The Spanish appeasement government of Zapatero is now planning to drastically cut ties with the Roman Catholic Church, slashing current funding in half: Funding for Church to be slashed by Spanish.

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.

This might be defensible as a move toward US-style separation of church and state—except that Zapatero is simultaneously planning to vastly increase state funding for Islam:

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.

Although Spain has been a Catholic country since the expulsion of the Moors in 1492 is has also long had a tradition of anti-clericalism that flared violently during the civil war. The old saying was that “a Spaniard is always behind a priest, either with a candle or a stake.”

The Zapateristas seem intent on systematically dismantling Spanish society.