An appalling story recording the rapid advance of dhimmitude in Spain: the Zapatero government is going to cut state funding for the Catholic Church — while increasing it for mosques. From the Telegraph, with thanks to LGF:
The Spanish government sparked a furious row yesterday after it emerged that it had drawn up a timetable to halve state funding of the Roman Catholic Church and to ban crucifixes from public buildings.
The Socialist government has already pedged to confront the Church ideologically and fiscally and to transform Spain into a fully secular society by scrapping the Church’s “privileged position in society”.
The newspaper El Mundo reported yesterday that the government has now drawn up a timetable to break the bonds, removing any lingering hopes that it might reach an accommodation.
The government plans to put an end to the arrangement whereby Spaniards can offer a percentage of their taxes to the Church. This arrangement contributes £54 million a year to Church funds.
Governments in the past have made up the remainder directly or indirectly through government funds paid to Church organisations. This funding, which was agreed in accords signed 17 years ago, is also now under review.
El Mundo complained in an editorial yesterday that the government’s “secularism should not be used as a weapon against half the country”. Although only a minority are regular churchgoers Spain continues to be “a sociologically Catholic country”, it said. In a reference to the Spanish Civil War the editorial said: “If we should learn anything from recent history that it is a mistake to use secularism as a weapon against believers.”…
Further enraging conservatives, the government has drawn up plans to finance the teaching of Islam in state-run schools and to give funds to mosques on the grounds that it will create greater understanding of the country’s one million Muslims.