The Socialist government of Spain has given women the right to have abortions and has also given gays and lesbians the right to marry. Adding insult to injury, President Zapatero has cutoff all government subsidies to the Catholic Church, subsidies that dated back to the Fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
The irony that Spain is also the country that gave birth to the Opus Dei cult should not be lost to us progressives.
Too bad that President Zapatero is only a Socialist, and has wasted time offering an olive branch to the Catholic Church, an institution that has sworn to destroy everything that Zapatero has already accomplished in Spain. I assure you that a Communist government would have no reservations about putting the Catholic Church in its proper place, and will spare no effort to protect the social gains of its political programme.
Catholic Church steps up campaign to oust Spanish government
By Paul Stuart
19 September 2005The Catholic Church is using the network of Catholic family organizations known as Concapa to broaden its campaign to oust the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) government and return the right-wing Popular Party to power.
Concapa has collected a 3-million-signature petition denouncing PSOE policies. Together with the Church and the PP, it has called a demonstration in December in Madrid to denounce the PSOE’s proposals to change religious education policy. They anticipate a turnout of over 1 million.
Under the PSOE’s proposals, Catholic families will retain the right to choose a religious education for their children, but it will be optional. The Church is also bitterly opposed to a proposal to allow Islamic clerics to teach religion in schools.
A Concapa spokesman declared that “all actions are legitimate” to counter what it describes as an attack on “freedom and education.” The PP accuses the government of sowing “chaos, alarm and confusion and uncertainty” by an education programme that is in the “hands of a radical minority.”
Concapa’s threats follow the Catholic Church’s demand for a campaign of civil disobedience against the PSOE’s legalisation of homosexual marriage, which it denounced as “against nature” and “unconstitutional.” The call has won the support of ultra-conservative Judge Francisco Javier Garcia de Telde, who presides over the Canary Islands and is threatening to refer the legislation to the Constitutional Court. The Canary Islands has been a stronghold of the far-right ever since General Franco launched his fascist coup from there in 1936.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/spai-s19.shtml 
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
