latter.

The Prime Minister described the attitude from the Church as hypocritical and immoral.

The organisation Cristianos Socialistas,’ a Christian Socialist group allied to PSOE, has meanwhile issued its own note on the statement from the Bishops, describing it as an ‘unjustified widespread condemnation’ of the actions of the Socialist government, and what seems to be a ‘signature to a tactic of political commitment which some bishops have followed throughout the legislature, which is both rash and inappropriate,’ they said.

They ended the note by saying, ‘it is one thing to put forward the vision of Catholicism to society, but it is another to get involved in politics on the side of a party. That is not the mission of the Church.’