Madrid, Spain, May 30, 2008 / 03:23 am
The Spanish Evangelical Alliance issued a statement this week supporting a proposal by the United Left Party in Congress to eliminate religious symbols from all official ceremonies of public institution and entities.
The proposal was defeated in a joint effort by the ruling Socialist Party and the more conservative Popular Party. Socialist Party spokesmen said that although they did not oppose the measure on principle, they felt the process should be “gradual” and “determined by a law.”
In their press release, the Alliance, which represents a small minority of Christians in Spain, insists that “public ceremonies (State ceremonies and others), as a rule, should not have any religious character, much less one that is ‘mono-confessional’.” By “mono-confessional” the Alliance is referring to Catholicism, the faith practiced by the majority in Spain and that is recognized in the country’s Constitution for its historical importance.
The Protestant group also wants religious symbols to be stripped from prison, hospital, airport and cemetery chapels, or at least that “mono-confessional (Catholic) religious symbols be moveable,” so that the chapels can be available to any religious group.
The Alliance also supports the United Left’s campaign to revoke the accords between Spain and the Holy See, and “if they can’t be annulled, they should at least be substantially modified.”