Church vs. State in Spain
The NYTimes has an interesting article on the battle between Church and State in Spain. Spain famously has been a major Catholic stronghold for the past few centuries or so, but now the Vatican is hoping just to maintain a foothold. January 6, 2009 For Vatican, Spain Is a Key Front in Church-State Battle By RACHEL DONADIO VALLADOLID, Spain — The Macías Picavea primary school hardly looks like the seat of revolution. But this unassuming brick building in a sleepy industrial town has become a battleground in an intensifying war between church and state in Spain. In an unprecedented decision here, a judge ruled in November that the public school must remove the crucifixes from classroom walls, saying they violated the “nonconfessional” nature of the Spanish state. Although the Roman Catholic Church was not named in the suit, it criticized the ruling as an “unjust” attack on a historical and cultural symbol — and a sign of the Spanish state’s increasingly militant secularism. If the judg...