Dispute over power of the
church still reigns in Spain
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MADRID -- ''Why is everything new in Pedro Almodovar's films?" I
asked, "Schools, jails, hospitals, apartments, offices?" ''Look around you," my colleague replied. ''You don't see as many new buildings in Chicago, do you?'' "A tie," I conceded grudgingly. "When General Franco [the leader of the rebels in the bloody Spanish Civil War] died and we became a democratic country, we realized that we were perhaps 100 years behind the rest of Western Europe and that we had to catch up. We have caught up. We're the ninth industrial nation in the world, our statistics are right on the European norm. Maybe we've moved too fast, but we felt we didn't have any choice." |
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I said something about not
catching up with Ireland, which was probably irrelevant. In truth there had
been some progress during the final years of the Franco regime. Also, the
delicate dance in which Spain became democratic was directed by a tough
young king and an agreement among most of the political leaders that there
would be silence about the civil war (in which a million people died) during
the transition. The People's Party and the Socialists have exchanged power
in democratic elections four times in the last quarter century, but neither
has been able to eliminate corruption and incompetence from government. The latest change occurred three days after a team of jihadists blew up commuter trains in Madrid, killing 130 people. The conservative government blamed Basque separatists. It turned out, however, that this time the Basques were innocent. When the voters realized that the government had been deceiving them and that the mass murder was a reprisal for Spain's allegiance with the United States in the unpopular war in Iraq, they swept the Socialists back into power. The new prime minister, Jose Zapatero, decided that the compact of silence was obsolete and began to fight the civil war again. The Reds were right in the war, and the rebels were wrong. The remaining statues of Franco were torn down and the Catholic church was blamed for its support of the rebels. In short order the church was punished with laws on gay unions and stem cell research and loss of some of its state support. Abortion legislation is on deck. Characteristically the church dug in its heels and fought back with demonstrations involving more than a million people. |
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Indeed most of the
bloodshed in the last couple of centuries in Spain has been over the power
of the church. The previous Socialist regime (headed by one Felipe Gonzalez)
was careful not to offend the church. I make no particular case for the
Spanish church. Some of its bishops were leaders of reform. Many of their
clergy want to end the long war between the church and the republic, but in
the present "restorationist" era, the same equally divided forces on both
sides are confronting one another and talking tough. No one seriously thinks that the civil war will be renewed, that priests and nuns will be killed, that churches will be burned and that ordinary folk on both sides will be taken out of their homes and shot. Prosperous countries rarely risk civil wars. However, Spain is once again divided on the same issue that has divided it for 200 years. I note for the record that the New World (the Chicago Catholic Newspaper) supported the Loyalists (the Spanish Republic) during the war. .
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