Spain - The Problems Deepen

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A hard week for the church in Spain. The socialist Prime Minister, Zapatero, has accused the opposition party of being “acquiescent” during the demonstration two Sunday’s ago of two million Spanish Catholics in defence of the family. He had wanted them to condemn the Bishops’ “retreat from Human Rights” , but instead accused them of supporting the condemnation of homosexual marriage and quick divorce. He also accused them of spoiling the spirit of the season “half way between the Nativity of the Lord and the Epiphany”.

A former Prime minister, Felipe Gonzalez, and a well known socialist journalist, Iñaki Gabilondo, have added to the attacks: according to the journalist “the Spanish Bishops’ Conference makes it much more difficult to be Spanish than to be British, and more difficult to be a Spanish Catholic than a Belgian Catholic”; while the former PM thinks that the the Bishops “believe themselves to possess an absolute truth, and want to save Spaniards from their errors. Well – we’re sick of being saved.”

There is a sort of hysterical adolescent cheek in the way these people attack the Spanish Episcopate and try to portray it as a branch of the PP, the opposition party. But this is another nail in the coffin of the post-Franco settlement in Spain.

Our Lady of the Pillar - pray for Spain.