There was a lot of expectation before the recent congress of the PSOE in Seville, due to the seriousness of the crisis that the Party is going through -and that the congress has not closed-. The fight between Rubalcaba and Chacón acquired an agonizing character, and it is understood that anything goes in order to gain support. In the heat of combat and intrigue, it is easy for one's mouth to get hot and say things that one might regret later on. Nevertheless, Rubalcaba's ordago in his speech to the delegates arouses perplexity: to review the concordat with the Holy See. Is it a good strategy to stir up demagogic anticlericalism? Is this the new page of Spanish socialism that Rubalcaba invited the delegates to write?

"Calm down, let's not exaggerate. Religions must remain the normative sting in the flesh of society. Separation of Church and State does not mean more democracy." These are the degree scroll and the opening lines of the article of Andrea Nahles, administrative assistant general of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on February 7.

After recalling that the SPD executive committee unanimously rejected a few months ago the creation of a secularist group of work , called to promote the complete separation of Church and State, Nahles continues:

"Since the program of Bad Godesberg (1959), in the SPD there is room for everyone: humanists, atheists and people without religion as well as Jews, Christians or Muslims. For the Social Democrats, freedom is always the freedom of those who think differently... Is it true that less Church means more freedom and that secularism is the right answer to the growing ethical and religious pluralism in our country and in Europe? The strict separation between Church and State is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for democracy."

Nahles quotation to the sociologist of religion José Casanova to show how there are democracies established in countries with national churches -Scandinavia, United Kingdom- and how policies inimical to religion go hand in hand with despotic regimes -Soviet Union and satellites-. Europe's problem is not religions, but the assumption that only secular societies can be truly democratic.

Nahles invokes the basic principles of social democracy: freedom, justice and solidarity. The affinity between these values and Christianity is obvious. result Despite this basic harmony, the Church has not always aligned itself with democracy, which is why the change that took place in the internship after the Second Vatican Council was so decisive: the Church withdrew its support for authoritarian regimes, thus depriving them of one of the decisive assets for their legitimization, and decidedly favored democratizing attempts. The political scientist Samuel Huntington has calculated that three quarters of the countries that introduced democracy in the last years of the 20th century have a Catholic population. In addition to the relevance of this change of policy, the influence of certain ecclesiastical personalities, such as John Paul II and Cardinal Jaime Sin, must also be highlighted. In the Philippines, and this was not the only case, the conflict between authoritarianism and democracy was personified to a large extent in the confrontation between the cardinal and the dictator.

It is time to overcome outdated antagonisms and to face with determination the challenges of the present crisis, in the PSOE and in Spanish society. It is urgent that the socialist party recompose its identity (discussion of ideas and program) and renew its leadership (people). Only in this way will it be able to exercise an authentic civil service examination against the PP, a guarantee of good democratic functioning. A truly regenerated PSOE, without complexes, will also become the appropriate interlocutor to agree with the PP on solutions, with a sense of State, to some of the serious problems that afflict us.