Spain. Catholic squeeze

The Socialist government takes on several Catholic shibboleths

THE Spanish Catholic Church has long since forgone the imaginative forms of torture dreamt up by the Inquisition. But as Spain's Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has now discovered, the church has not lost its knack for extracting sweat from dissenters. Mr Zapatero's first act after winning election last March was to irritate America and Britain by withdrawing troops from Iraq. He then turned his powers of annoyance on the church, announcing a string of reforms that put ecclesiastical noses out of joint.

Mr Zapatero plans an entire programme of social reform, the “second transition” as some commentators term it. The government is taking on both the church's ideology and its privileged position. Mr Zapatero has pledged equality for homosexuals, clearing the way for them to be given the right to adopt children. “Homosexuals and trans-sexuals deserve the same treatment as heterosexuals and have the right to live freely the lives that they have chosen,” he has said. Further plans include allowing women to inherit the Spanish throne, liberalising the country's abortion laws, lifting restrictions on embryo research and cracking down on domestic violence.

Mr Zapatero's centre-right predecessor, José María Aznar, was broadly in favour of economic liberalisation. But in matters social, he seemed more of an avatar of the right's reactionary past, happy to keep Spain in its traditional Catholic straitjacket. To conservatives, the church has always been entwined with Spain's identity, from the days of the Catholic monarchs to Franco. By contrast, Mr Zapatero talks of “a Spain for all”, with religion wholly separated from the state.

Before losing the election, Mr Aznar's People's Party had planned to reintroduce obligatory religious instruction in schools. Mr Zapatero's Socialists say they will guarantee that religious education is optional, offering one non-religious element as an alternative. Teachers of religion are proposed by bishops but paid by the government, an arrangement that has led to numerous cases of abuse. One teacher, Mara del Carmen Galayo, lost her job for living with a man who was not her husband. The teachers will now be subject to secular employment regulations.

In July the church struck back, springing an ambush on Mr Zapatero when he accompanied King Juan Carlos at the annual national offering at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Mr Zapatero, whose first overseas visit was to Morocco, stood in the shadow of a statue depicting Spain's patron saint, St James the Moor Slayer, on a white charger, hacking off the heads of Moors. Church officials had just overturned a decision to remove the statue, an 18th-century work by José Gambino, from the cathedral after it was deemed offensive to Muslims.

With 52 clergymen glowering, the archbishop of Santiago, Julin Barrio, let loose a point-blank fulmination. He accused Mr Zapatero of perverting the natural order. He declared that marriage is “essentially heterosexual” and that the church had every right to interfere in national politics “in cases of people's fundamental rights or the salvation of souls”. “It is not possible to truly understand or serve Spain without taking into account its Christian roots,” he added. Later the pope, who had praised Mr Aznar for his “loyal collaboration”, reproached Mr Zapatero. Spanish bishops have called for the faithful to demonstrate against the reforms.

Stung by such attacks, the labour minister, Jess Caldera, has hit back that the church's preferential arrangement “has to end”. He is referring to the arrangement whereby Spaniards can tick a box offering a percentage of their taxes to the church. The sum gathered adds up to €78m ($95m). Since this is only just over half the church's annual budget, the government makes up the rest directly. The head of the church in Spain, Antonio Mara Rouco, insists that it is “logical” that a religion to which over 70% of the population subscribes appears in the tax box. The church has held any reform of the system at bay for 17 years.

One theologian dismisses the attack on its coffers as a tactic deployed whenever the church resists the government. The Franco regime “pulled the plug on some church finances when the church criticised the dictatorship in its twilight years, and so it goes on,” he says. This time, the government's assault may be more serious.