We learn from the LA Times that the Spanish Bishops have mounted a stern offensive against the anti-Christian, anti-family agenda of the ruling Socialist party, whose leadership is infuriated at the intervention in politics by the Church.
The powerful Spanish Bishops Conference, in a recent widely disseminated “message to the public,” reminded Catholic voters of their duty to defend traditional values and to elect leaders “responsibly” when they go to the polls Sunday. Catholics make up the vast majority in this country.
Without naming a political party, the bishops condemned many of the policies that have been hallmarks of the ruling Socialist Workers Party, such as abortion rights and same-sex marriage. The policies are opposed by the conservative Popular Party.
“Not all [party] programs are equally compatible with the faith and the demands of Christian life,” the bishops admonished.
Sadly, if the following is true — and why doubt it? — the decades-long liberal dismemberment of Catholic faith and morals is taking its toll.
The Socialists, meanwhile, argue that Spain’s Catholics are more liberal than the rightists acknowledge.
“I think that the great majority of Spanish Catholics are tolerant and are not fundamentalists,” Jesus Caldera, a Cabinet minister who heads the Socialists’ electoral program, said in a recent meeting with Madrid-based foreign correspondents.
“There is a clear alliance [of the Popular Party] with the most ultraconservative sector of the Spanish Catholic Church,” he said. “We tell the Catholic hierarchy that no one is going to attack them, but we are not going to let them impose their creed.”
