Spain waiting for

Council to act
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
By Our Special Correspondent
THE religious liberty issue is becoming a political one for Spain. But the Government is apparently awaiting a Vatican Council declaration before taking action to introduce the long-awaited Bill which would grant non-Catholics much greater freedom of worship.
Opponents of Generalissimo Franco are using the absence of a religious liberty bill in the forthcoming session of the Cortes to point to the government's inadequacy. Even government backers admit the regime's failure to keep its promises to liberalise Spanish public life.
The Rev. Jose Cordona Gregori, executive secretary of the Committee for Evangelical Defense, said this week that Spanish Protestants are "saddened" that the iisue is "acquiring poli,tical
overtones".
It is generally agreed that the Franco Government will await a declaration from the Vatican Council before acting on religious liberty measures which would give greater freedom to Protestants.
"A Council statement," the Rev. Cordona said, "would have unified the Spanish viewpoint" but the division of the Spanish hierarchy on the matter has encouraged "division within the Catholic population."
Mr. Cardona believes that Spanish Catholics will accept whatever Rome decrees with regards to relations with Protestants because "even those in opposition would not be 'more papist than the pope,.,,
In addition to awaiting a religious liberty bill, Spain's progressives were also hoping that the Cortes would define the rights of the press" and consider reapportioning constitutional powers.
Spanish progressives and conservative forces in the regime arc seen cancelling each other out with no external pressures being exerted to bring reform. A declaration by the Council, which ended its third session last month, would have been such a pressure.
"Decisive"
However the Rev. Cordona feels that the discussion at the council, and obvious backing of religious liberty by a large number of Bishops, is helping to overcome anti-Protestant prejudice in Spain.
"In this sense the council was decisive." he said, "and thanks to it the prejudices rooted in popular thinking. according to which Protestants are heretics or despicable apostates, are being cleared away. We have come to be separated brothers and thus a new climate of understanding is beginning."
He said that Spanish Protestants were, however, perplexed by the council postponement of the religious freedom statement, because such a declaration would have resulted "in the immediate promulgation of a legal status" for non-Catholics in Spain.
Meanwhile Archbishop Alonso Munoverro. one of three Spanish prelates negotiating with the government on religious liberty. has warned Catholics against the "enslavement of their consciences."
He said an international conspiracy was seeking to "make Catholic unity disappear from our Fatherland." He also urged Spaniards not to join the "chorus of those champions of liberty who judge the success of the Vatican Council by whether it produces the enslavement of the conscience of Catholic peoples. and among them Spanish peoples."