MADRID, July 14, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Critics of the movement of the new Spanish government to liberalize the country might be forgiven for thinking that the real goal is to radically de-Catholicize the country. The list of initiatives taken by the Zapatero socialists could have been lifted straight from the Catholic Catechism’s list of the most popular modern sins. With over 80% of the country still claiming to belong to the Catholic Church, and with Spain’s recent history of anti-Catholic Marxist pogroms before the Franco regime, the impression becomes even stronger.

Last month the world was awed by the millions who marched against the destruction of the legal supports for marriage. This month, the Spanish government is moving to allow human cloning for research. Health Minister, Elena Salgado, told the newspaper, El Mundo that the legislation will likely go into effect next year.

Employing one of the most popular anti-Catholic slurs, Salgado gave away the government’s true motives behind much of their ‘liberalizing’ moves. “The Church has always been opposed to the advances of science, but fortunately science has continued progressing. And thanks to that we live in better conditions,” she said.

Salgado also gave the now-standard disclaimer that the law would not allow “reproductive” cloning, using the long-discredited dodge that there is some moral improvement in killing an embryonic child rather than allowing it to have a chance to live.

Since coming to power, Spain has abolished legal marriage, dramatically shortened the wait for divorce and enacted a law allowing researchers to use human embryos.

The systematic imposition of policies opposed to the moral law which seem deliberately calculated to outrage Catholics, has even secular writers asking, “Is Spain going Marxist?” James Skinner, a writer on the website, Hackwriters.com, suggests that the current political movements in Spain, including its anti-Americanism and anti-Catholicism, parallels that of the days immediately prior to Castro’s take-over of Cuba. Some of Zapatero’s rhetoric before the last election was venomously anti-Bush and anti-American. At the time of the Madrid terrorist attacks, speculation about the timing just before a national election, was confirmed when the Socialists immediately acquiesced to the extremists’ demands and withdrew Spanish troops from involvement in the Iraq war.

The Socialists’ foreign policies have been followed by a series of domestic moves following a hard-left programme of anti-Christian and specifically anti-Catholic pronouncements including immediately declaring Spain a “secular state.” The Zapatero government was the only one in the western world not to convey any condolences or greetings to the Vatican immediately following the death of Pope John Paul II.

Catholics have genuine reasons to worry. Both Spain and Mexico have had violently anti-Catholic Marxist regimes in which priests, nuns and lay people were publicly executed for refusing to renounce their Catholic Faith.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/nov/04110201.html

Read James Skinner’s observations in full:
http://www.hackwriters.com/spainleft.htm

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