MADRID, Spain — One Spanish Church official surprisingly believes conditions are ideal for Catholics in Spain.

But he doesn't mean the secularization and low Mass attendance numbers. And he doesn't mean the country's Socialist government implementing a raft of anti-Catholic initiatives.

“This is a very beautiful moment,” said Father Leopoldo Vives, the head of the secretariat on family and life for the Spanish Bishops Conference, because it's “an opportunity to teach people what we believe.”

“It's true that this isn't the Church of 20 years ago, but people are reacting, and their consciences are being formed. This, however, isn't enough,” Father Vives said. “The Church must teach the people so that they have a solid Christian base, so that Christian parents, in turn, teach their children.”

He added, “Parents must fight for their children. This isn't something that the bishops can do. This is something that parents must do.”

In a country where 90% of the Spanish population claims to be Catholic, the government says 60% of the population supported its recently passed same-sex “marriage” legislation. Press accounts routinely report only 30% of Spaniards regularly attend Mass.

Those numbers, says Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government, prove that the government not only has the broad support of Spaniards, but also reflect the Church's lack of relevance.

The Church's defenders counter the media coverage of the Church is often slanted.

“The Socialist Party has a large presence in the media, especially via Prisa, which controls 80% of the press,” Father Vives noted. The Spanish media company Prisa, which owns Spain's most-widely read newspapers and magazines, as well as the nation's only digital satellite television platform, is seen as being close to Socialist governments.

Homosexual ‘Families’

In June, Spain became the third European country to legalize homosexual “marriages.” Canada followed later in the month.

However, unlike the Netherlands and Belgium, in Spain homosexual couples can now apply to adopt children.

Since the law was passed, two judges have refused to perform same-sex “marriage” ceremonies on the grounds the law is unconstitutional, as the Spanish Constitution refers to marriage as between a man and a woman. They have appealed to the Spanish Supreme Court.

Despite widely-reported press accounts that up to 5,000 homosexual couples were prepared to marry immediately following the passage of the same-sex legislation, only 22 same-sex “marriages” have been performed in Spain since the law was passed, according to a Sept. 8 article in La Razón, a Spanish newspaper that contacted various Spanish marriage registries.

Spain's government has also pushed through legislation for fast-track divorces, and is rumored to be contemplating easing legislation governing abortion — although officially Socialist party members claim it isn't a priority.

The government is also expected to present a bill this month to permit therapeutic cloning, which involves the killing of a human life.

When asked why Catholic Spain has a government passing laws that flagrantly violate Church teachings, Father Josep Saranyana, a professor of history of theology at the University of Navarre, said many of the political leaders in the 55-70 age bracket have a common denominator: a lack in basic Catholic formation.

A form of pietism with no theological base, continued Father Saranyana, has influenced many of the current politicians.

Others lost their faith altogether.

Another problem is a widespread opinion that separation of Church and state means that the Church should play no part at all in political debates.

“The [opposition] fails to understand that separation of Church and State does not mean the negation of religion,” Father Saranyana said.

Radical Government?

Benigno Blanco is vice-president of the Spanish Forum of the Family and a former politician with the Partido Popular, which governed Spain before Zapatero's election victory last year.

Underlying the current Socialist ideology, Blanco argues, is a movement that seeks to liberate the public from “traditional values” and is being utilized by homosexual lobbyists and other activists to propagate a philosophy that man is nothing more than an animal.

That philosophy, says Blanco, logically affects the Socialist political platform in areas ranging from divorce to abortion.

“Spain is a laboratory of ideas,” said Blanco. “Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the Spanish Socialist party — as all socialist parties — is seeking to redefine itself. The Spanish government has a radical plan that doesn't distinguish between economics and social issues.”

Blanco's Forum of the Family organized the massive June 18 pro-family march to protest the government's platform.

But two months after 1 million-plus demonstrators took to Madrid's streets, Blanco says Forum officials still haven't met with Socialist leaders, despite government promises.

“[Deputy Prime Minister] Fernandez de la Vega told us it was a problem with the agenda,” he said.

Some Church representatives believe that some of today's difficulties may be due to excessive Church involvement in Spanish politics in previous generations.

“In Spain, there is a great desire to return to the past,” said a Spanish Jesuit official, who asked to not be named. “We have a problem with respect to the definition of the relationship between the state and the Church, and where the Church mixes too much in the area of politics, and vice versa.”

Added the official, “The Church in Spain is too closely aligned with politics, and the Partido Popular.”

But according to other Church leaders, it's wrong to claim that the Church moves in lockstep with Spain's opposition political parties.

“It is the press that presents this view, that there is no difference between the PP [Partido Popular] and the Church,” said Father Vives. “We aren't aligned with the PP, nor do we want to be. This is propaganda.”

Still, in the face of all the current Church-state turmoil, Father Vives of the Spanish bishops’ office of family and life focuses on the Church's positive contribution to public life.

“I'd like to stress that there really is a very optimistic message here,” he said. “We must create an atmosphere to share the Church's message of love. We've a lot of work ahead, but we can do it.”

Robert Duncan writes from Madrid, Spain.

The Next Battle: Education

A pending revision of Spain's educational laws is the likely flashpoint for the next major Church-state conflict.

Now that the summer recess is over, Spain's Parliament will debate a recently announced education bill containing more than 1,800 amendments. No education association backs the bill.

While an education overhaul is needed — as reflected in a recent Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development report of 40 countries that said Spanish students are failing in mathematics, science and reading — the Socialist government's proposal also alters the character of religious education courses. Among other things, such courses would not be obligatory or graded.

“What the government says with respect to the religion courses is that they should not condition the future of students at the hour when they decide if they want to be doctors, gardeners, mathematicians or architects,” Spain's deputy prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said at a press conference following the July 22 presentation of the education bill.

Another problem with the bill, according to Benigno Blanco, vice-president of the Spanish Forum of the Family, is that it could mean that only with the regional government's approval would a parent be allowed to change children's schooling.

He says his organization isn't ruling out demonstrations against the education bill, as well as proposed legislation governing embryonic research.

“Right now, one of the most concerning measures is that of religious education,” said Blanco.

Partido Popular, the main opposition party, has said it will present a proposal to amend the entire Socialist education bill.

Juan Antonio Martinez Campo, spokesman for the Spanish bishops, said in a press statement the responsibility of the bill rests solely upon the government's shoulders, “as there has been no dialogue or negotiation with anybody.”

The vice-president of the Spanish Bishops Conference, Archbishop Antonio Cañizares of Toledo, has reiterated pleas for the Socialist government to respect the Spanish Constitution and the 1979 agreements with the Holy See, guaranteeing religious education.

Legal analysts also suggest the education bill may violate Spain's Constitution.

“The Spanish state is aconfessional, but the public powers [in the Constitution] promise to take into account the religious beliefs of Spanish society and to cooperate with the Catholic Church and other religions,” said Daniel Tirapu, a canon lawyer and professor at the University of Jaen in southern Spain. “This is the complete framework with which religion must be treated in Spain.”

— Robert Duncan