Spain's Roman Catholic church has effectively placed itself in the frontline of political opposition to Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's six month-old government by calling the first major demonstration to protest against plans to introduce gay marriage, make divorce and abortion easier and amend religious education in schools.
The demonstration, to be held in Madrid in December, is part of the church's attempt to build a grassroots movement against the government's social reforms. According to church documents published in Spanish newspapers yesterday, letter-writing campaigns and petitions are being organized through its countrywide network of dioceses and parishes.
"In the month of December there will be a great demonstration in Madrid, called by all the dioceses and Christian movements, associations and groups," said a letter from the archbishop-ric of Alcala de Henares, 48km from Madrid. The demonstration would concentrate on "the family, life and education."
The letter went on to accuse Zapatero's government of doing "little negotiating" with the church over its future plans.
The government has already scrapped an education bill approved by the former conservative People's party government that would have made religious education a compulsory exam subject for school children.
Although Zapatero's government has not yet said exactly what plans it has for religious education, it has indicated that schools will still offer non-compulsory religion classes by teachers appointed by Roman Catholic bishops but paid by the state.
The Socialist government has also proposed, however, that religious classes may be taught by people from other churches or religions.
It also wants to introduce a new compulsory subject called "education in citizenship" to teach "democratic values."
Church leaders have claimed the new subject may be used to turn students away from the church or to "indoctrinate" them in the government's own beliefs.
A recent opinion poll for the leftwing Cadena Ser station said 61 percent of Spaniards supported the government's most controversial new measure, the legalization of gay marriage.
And 72 percent said the Roman Catholic church, which currently receives an estimated 140 million euros (US$180 million) from state coffers, should be left to finance itself.
Among reforms being prepared by the Zapatero government are moves to give other Christian churches, such as Anglicans and other Protestants, as well as Jews and Muslims some of the privileges currently enjoyed exclusively by the Roman Catholic church.
Although some Protestant church leaders have welcomed the new measures, a spokesman for the archbishopric of Alcala de Henares said that other confessions would also be protesting against the government.
"There are others who are worried about some of the measures too," he said.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.